Throng

An Idiot Abroad trailer

The first trailer for Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's new series An Idiot Abroad has been released, which centres on collaborator Karl Pilkington's hilarious adventures in foreign lands.

More Billy Joel music to feature on Glee

More Billy Joel music will pop up in the second season of Glee after the singer agreed to its use. Joel’s Piano Man featured in the first season in a duet sung by guest Neil Patrick Harris and Matthew Morrison.

8:30pm Thursday, August 19 on TV2

Stefan (Paul Wesley) learns the reason Damon (Ian Somerhalder) returned to Mystic Falls, tonight on The Vampire Diaries.

Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) gets a break from the mysterious new history teacher, Alaric Saltzman (recurring guest star Matt Davis - Legally Blonde, What About Brian), and introduces Alaric (Matthew Davis) to Jenna (Sara Canning).

Elsewhere, Bonnie (Katerina Graham) is having terrifying dreams about one of her ancestors and, despite Elena's (Nina Dobrev) efforts to smooth things over, Bonnie and Caroline (Candice Accola) continue to argue over the medallion.

When the girls hold a s�ance to help them decide what to do, the results are stranger than any of them expected.

Producer of the show, Julie Plec, thinks the series has been successful because, "vampires are the new James Dean".

It appears that vampires are still very much in when it comes to teenagers judging by the way The Vampire Diaries cleaned up at the Teen Choice Awards overnight.

The new drama series took out seven awards at the event which celebrates the most popular TV shows, movies and music according to teenage voters.

The show took out major awards in categories such as Breakout Show, Fantasy/Sci-Fi, as well as best actor and actress in Fantasy/Sci-Fi.

Gossip Girl collected four awards at the ceremony, including Best Drama series and best actor and actress in Drama.

Surprisingly, Glee managed only three wins, taking home awards in Comedy, Scene Stealer and Parental Unit.

Below is the full list of TV award winners.

8:30pm Thursday, July 29 on TV2

Tonight on The Vampire Diaries, Stefan (Paul Wesley) reveals to Elena (Nina Dobrev) the Salvatore family history, including how his rivalry with Damon (Ian Somerhalder) began.

When Elena demands that Stefan explain the frightening events that have been happening in Mystic Falls, viewers are taken back through flashbacks to discover how the rivalry first began.

Executive producer Julie Plec says the flashbacks enabled the producers to reveal more of Stefan and Damon's characters.

"At a moment in 1864, Stefan and Damon woke and discovered that they had become vampires. In order for them to both be walking the earth today, they both fed. So what was Stefan like at that moment that made him feed on human blood for the first time?

It was TVNZ's turn to show off which series they'll be screening in 2010 at their new season launch today in Auckland.  As you'd expect, there's a fairly solid line-up.

TV One has a new goal:  to be a little edgier.  One might assume: a little less safe.  It will be interesting to see how this transcribes into ratings.

TV One should dominate Mondays with The Pacific, an HBO series from the makers of Band of Brothers.  This will be followed by the multi-Emmy award-winning series Generation Kill. However, as it aired in the US in 2008, it can be bought on DVD here for about $40.

Earlier today, The Vampire Diaries premiered on the CW in the US. Is this just yet another thing cashing in on the vampire-supernatural-horror craze (Twilight, True Blood, Buffy, Supernatural)?

Based on a series of books (actually written before Twilight), the show is full of teen angst, love triangles and good versus evil.

The show stars Nina Dobrev (Mia on Degrassi - not that we get that here?), Ian Joseph Somerhalder (remember Boon from Lost?!) and Paul Wesley (Tommy on Everwood). Judging by the buzz on Twitter, the show may just convert quite a few "I love Edward" groupies into "I love Stefan" or "I love Damon" ones.

The general consensus was that it was better than people expected but you definitely have to be in the right demographic - I guess I'm just a wee bit too old for broody teens, "scary" scenes in the dark and smoke machines hard at work.

Here's the first nine minutes of the pilot: