Many fans of “The Vampire Diaries” have been expressing skepticism towards the show lately, as its ratings went down a bit in recent times. It’s true that the series has gone through quite a lot, but the producers still seem to understand what their fans want to see, and they’ve been working quite hard to deliver quality episodes.
The recent premiere of season 8 showed what some fans and critics have described as the most impressive beast we’ve seen on the show to date, and it raised some people’s hopes that we have a solid season ahead of us.
It looks like the new season is going to make various references to the past of the show, at least if the pilot is of any indication. The season kicked off with a direct hint towards the very first episode, as the premiere episode was titled “Hello, Brother”. This is the exact line we heard in episode one, when Damon Salvatore spoke to his brother.
It goes further than this – the scene depicted in the beginning of the episode was also a direct reference to what happened in the beginning of the show. It looks like the producers want to take their fans on a nostalgic trip throughout this season, which makes sense considering that this will be the end of the show.
The showrunners themselves have been eager to share information about the current state of affairs too, and they have been very communicative with their fans. We’ve seen some hints about the season that indicate that it will be full of surprises, and is shaping up to be the perfect conclusion to the show.
One of the more exciting revelations for the new season was the news that Nina Dobrev would come back to reprise her role as Elena. It’s still not clear what kind of a presence she will have in the new season though, as she was only listed as a “special guest”. It seems unlikely that the actress will reprise her role fully, but we never know what the showrunners could be planning for the final season.
On the other hand, we’ve also heard some less positive hints about season 8, such as the revelation that someone is about to be killed off. Of course, the producers didn’t want to reveal who that would be, but at least we know that it won’t happen right away.
According to the official spoilers we’ve been given, the death is planned for around the middle of the season, so there is still plenty of time for fans to enjoy all the current characters. As the season progresses, there may be some hints indicating who is targeted for being killed off, but we definitely don’t expect the producers to outright reveal such a major spoiler.
Other than that, the producers have hinted at a season that will be full of references to the show’s past, and it looks like they want to take “The Vampire Diaries” to its roots.
That’s certainly not a bad way to conclude a show that had a run as good as this, as we said above, and fans of the series have been happy with the idea as well. There is a risk that this could become a bit overdone, depending on how heavily the producers focus on that part, but hopefully they are going to approach it as tastefully as they have the whole show until now.