Author: Marisa Roffman

October 08, 2015 6:00pm PT by Marisa Roffman

 Courtesy of The CW

Plec and Somerhalder dish on the season seven mystery, that mysterious woman, Alaric’s journey and more.

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from The Vampire Diaries‘ season seven premiere.]

The Vampire Diaries is playing with time in a whole new way in season seven.

Although The CW drama has often showcased flashbacks and dabbled in flash-forwards, season seven will explore two different points of time: the present and three years in the future.

“It really mixes up the format a great deal, which makes it fun,” The Vampire Diaries star Ian Somerhalder (Damon) tells The Hollywood Reporter. “You get to see these characters in two different times in the same episode, which is cool because you also get to see where they end up. So you see them in the future, and therefore you can understand them a little more in the present. … We see Alaric, we understand what happened to Caroline. We see how Damon is coping.”

To get a better idea of what to expect from the remainder of the season, THR turned to The Vampire Diaries co-creator Julie Plec.

What can you share about the flash-forward device? Will it be utilized every episode? Is there a chance we could get a full flash-forward hour?

We are going to spend this season catching up to the three years from now. These flash-forwards are a lot of fun, because they give you little pieces of mystery, and it’s going to leave you wondering what the big story is. How did these people get to where they are? There should be a flash-forward in almost every — if not every — episode this season. 

That mysterious figure who was attacking the brothers — can you say if it was Caroline (Candice King)? Or was it meant to be ambiguous?

It is supposed to be ambiguous; you’re supposed to wonder who it is, and one day we will tell you!

Before the brother got attacked by the mysterious woman in the future, Damon got angry with Stefan (Paul Wesley) for waking him up before Elena (Nina Dobrev) was revived. What pushed Damon to that point where he opted to just put himself to sleep versus live without her?

This entire season’s journey is taking us to the place where Damon makes that decision. He starts the season trying his best to live his life without Elena Gilbert. And over the course of his run, he’ll have a lot of highs, a lot of lows, and ultimately, in a very sad and strange and poetic — and probably selfish — decision to put himself down. We’ll get to see what happens along the way to that point.

In the present day, Alaric (Matt Davis) is on a quest to revive his dead fiancee, Jo (Jodi Lyn O’Keefe). What will that journey look like?

We say in our writers’ room that death is final, but our characters don’t know that yet. And in their mind, every time they’ve tried to rescue someone from the great beyond, they’ve been successful. Alaric has a big come to Jesus moment when he starts to share his intentions with other people. There is no other side, there is no other place to pull these people back from. It’s not going to be as easy as he thinks it is. And his obsession is going to get him in some trouble. His storyline is one of my favorites for this first chapter. It’s so sad,  beautiful and tragic. And the end result of the storyline tees up a massive story shift that takes us through the rest of the season.

The guys tried unsuccessfully to take out the heretics with a bomb. What kind of rift that might that cause?

They’re sticking their claim on the Salvatore house, and that is not something that is going to sit well with Damon. And even though Stefan, for all the right reasons, is trying not to rock the boat,  Damon is going to go out of his way to keep rocking it. He’s going to learn really quickly how nasty heretics can be when they are annoyed.

The Vampire Diaries airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on The CW. What did you think of the flash-forward twist? And who do you think is attacking the Salvatore brothers in the future? Sound off in the comments section, below.

The Vampire Diaries

Marisa Roffman

THRnews@thr.com

October 08, 2015 7:00am PT by Marisa Roffman

 Courtesy of CW

“There’s not going to be ten doppelgängers and all these magic spells,” the actor tells THR. “I want to get away from that. I want to get back to the human elements that made people love this show.”

“This is not, I repeat, not, a total departure from the show,” Ian Somerhalder (Damon) insists to The Hollywood Reporter about the upcoming seventh season of The Vampire Diaries.

It’s understandable why he wants to make the distinction. After all, this is the first season of the long-running CW drama without its original female lead, Nina Dobrev.

But though Elena is gone, she is very much not forgotten — while still allowing for the show to move on in its new form. “There’s still a lot of elements of [the show that was],” says Somerhalder. “We know that she’s there, and there’s still very much the presence of Elena. This is Mystic Falls without her. I think people are going to like it. This is the evolution of this story. And it’s a lot of fun. There’s a lot of great interaction with the brothers; there’s a lot happening.”

The recalibration of the show might also allow the series, in many ways, to go back to the basics. “I’m really enjoying this season, because it is somewhat of a departure. We are going back to finding those very dark season one things,” notes Somerhalder. “There’s not going to be ten doppelgängers and all these magic spells. I want to get away from that. I want to get back to the human elements that made people love this show. Listen, remember when Stefan told Elena he was a vampire? It was like f–ing world news, and it was the biggest moment. Now, to get the same reaction out of the audience and us [as characters], we have to kill three people, blow up five cars, and a house. It’s a weird thing. I want to get that simplicity back. And we’re all fighting and struggling for it.”

