It has been four years since one of the most popular supernatural drama franchises, The Vampire Diaries, came to an end. Following an impressive 13-year run on The CW, it was cut short in June 2022 when the network announced that they wouldn’t be renewing the third spin-off, Legacies, for a fifth season. The decision was part of the network’s broader shift from scripted programming that saw numerous other shows get canceled regardless of viewership. The Vampire Diaries started in 2009 with the series created by Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson; it ran for nine seasons and spawned two spin-offs.
One of those spin-offs came in 2013, four years after the original series started airing. The show did not receive a warm welcome on its first outing. Part of it was because it was a spin-off that heavily relied on the multiple supernatural factions, and it did not feel cohesive at times. It had a lot of heavy lifting to do after moving from Mystic Falls to New Orleans, a city with a rich history of supernatural phenomena. However, critics noted its potential. The second season is when the show titled The Originals found its footing and fully trusted its characters’ chaos. The subsequent seasons remain highly rated, with some achieving a perfect score on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Four years on, television has not found another universe to replace The Vampire Diaries, but new and old fans still love it. The universe has been licensed to numerous streaming services globally. The Originals was added to Peacock in the U.S. and has proven that you can never kill an Original. Since its arrival two weeks ago, the show has been one of the most-watched, peaking at #4 on the streamer’s domestic chart, according to FlixPatrol. And while the universe reached an untimely end all those years ago, there are five seasons of The Originals and four seasons of Legacies for fans to dive into.
Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky
Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.
🏕️Jason
🔪Michael
💤Freddy
🎈Pennywise
🪆Chucky
01
Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.
02
Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.
03
What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?
04
What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.
05
You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.
06
What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.
07
What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.
08
It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?
Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween
Michael Myers
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy Krueger
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Derry, Maine · It
Pennywise
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chicago · Child’s Play
Chucky
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
Will ‘The Vampire Diaries’ Ever Return?
The future of the franchise is one of the most asked questions, even as Plec and Williamson have moved on to other projects. It’s very hard to revive canceled shows because actors have also moved on, but there is always a new story to tell that has the DNA of its predecessors. In fact, Plec has an idea for another Vampire Diaries show, but there hasn’t been interest yet. “All anybody has to do is ask, and I will be there,” she said in an interview. For now, all fans can do is revisit the 13-year journey on streaming.
The Originals is streaming on Peacock in the U.S. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
