Watch Order
0 / 12 watchedPremiere order, which preserves backdoor pilots and crossovers.
The Vampire Diaries
The Originals
Legacies
About Vampire Diaries Universe
The Vampire Diaries ran 171 episodes from September 2009 to March 2017. The Originals was introduced as season 4 episode 20 in April 2013, then ran 92 episodes from October 2013 to August 2018 alongside the later TVD seasons. Legacies followed with 68 episodes from October 2018 to June 2022, set about two years after the Originals finale at the Salvatore school.
The shows overlap in real time from 2013 to 2017, with one direct crossover pairing season 7 episode 14 of TVD against season 3 episode 14 of Originals. Release order keeps each handoff intact, while strict date order would split seasons awkwardly. No fourth show had a network order as of September 2026.
Good to know
Watch TVD straight through season 4 before starting The Originals, since the spinoff assumes you know Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah. Then alternate by season: TVD season 5 with Originals season 1, and so on through TVD season 8 with Originals season 4. Save all of Legacies for last. Time jumps in TVD season 7 and Originals seasons 4 and 5 make strict episode shuffling more confusing than helpful.
