Ask the Fans: 'Vampire Diaries' Exec Producer Julie Plec Gets Her Answers, Part 1
We couldn't have picked a better person to launch Yahoo TV's Ask the Fans series with than Julie Plec, executive producer of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals. Devoted viewers of her shows are known for their passion and voice, and they definitely spoke up when we posted Plec's 10 questions for them. We received more than 600 carefully-composed emails from close to 20 countries (Sweden to Serbia). We poured over the answers, then phoned Plec to discuss the most popular and insightful.
We'll divide our report into two parts. Come back Feb. 12 for our discussion with Plec — who wrote the Feb. 9 episode of The Originals, "The Devil is Damned" — covering the answers to her questions on "shipper" fervor, favorite kisses, songs most associated with the shows, crossover ideas, the writers fans would most like to meet, and fan fiction.
JULIE PLEC ASKS: Tell me about the first time you saw TVD and where you were and why you watched.
ANALYZING THE ANSWERS: Of course you have those who watched the premiere because they'd read the books upon which the series is based or are fans of the vampire genre in general. (Though sometimes, the latter actually worked against the show, as Maria from Paraguay explained: "I loved Twilight so much that my first thought was: 'THIS SHOW IS JUST TRYING TO COPY MY BABY, THERE'S NO WAY I'M WATCHING IT.' And then I did. Somehow I felt that I was cheating on Twilight, but I couldn't resist it. I was a 13-year-old girl!" Others were curious because it was from Dawson's Creek creator/Scream writer Kevin Williamson or they recognized stars Ian Somerhalder (Lost), Nina Dobrev (Degrassi: The Next Generation), and Paul Wesley. As Jayme, a 21-year-old college student, is now willing to admit: "I will not lie, I bought a teen magazine and saw a locker poster for the show and after one good look at Paul Wesley, I knew I had to watch the show. (P.S. I've never told anyone that! I mean I was in high school!)"
What's noteworthy is the large number of fans who caught up on the show via Netflix after a friend (sister, aunt, cousin, etc.) insisted. People like 28-year-old Stephanie Perez from New Jersey, who gave it a chance two years ago because she was accompanying a friend to a fan convention: "So I started to watch it on Netflix thinking I was going to hate it. Well I was hooked from the first episode, really the very first scene. It was scary and dark; everything that I love about vampire myths." Others, like Jess, who became a fan during a Chicago blizzard, were looking for a new show to binge and decided to give the one they saw everyone tweeting about a go: "I ended up skipping most of my classes for probably two weeks because I was too busy binge-watching this damn show. So thank you for that. Nevertheless, it was worth it, and I always feel that initial warmth and comfort whenever I watch an old episode of TVD because of those small moments. So, honestly, thank you for that."
A sampling of particularly fun stories: "My wife made me do it," Tom LeNoir wrote. "I continue watching because I enjoy the characters that are crazy and murderers trying to act normal." And from a woman who signed her email as "Mom": "This is such a funny story! My daughter would try to kick us all out of the basement and urged me to keep her brothers away from her. She demanded no interruptions on Thursday nights and I was quite the pest, poking around because after all, my laundry room was there. One night to her absolute HORROR I sat with a load of laundry on the sofa and decided to fold the clothes right there next to her. I said, 'Let me see what you're always making such a fuss about.' I asked questions and tried peeking at her tweets and completely ruined the episode for her, but she was convinced TVD wouldn't be my cup of tea. Oh well... she was wrong."
PLEC RESPONDS: That's so cute. I have two fun ones. The first is, we were at Comic-Con last year, and all these 12-year-olds kept coming up to me and telling me how much they loved the show and the 13-year-olds were screaming and crying over Ian. I looked at Ian, and I'm like, "The show has been on for six years. These girls would have been seven when it started. There's no way they were watching this show at seven." So we started asking them how they watched the show, and they had all started watching it on Netflix two months prior. Every single girl I talked to in that age range had just started on Netflix within the last three months, and every single girl in her class was binge-watching The Vampire Diaries and had caught up completely, and it was all anyone was talking about in the 7th and the 8th grade, which I loved. It's sad for broadcast ratings, but great for living on in the hearts and minds of the world. I love that a whole new generation of people are finding the show and loving it just as much as the people who found it in the beginning.
