Saying goodbye to two TV shows

This year I've seen the finales of both The Vampire Diaries and Once Upon a Time. Both of these shows were recommended to me by friends after I asked them for something new to watch, and I've followed them for years.

 

I was a little wary when I picked up The Vampire Diaries, since it was during the peak popularity of Twilight and I suspected that it might be as silly as Twilight. Turns out it wasn't. The characters came with a lot of variety, the supernatural world was vast and complicated, and the stories of each season always made me want more. Yet for the past two to three seasons it felt a little bit like the show was dying. Ironically, while the Originals were in the show I felt like they were annoying and taking up way too much room, but when they left to have their own show, the Vampire Diaries suddenly felt empty. The fact that Heretics were even possible to exist never made any sense to me, and I never liked that. Not the Heretics and not the Gemini coven. And then when Nina left the show and Elena was ultimately gone, the show died even more. In the end I liked how the ending came about, and I loved how the final few episodes basically were a homage to the early seasons with old characters returning. Even Elena. I never expected to like the Vampire Diaries as much as I did, and I admit there were times when the show just wasn't very good, but it always made up for those times with interest.

 

Once Upon a Time has been an interesting ride. All the seasons have had themes, and sometimes I've really not liked those themes and those times the series has been slow going for me. I loved the first two seasons. I wasn't a fan of the Neverland era, nor the Oz era, but the Frozen era and the Wonderland eras were fun. The most recent Agrabah era was interesting, though I was disappointed that they didn't use the same actor for Jafar in Once Upon a Time as they did in their spin-off Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. Just in general the show has been really good and my absolute favourite thing has been to watch Regina grow as a person, and Henry grow in general, and also to see how Emma slowly realises that she isn't alone and grows to love her family. It's been a great ride and while the series didn't actually end with season 6 (although it should), season 7 will be a reboot and hardly any of the actors/characters from the original run will be in it. I will probably watch it just to see if it's any good, but even though it carries the same name it won't be the same show.