For 13 years, Julie Plec oversaw some version of The Vampire Diaries on The CW. First there was the original show, which ran for eight seasons of supernatural mayhem. The Originals, which brought vampire-werewolf hybrids into the mix, ran for five. Legacies featured characters from both series and ran for four seasons, ending in 2022. That's also when The CW was sold to Nexstar Media Group, which got rid of basically all of the network's original programming and has left it a shell of its former self. Apparently the Vampire Diaries universe had the support of CW CEO Mark Pedowitz, but a new owner's going to do what they're going to do.
“I was not entirely pleased with that decision,” Plec told Deadline about the cancelation. “There had been a Vampire Diaries show on the air for 13 years, and it seemed unfathomable to me that the studio wouldn’t want to keep that show going as long as humanly possible, knowing that we had plans in our minds for more spin-offs and more ways to keep the world going.”
"It was a pretty seminal moment in my career when I realized that often just the unpredictability of the business and the metrics of the business can get in the way of a creative journey, no matter how much people like your show, no matter how much the people who hire you to make it, enjoy the process. If there’s a business reason to let it go, then people let it go. I was kind of sad and surprised at that decision, as was Mark Pedowitz, by the way, very vocally. And wish it didn’t have to happen that way, because Legacies, in particular, I felt like was designed to go on for many, many years, and have new generations of cast come through. It just felt like an incredibly short-sighted missed opportunity all around."
Per The A.V. Club, Legacies brought in around 400,000 viewers per week in its first season, which isn't fantastic but also not dire, especially considering that the old CW model tended to lean on shows made relatively cheaply bringing in audiences that were passionate if not enormous. If nothing else, the network used to have a recognizable brand: melodramas aimed at teens full of good-looking young people, often with a supernatural twist. With most of its scripted programming gone and a lot of new reality programming brought in, it's hard to say what the network's identity is now.
Plec has a new show on the way: We Were Liars on Amazon prime Video, based on the book of the same name by E. Lockhart. I'm really into the official description on Google Books:
"A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends-the Liars-whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution.
An accident.
A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth."
The spirit of The CW lives on. There's no official release date for We Were Liars as of yet.
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