The other is, there's this restaurant in Atlanta that I'm probably at three nights a week, so the bartenders and the waiters now know what my name is and what I do. The bartender is this guy who's easily in his late thirties. He comes in one night, and he's like, "OK, so I just started watching. I'm into Season 2. I'm binge-watching because I feel like now that I know you, I've got to see what you do." Over four weeks, he binge-watched the entire series and got so upset because he caught up to air and found out that we were going on hiatus for six weeks. He was so sad, but I loved it. He's like, "I just had to see what you did," and now he's obsessed.
Related: 'Vampire Diaries' Recap: The Best and Worst of 'The Day I Tried to Live'
PLEC ASKS: Do you like watching live, or would you rather save up a bunch of episodes and binge-watch?
ANALYZING THE ANSWERS: In short, though a lot of viewers clearly love the binge experience when discovering a show, most choose to watch live to share in the experience with other fans and to not get spoiled. (That's especially true — and impressive! — coming from some of the international fans who wrote in about watching livestreams at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., or 4 a.m. their time.)
For some people, like Cindy Bush and her three daughters, watching live is a family affair: "Now that one is married and moved out, we sometimes text at commercials about the show. I even have my mother involved (she's 75). She's a Stefan fan but I'm a Damon gal. Family feud!" Others, such as mother-of-seven Tammy Merryweather, have to wait until their family is asleep: "So next best thing is me and my group of fellow TVD lovers getting together every Thursday night and watching it on DVR a couple of hours after it airs, when all the kiddos are in bed and we can scream and gnash our teeth and speculate and gasp and awwww all together!" ("Oh my god, love it," Plec says.)
When established fans are most likely to binge is over the summer: More than one said they'll watch the entire series then to get ready for the next season.
PLEC RESPONDS: Obviously, as a loyal soldier of The CW, and someone who works in and is determined to protect the success and integrity of broadcast television, I would like everybody to watch it live. But as a human being, I just watched The Wire in its entire run and got all five seasons in over five weeks and have never been so blown away by a television experience in my life. I did that three years ago for Game of Thrones. I caught up, started at the beginning, and over four days watched three seasons. There is something so amazing about binge-watching because you really see the writers and how they set things up to pay things off, and how lines come back to echo lines that were from previous seasons. When you watch it all at once, you can really feel the writers' commitment to the show and all the details. Whereas, if you watch it once a week, you forget week-to-week what was done the week before.
I remember they were airing Buffy on FX every day, two episodes a day, so my friend and I would watch two episodes a day every day for three months. So we started at the beginning and got all caught up to where it was airing. I watched what Joss Whedon did, the season he would plan, the Easter eggs that would be in there. You know how Jonathan [played by Danny Strong] was an extra in the pilot and then became a villain in whatever season he became a villain — that, to me, in binge-watching was so fascinating. So there's a personal argument to be made for both. Business-wise, please watch live. [Laughs.]
Related: 'Vampire Diaries' Recap: The Best and Worst of 'Prayer for the Dying'
PLEC ASKS: What moment made you cry the most over the last six seasons of The Vampire Diaries?
ANALYZING THE ANSWERS: There are so many to choose from, as most fans acknowledged, that we could only single out the most popular responses to Plec.
* Let's start with the happy tears: Damon and Stefan's reunion after Damon returns from the Other Side in Season 6.
"Honestly," Kaitlin wrote, "Stefan and Damon's reunion had me curled up in a ball on the floor, crying to my grandma, who watched it with me. I have a brother, so I can understand where Stefan was coming from..." As Ashley Calafiore said, "The last scene in 6x05 proves how much these brothers love each other. My sister and my mom watch the show with me, too, and they rarely ever cry, and for that scene, my mom turned to me and was like, 'This is when I love the show, when you see the show focused on a different kind of love, a brotherly love."
