Summary

• Legacies season 5 would have had a time jump, taking the characters beyond the Salvatore School and exploring their lives outside of it.
• The season 4 finale set up storylines for Legacies season 5, including Jed and Ben grappling without their powers and Kaleb and Cleo's relationship.
• Legacies season 5 would have introduced Stephanie Salvatore, the daughter of Elena and Damon, and explored the children of other beloved characters in the Vampire Diaries universe.

The Vampire Diaries spinoff Legacies was canceled after season 4 and since then, quite a bit has come out about the Legacies season 5 canceled story plans. The second TVD spinoff after The Originals, Legacies was decidedly different in tone and focus. Instead of focusing on adults playing teenagers–or just adults–Legacies' cast skewed decidedly younger. The tone was much lighter and campier, with the story revolving around the students of the Salvatore School facing down a multitude of foes in a monster-of-the-week style setup.

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Ratings for Legacies continued to drop, however, and in the middle of the Warner Bros.-Discovery merger, the decision was made to cancel it following season 4. Still, that doesn't mean that there weren't already plans for Legacies season 5. Since the show's cancelation, the TVD universe creator, Julie Plec, and multiple Legacies writers have revealed there were indeed concrete ideas for a Legacies season 5 story arc. The plans even included introducing a few long-awaited characters into the Vampire Diaries universe.

Legacies Season 5 Would've Had A Time Jump

Legacies season 5 not only would have picked things up where Legacies season 4 left off, but it would also have pushed The Vampire Diaries franchise in a bold new direction. Interestingly, Legacies showrunner Brett Matthews revealed that Legacies season 5 would have involved a time jump:

"We would have been in a time-jump scenario. I think the fun of the fifth season would be to really take those characters, who had reached such a good place in the school, and then move them beyond it and throw them in lives beyond it and seeing where they were and how they would all find their way back to one another."

While it initially seems surprising, a time jump makes sense when considering the events of Legacies season 4. One longtime cast member in Kaylee Bryant left and others appeared to be on their way out, their stories brought to a neat close. It would be somewhat odd to pick up right after the events of Legacies season 4 when so much has changed. Clearly, the writers smartly realized that picking up Legacies season 5 with a time jump would be the most efficient way to lead into the story.

Season 4's Finale Had Set Up Legacies Season 5's Story

Despite coming to a satisfying ending, the season finale of the Vampire Diaries spinoff had quite a bit of setup for a potential Legacies season 5. The season 4 finale saw Jed and Ben, now both free of their "curses," striking out together. Presumably, Legacies season 5's story would have found them both grappling without their powers and perhaps learning that what they had viewed as curses were, in fact, gifts. Legacies season 5 was also set to focus more on Kaleb and Cleo; season 4 hinted that her new powers of clairvoyance as an Oracle would have a larger part to play. The season 4 ending revealed that she'd seen something in the future for her and Kaleb that terrified her, hinting that their future ended in tragedy.

In another part of the universe, Landon's new role as the Ferryman of Limbo, The Vampire Diaries universe's version of Purgatory, had plenty of potential for Legacies season 5. His story could have easily wrapped up at the end of season 4. Had the show left him there, it would have been enough. However, it would have been fascinating to see him tackling his new role as the Ferryman, especially as he has traded away some of his human emotions and feelings to save his friends in the world above.

It would have been an incredibly different version of Landon in Legacies season 5 and given the underutilized Aria Shahghasemi a lot to work with. Lastly, the Legacies series ending threw a curveball at the audience when Alaric Saltzman announced he was leaving the Salvatore School and no longer its headmaster. Instead, his old dear friend and co-parent, TVD's Caroline Forbes-Salvatore, was stepping in as the new headmistress. Things would have been very different at the Salvatore School in Legacies season 5, and perhaps a little bit calmer with Caroline at the helm — though probably not for long.

Legacies Season 5 Would've Introduced Elena & Damon's Child

One of the biggest pulls of Legacies, like all spinoffs of The Vampire Diaries, was the characters and their intermingled bloodlines (a key theme in a show about vampires and immortals of all shapes and sizes). Legacies season 5 was set to both continue this trend and flip it on its head. Arguably, the biggest change would have been the introduction of Stephanie Salvatore, the daughter of The Vampire Diaries' Elena and Damon in Legacies season 5. As creator Julie Plec revealed,

"[Stephanie was] very much at the top of our white board as a character that we were planning on introducing, should the show move forward. In my mind, Damon and Elena had kids in our timeline. The way we alluded to her in the genie episode was as though she was 12 or 13. But in the Legacies timeline, their kids were younger, probably toddlers."