When the season kicks off, Damon is on a European adventure with his buddy, Alaric (Matt Davis), who is going through his own grief spiral. “He’s definitely not in a good place,” previews Somerhalder. “But it does open up in really fun way you could imagine Damon and Alaric to be in: getting completely wasted, drowning out their tears in Amsterdam, while Bonnie babysits them. Alaric went through the most horrific thing — shy of dying yourself in a horrific way, what Alaric went through was a worst case scenario, in every shape and form. As a result of that, Damon wants to be there for his friend. He wants his friend to be OK with life. And Damon is hurting. So he’s drowning his sorrows, he’s drowning his fear of being left alone. … He’s also putting all of this energy into Alaric so he forgets his own sadness. It’s really effective because Alaric is pretty f–ed up.”

The Bonnie (Kat Graham) issue — Elena will remain asleep until Bonnie dies, thanks to a nasty, irreversible sleeping spell — is painful for Damon in an increasingly complicated way. “The Damon and Bonnie friendship is wonderful and special,” says The Vampire Diaries co-creator Julie Plec. “Because, secretly, Damon[‘s] every third thought is wondering what life would be like if Bonnie Bennett was dead [and then Elena could be revived]. And yet he probably wouldn’t do so well without her.”

“Bonnie knows that,” she continues. “Bonnie knows there’s that elephant in the room. And she knows it’s not her fault. But that doesn’t keep her from feeling a little bit slighted by Damon’s antics, and reminding him that she loved Elena, too. She lost someone she deeply cared about, too. They’re actually kind of living the same journey. They’re just doing it in a different way.”

Though Damon is in pain now, when the fog clears, “he sees the light,” says Somerhalder. “60 years away — he waited for Katherine for 150. He can wait 60-something years until Bonnie bites the big one, and has the big sleep.”

“He, ultimately, is prepared to do it. She said, ‘Don’t be a saint; don’t wait for me. Live your life… and I’ll see you in a little while,'” he continues. “I don’t think that is anywhere near in his train of thought, but he does know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel — it’s just a matter of getting there. To pass the time, he’s going to help his friends, he’s going to enjoy whatever enemies and foes he has. He’s like, ‘F– it, man. I’ve got to wait all this time. I might as well have fun. I might as well drink like a fish, eat like a pig, travel like a maniac, and do some good.’

An unexpected boost to Damon’s mood? Having an enemy — namely, his mother, Lily (Annie Wersching) and her heretics — to focus on. “When Lily came back into the picture, she imposed herself [and] her will on this town,” Somerhalder points out. “Justly so. This woman has been locked up since 1903 — that’s a long time. She has a family [in these heretics] she deeply cares about. She was put in there a vicious ripper, and she rehabilitated herself. She quelled that urge. She fixed herself. And now she’s coming out and she just wants a place for her family. However, it just so happens to be the town that these guys love and they live in.”

Unfortunately for Damon, Stefan (Paul Wesley) has a different approach on how to handle their mother. “Stefan, much to Damon’s chagrin, has been doing everything he can to keep things from disintegrating [in Mystic Falls],” teases Plec. “What we see in the first episode is, as much as he’d like to rid the town of Lily and her heretics, he’s reached a point where, ultimately, you have to negotiate with the terrorists as opposed to trying to get them out. Which is not going to go over well with Damon, who in a way, is going to feel like Stefan rolled over. But Stefan, as always, is thinking from a place of long-term heroics.”

As well-intentioned (and potentially correct) as Stefan may be, Lily will always be a sore issue for Damon. “It brings up more abandonment issues,” says Somerhalder. “The two women [from his past] he loved more than anything in the world were Katherine and his mom. And they both abandoned him. And left him. And lied about it. And he found out. He’s really in a place where she has inserted herself into his orbit, and it’s highly frustrating. It makes him super pissed off. It makes him frustrated, vengeful. … He wants her gone. And when you see him interacting with her, you really get a glimpse of the fact that she hurt him. She f–ed him up, a lot. It’s not just going to go away.”

The Vampire Diaries returns tonight at 8 p.m. on The CW. Are you excited to see the new Mystic Falls?

The Vampire Diaries

Marisa Roffman

THRnews@thr.com

• Premieres
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September 10, 2015 12:20pm PT by Marisa Roffman

 AP Images/Invision

Hatcher’s Charlotte will romance Matthew Perry’s Oscar in the CBS comedy’s upcoming second season.

Teri Hatcher is returning to primetime.

The Desperate Housewives and Lois and Clark alum has booked a multiple-episode arc on CBS’ The Odd Couple, the network announced Thursday.

See moreBroadcast TV’s Returning Shows 2015-16

Hatcher will play Charlotte, a “smart, successful single mother” who lives in Felix (

Thomas Lennon

) and Oscar’s (

Matthew Perry

) building.

 

Oscar first interacts with Charlotte when he starts to date the nanny she’s hired … but he quickly realizes that he’s actually interested in his neighbor.

The Odd Couple will return midseason to CBS.

The Odd Couple

Marisa Roffman

THRnews@thr.com