Vampire Diaries Season 3: 2011 Premiere

Vampire Soap Opera at Its Finest

The third season of The Vampire Diaries debuted with all the blood, seduction, and evil of the previous seasons. For any newbies, here’s a quick recap. The Vampire Diaries takes place in a fictional town called Mystic Falls, Virginia. The place is jam-packed with magic and supernatural beings and happenings, like werewolves and vampires. The story surrounds Elena and two vampire brothers, Stefan and Damon. The series started in May 2009 and was created by Kevin Williamson. The first season premiere had the highest ratings for a series premiere in network history with over 4.91 million viewers.

Season Two Conclusion

A reminder of where things stood at the climatic ending of season two:

• Damon’s in love with Elena and gets bitten by a werewolf.
• Elena’s in love with Stephan, but she went ahead and kissed Damon.
• Stefan loves Elena, but he’s a brother too. So, he trades himself to get a cure for his brother’s werewolf bite.
• Due to the trade to get his brother a cure, Stefan becomes Angelus (evil vampire/werewolf hybrid), and Klaus’s best evil demon.
• Tyler and Vampire Carolina are in love but can’t be with each other.

Season Three Overview

It’s Elena’s 18th birthday. Klaus and evil-hybrid Stefan meet another werewolf named Ray Sutton and ask him where his pack is located. Klaus has one thing on his mind and that’s to make hybrid vampire werewolves. Caroline and Tyler continue to play love games. Damon is still trying to find his now evil brother, Stefan. Tyler’s mom, Mrs. Lockwood, shoots Carolina in the back with tranquilizer darts full of vervain (a paralyzing herb) after Caroline and Tyler’sdate.

Elena finds out that Damon has been tracking his evil brother and not telling Elena. Stefan contacts Elena, because he feels remorse for the killings he is committing. Stefan murders his brother, Damon’s, girlfriend, Andy, and Damon is finally figuring out that his brother is a lost evil cause. Elena finds out that Stefan has been murdering people. Are you getting the soap opera effect?

Season Three Points to Like and Ponder

• Damon’s new longer hair? Is it sexy or is it too 1990’s gone wrong?
• The new horrible evil hunk Stefan
• Where’s Bonnie, we need our witch back

Did Season Three Raise the Ratings Blood Levels?

Vampire Diaries fared well in its season three premiere, but not as well as its first two seasons. It has some competition from its new sister series called, Secret Circle, which aired right after it. The Vampire Dairieshad three million viewers. This is actually an improvement on its Season Two finale, but it was down from the season two premiere. They garnered a 1.4 rating in the 18-49 year-old adult demographic. This is down a bit from last September’s 1.6 rating. But it’s still being viewed by millions, which means it should be around for another blood-soaked season.

Sarah is a regular TV and movie writer at USDish and can be found on Twitter at @sarahquesera.