It would appear, then, that the time jump would have been pretty considerable if Stephanie were old enough to attend the Salvatore School. Plec has revealed another Vampire Diaries spinoff is in development after Legacies, and it was meant to stem directly from the events of the recently canceled show. Still, it would have been nice to see the children of other beloved characters in the Legacies season 5 story. If the third spinoff ever does happen, perhaps audiences will meet them after all.

How Can The Legacies Story Continue?

Since there are actual concrete plans for a Legacies season 5 story, it doesn't mean that it can't be told in a different medium. A very different teen vampire show decided to continue on their story in the form of a comic, and that show was the iconic Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After Buffy ended in 2003, there was, of course, the spinoff series Angel, but there was also the Buffy comic book series which continued the vampire slayer's story.

People are always hungry for more Julie Plec content, and there's no reason that Legacies season 5 couldn't appear in a different medium. No one was happy when Legacies was canceled, despite its dipping viewership. The series had more avenues it could've explored, as evidenced by the Legacies season 5 story plans. Therefore, Vampire Diaries creators could consider putting Legacies to a different medium to appease the masses.

The Vampire Diaries Legacy Creator Didn't Want It To End Either

Julie Plec, one of the co-creators of The Vampire Diaries, wasn't too happy there wasn't a Legacy season 5. When The CW canceled Legacies, it ended the 13-year run of TVD universe and was just the start of the purge of genre shows from the network. When the cancelation news came, Plec took to Twitter to mourn the loss of the series, calling it the Red Wedding at The CW. That referenced the wedding on Game of Thrones that resulted in the shocking deaths of several characters. She then finished with, "Loads of gratitude coming for fans and cast and crew in future tweets. But today, we mourn."

Plec had it tough at the time. She was also a producer on Roswell, New Mexico, so with The Vampire Diaries universe ending, it meant Plec's footprint on The CW disappeared. Luckily for Plec, she picked up a new deal on Peacock to adapt the Vampire Academy series of books into a series, so she was able to slide back into familiar territory. However, for fans of The Vampire Diaries, the chance to see Legacies season 5 died with The CW's decision, and sadly, the question of "will there be a season 5 of Legacies" dropped with a resounding no.

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  Legacies

  Summary:

  Set in The Salvatore Boarding School for the Young & Gifted, and within The Vampire Diaries universe, Legacies tells the ongoing story of a new generation of supernatural students as they learn what it means to be special in a society that wouldn’t understand their gifts. In season 2, Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell) returned to a world that had forgotten she ever existed and reunited with her former Headmaster, Alaric Saltzman (Matthew Davis). Working together, Hope and Dr. Saltzman ultimately rejoined The Salvatore School to lead their Super Squad of powerful vampires, witches and werewolves, including Lizzie & Josie Saltzman (Jenny Boyd & Kaylee Bryant), MG (Quincy Fouse), Rafael (Peyton Alex Smith) and Kaleb (Chris Lee) and even a Phoenix, her true love Landon (Aria Shahghasemi), into battle against a dizzying horde of fantastic and deadly monsters birthed from the Malivore Pit and their old nemesis, The Necromancer, who was determined to resurrect Malivore. As season three begins, Hope has risked everything to pull her friends back from the brink of a monstrous prophecy that threatened to doom them all. But when a heartbreaking loss shatters her whole world, Hope Mikaelson will be forced to fight fate itself.

  Release Date:

  2018-10-25

  Cast:

  Peyton Alex Smith, Jenny Boyd, Ben Levin, Aria Shahghasemi, Danielle Rose Russell, Leo Howard, Quincy Fouse, Chris Lee, Matthew Davis, Kaylee Bryant

  Genres:

  Fantasy, Adventure, Drama, Supernatural

  Seasons:

  4

  Prequel:

  The Vampire Diaries, The Originals

  Rating:

  TV-14

  Writers:

  Julie Plec, Brett Matthews

  Network:

  The CW

  Franchise(s):

  The Vampire Diaries

  Showrunner:

  Julie Plec