PLEC RESPONDS: That was one of my favorite cries of this season, and I love that people love that because to me, the show has always been, in my heart, just as much about the brothers as it has been about Elena's relationships with each of them. Taking these brothers from a place of absolute hatred of each other, revisiting them in flashbacks to see that there used to be love there, and then seeing how they can't quit each other no matter what. After six years and extreme loss, finally seeing them come together with pure, unadulterated love for each other made me so happy.
* And now for the sad tears: Elena turning off her humanity after Jeremy's death in Season 4.
As Ashtyn Carvalho wrote, "Seeing Elena, a character based on her kindness and empathy, have to turn off her emotions broke my heart. Knowing that she was so unable to go on that she had to turn her back on who she was just to remain intact was very powerful." Alison Andres was among those who seconded it: "Elena's quotes and behavior were so emotional and made me feel like I was part of the scene."
PLEC RESPONDS: The beauty of that scene where Elena is flipping out after her brother dies is it's just so pure and raw and very honest. I'm sure a lot of people who watch our show have experienced some level of grief in their life, whether it be losing a grandparent, a parent, a friend, a sibling. Those who have understand that grief kind of attacks you in very unique and not necessarily predictable ways and it can make you shut down hard. Allegorically, the humanity switch is about how to escape grief. It's about disassociating from the sadness, and in this particular case, Elena, who had been through everything and thought she had experienced everything, finally hit the wall of the one thing that she couldn't take control of, she couldn't get past, she couldn't handle gracefully. It just had to strip her bare. I love that scene so much. It's one of my favorites of the whole series, for sure.
* Caroline's father's death and drowning Elena's flashback to her parents' deaths in Season 3.
We're going to let Australian fan Gee, who said these two scenes tie for her, speak for all those who picked either of them: "I will never ever forget Bill's line, 'parents aren't supposed to outlive their children'; it's tragic, it's true — and chilling. At the heart of The Vampire Diaries has always been this concept of growing up, and moments (or actions) 'that set things in motion.' This scene didn't have anything to do with the love triangle — it was simply about a little girl losing her dad too soon. [Candice] Accola's acting was on-point (it always is), and in this instance words cannot even do justice the brilliant delivery of this scene: Caroline's purely human agony and her father's calm acceptance of his fate is something forever branded into my memory. The death of Miranda and Grayson had a similar affect: that powerlessness and utter hopelessness of being unable to escape a horrific fate. Grayson wordlessly telling his daughter to stop fighting was arguably one of the most heartbreaking moments in the show. I find it interesting that people brand The Vampire Diaries as ultimately only being 'romantic,' and not 'family-orientated' like The Originals; because it's actually scenes like this — family scenes — that you probably don't think have a massive effect in the greater scheme of the show... that do. Because, essentially, while 'love changes' our characters, it is pivotal moments like these that define them (and the course of their lives)."
PLEC RESPONDS: I love that. Kevin and my relationship goes back a long way, and each of us has experienced in our lives some different forms of loss. This show, I think, is a vehicle — and always has been — for each of us to work out our own emotions and feelings about love and loss and grief and that empty sadness of being left alone, whether it's losing a parent or losing a loved one. If you look at the series as a whole, that's what's running underneath it the entire time. From minute one, when we meet Elena, this is a girl who lost her parents and is trying to pull her life back together. It's really what the show at its core has always been about. So sometimes we get to play in the beautiful world of the death of a character. The character deaths are always my favorite. They're heartbreaking to say goodbye to an actor and say goodbye to a character, but to write that passing or to write that loss is very cathartic.
* Alaric's death in Season 3.
As Lucas wrote, "The one moment that makes me ugly cry every time I see it, or even think about it, is when the camera pans over everyone gathered outside the Salvatore tomb when Alaric decides not to make the transition." For Anna C, it was the conversation between Alaric and Damon inside: "It is one of the most heart-wrenching and raw moments of the show for me because in that moment, Alaric and Damon were completely honest and open with each other, and it was clear how much that moment was destroying them. Also, that man tear that rolls down Alaric's cheek during the scene gets me Every. Single. Time."
