In 2017, during season 8, the producers of The Vampire Diaries decided that the series will not have a season 9.
In the years since its last episode in March 2017, The Vampire Diaries has garnered a new fan base following the availability of the complete eight seasons of the series on Netflix.
As a result, fans that did not watch the series in real time are still wondering if season nine of The Vampire Diaries is coming out.
The answer is simple: no, there will not be a ninth season of the series. The CW original series concluded with season eight.
While there may be multiple reasons for the conclusion of the series in 2017, all attributed to a decision made by the producers to conclude the series with the eighth season.
What is The Vampire Diaries?
The Vampire Diaries is the adaptation of the series of novels of the same name by L.J Smith, first published in 1991.The series adaptation, which first premiered in 2009 was created by showrunner and executive producer Julie Plec.
The shared premise of the series is, “The lives, loves, dangers and disasters in the town, Mystic Falls, Virginia. Creatures of unspeakable horror lurk beneath this town as a teenage girl is suddenly torn between two vampire brothers.”
However, for the first six seasons, the series focused on the love triangle between title characters, Stefan Salvatore, Damon Salvatore, and Elena Gilbert, played by Paul Wesley, Ian Somerhalder, and Nina Dobrev, respectively.
Is there a season 9 of The Vampire Diaries?
After eight seasons, The Vampire Diaries marked the end of the adventures of the community of Mystic Falls, with a 16-episode season eight finale which premiered in October 2016 and concluded in March 2017.
The eighth season was a conscious end to the series, as it gave every title character from the series a close-ended conclusion to their journeys. Moreover, it marked the return of Nina Dobrev, who played Katherine Pierce, Elena’s evil doppelganger.
With the series finale, Elena returned to conclude the love triangle which inspired the television adaptation of the series of teen novels. The eighth season was the last season, as decided by the producers of the series.
The reason, they suggested, was “logistical,” with the matter of Nina Dobrev’s exit during season six and the slight decline in viewership numbers towards the end of the series’ run not attributed to the decision.
Julie Plec on ending The Vampire Diaries
In 2017, creator and showrunner of The Vampire Diaries, Julie Plec, following news of season eight being the end of the series, labelled the reason for this logistical considerations, stating, “There were a lot of things that went into [the decision to end the series].”
Adding, “Some logistics, some contractual, where you were just like, ‘OK if this person doesn’t come back, is the show still going to be good? What if they do come back, but we don’t know until the end?’ A lot of that silly stuff you’re not supposed to talk about. Logistical stuff.”
Did Dobrev’s exit contribute to the end of Vampire Diaries?
Nina Dobrev was the title character of the series, playing the roles of Elena Gilbert and her evil doppelganger, Katherine Pierce, for six seasons of the show, until she announced in 2015 that she was leaving the series.
Following her exit, the star had explained her decision to leave, affirming that she had always intended for her character “to be a six season adventure.”
While some fans speculated that her exit was the first indication of the story coming to an end, the series has never affirmed this, as the story did well using the memory of Elena as a motif in her absence, until her return for the final season.
Vampire Diaries’ Julie Plec on the importance of ending arcs
The Vampire Diaries’ showrunner, Julie Plec, highlighted the importance of recognising when to conclude the story arcs of the characters, when speaking about how the producers knew it was time to end the adventures of the community of Mystic Falls. She stated:
“Once we started talking about quote-unquote ‘hell’ and quote-unquote ‘peace,’ which is the Vampire Diaries version of heaven, it felt like if we’re telling those stories, and we’re telling stories about our characters trying to find their ultimate redemption and salvation with the end result being peace or hell, then it certainly now feels like this is the last season.”
Final thoughts
The Vampire Diaries concluded with a sixteen-episode season run in March 2017. In light of the series celebrating the four-year milestone since it concluded, we look at the reasons it ended.
The reason stated by the producers of the series was that it was due to growing logistical complications in producing the series.
Moreover, the writers of the series were already writing as though they were imagining the end of the series, which also contributed to it ending when it did.
