Whether you’re team Stelena or Delena, The Vampire Diaries (TVD) fans everywhere were saddened by the removal of the show on Netflix on Sept. 3 after it being on Netflix for a little over a decade.
The late 2000s drama TV show premiered in 2009 and went on for 171 episodes till the last episode aired in 2017. From the beginning, it was a big hit with the pilot episode receiving over 4.9 million views. The show follows protagonist Elena Gilbert’s teenage years after her parents die and her life once she meets two 180-year-old vampire brothers. She ends up falling in love with both of them and has to navigate that while trying not to get killed. They go through everything imaginable whether it be witches, the afterworld, vampire hunters, psychotic killers and more.
Although executives at CW didn’t believe the show would succeed because of the similarities between TVD and the Twilight saga, they were proved wrong. Something about teenage love triangles mixed with vampires and smoldering older brothers really captivated the hearts of teenage girls. So much so, that they were able to stay on the air for eight seasons, even after the protagonist (played by Nina Dobrev) left the show at the end of season six.
After the show’s run on the CW Network, CW and Netflix struck a licensing agreement in 2011. At the time, Netflix didn’t have any major competitors, so CW signed the deal. After a series had run on TV, Netflix had the right to put the series on their streaming service, which included The Vampire Diaries and other shows like Gossip Girl and Riverdale. The CW renewed its contract with Netflix in 2016 but decided against a third renewal this spring. This decision came with the rise of other competitors and CW moving in another direction.
The public has seen a lot of this same action with The Office having left Netflix in 2021, Gossip Girl in 2020, and Friends in 2019. These departures have resulted from the emergence and popularity of other streaming services like HBO Max, Hulu, Prime Video and more.
Even though Netflix is no longer carrying TVD, fans can still watch it on HBO Max or Peacock. Peacock is currently having a limited-time deal where you can stream all the TV shows, on their platform, for $1.99/month for 12 months. HBO Max has a multitude of subscription options: $9.99/month with ads and $14.99/month without ads, there are also options to prepay for the entire year.
If you need a year to grieve or maybe to convince your parents you need another streaming service, Netflix still has shows similar to TVD, starting with The Originals and Legacies, which are both spin-offs from TVD. For supernatural fans, there are Supernatural and Lucifer. And for teen TV drama fans, there’s Elite, Baby, Sex Education and The 100.
So even though a decade-long door is closing, another one is opening, and fans can save their tears because their favorite show isn’t gone forever.
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