PLEC RESPONDS: Oh yeah. My favorite death. The Fray's "Be Still" — I can't hear that song without weeping.
* Bonnie's funeral in Season 5.
"Her speech to each person at the funeral was deeply emotional and personal to each character. It was a good payback to the viewers as well," Annabella Grenaldi wrote. Lisa Moore pinpointed the moment that many said hit them hard: "I was weeping to begin with, but when Matt Donovan [played by Zach Roerig] was sobbing, I just totally lost it."
PLEC RESPONDS: That was my favorite cry of last season. This year, people are always saying, "You've put Bonnie all alone, and she doesn't have a storyline," and I'm like, "You're crazy, she has the storyline. Bonnie's journey this year — what she has to go through, and what she has to survive, and what her life will be like once she has survived it — is one of my favorite long-running character storylines that we've ever done. I'm glad that people emotionally are responding to it."
* Damon's goodbye to Elena in the Season 5 finale.
As Jennifer Rethwish from Long Beach, Calif., wrote, "It was so sad to watch her realizing that she lost him. And the speech he gave was so poetic." Morgana Corrêa took it further: "My god, that scene breaks my heart. I still cry every time I watch that scene. Elena is so sad, one part of her heart died that night... and Damon trying to calm her, but she wasn't able to see him... I'm remembering now and I'm almost crying."
PLEC RESPONDS: Yes. It's funny, everybody's got their own moment. Episode 14 [airing Feb. 12] has become my new [all-time] favorite cry, but prior to that, my favorite cry was when Damon said goodbye to Rose [played by Lauren Cohan] and gave her her perfect memory.
PLEC ASKS: Do you LOVE spoilers, HATE spoilers, or IGNORE spoilers?
ANALYZING THE ANSWERS: Fans are all over the map on this one, as expected. Like Liz, some are very pro: "I love them!!! It gives me something to look forward to and [I can] make up my own scenarios in my mind as to what could happen with the spoilers we were given." They like to be able to say "I told you so!" when they guess right. Others, who want to be totally surprised, hate them or prefer to ignore them. Then there are those whose relationship with spoilers was best expressed by Kirsten Howes: "I hate to love spoilers," she wrote. "I can't help myself from soaking up as much details on all my shows that I possibly can, but then sometimes I find that one spoiler... that one spoiler. Then I regret ever searching 'spoilers' on Google news, and I theorize everything until the episode airs. And holy crap, I think that is the most accurate description of my life ever."
Related: 'Vampire Diaries' Recap: The Best and Worst of 'Woke Up With a Monster'
PLEC RESPONDS: I used to be a total anti-spoiler Nazi because I just thought it was completely unacceptable for any story point to get leaked out there. I've loosened my fervor on it a bit, because I think there are spoilers that get people talking and get people excited. But what drives me crazy is the leaks. It's the way that the press or the Internet gets scripts, and then if the wrong journalist decides on the wrong day to just print whatever they want, without kind of thinking what it might do to the fans, an entire storyline or surprise can be ruined. You're basically violating someone else's right to enjoy the show without knowing what's going on when you just put it up in an article or you put it up in a chat board. So I get more angry at the violation of somebody who's on our set or in our world who's handing scripts out to reporters and/or to other fans. To me, I feel robbed and I feel betrayed. Whereas the people who know what's happening but work very hard to figure out how to tease it without spoiling anything, I'm like, "Thank you," because that's servicing the fan experience in the right way.
[A special note for West Coast and international fans, who complained in general about official show Twitter accounts posting blatant spoilers, Plec has your back. "One of our accounts used to do that, and I emailed them. I'm like, 'Are you guys out of your mind? You can't do that on the East Coast feed, like much less be that explicit.'"]
The Originals airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on The CW; The Vampire Diaries airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.