The first wish is that the cast gets less good looking so that my deflated ego could actually survive.

The fourth season of our favorite vampire drama is just a week away. We already sort of kind of maybe had a post like this, written by Heba. However, that was more about what Heba wants to see in the fourth season and this is more about…

…nothing different really, sorry about that. But a couple of people did ask me what it is I want to see in season 4 and so I’m determined to write it down. If you listened to the recent Mystic Harbor episode, then you might have a sense of what it is I want already. Hell, if you know me or read this site, you probably already have a sense.

I’ve really made it no secret that the third season of The Vampire Diaries wasn’t exactly my favorite. It started out really good and had so much promise, but somewhere around the middle it got stuck in lovesick drama over love triangle again and again. And once that began, there really was nothing else happening. Meanwhile, “villains” were upon us that weren’t really that villainous.

And if you just read that previous paragraph, then you can sort of guess what this wishlist is going to contain. But nevertheless, I wish to still list them. I’ll at least be reviewing the season premiere of The Vampire Diaries’s fourth season — and with lots of promise. I tend to be a more optimistic person when it comes to my favorite series. But I definitely don’t want to be that guy that just complains about the series not going my way. That’s not fair to anyone involved. And if in fact the show stays in a level where I’m just not, how can we say this?, connecting with it in any which way, then I may just need to not say those things anymore.

That said, my number one wish, regardless of what’s listed here, is that the show becomes as entertaining as it was in earlier seasons so that I may still call it one of my favorites and so that I may still continue reviewing it. But how can it achieve that for me specifically, well, without further adieu I present to you my wishlist for season 4. Keep in mind, I try to not read spoilers as much as possible, so this stuff may actually be happening and I have zero idea.

4. Locate Bonnie’s backbone

“Let’s give the audience an actual reason to dislike her other than saving all the main characters on a weekly basis!”

Otherwise known as throw the supporting characters some good writing. Here’s inherently the problem with the three of our pictured supporting characters here. Matt was once used just to be part of a love triangle, then he sulked for what seemed like forever, and then we were supposed to believe that he took down an Original Vampire. Jeremy was given the buddings of a great plot, which was seeing ghosts, but the show decided to push the breaks on that and ship him off to Denver. Bonnie, meanwhile, finally was given two things this season: a house and a mother. We saw the foyer to her house (and her pillow in another scene) and we got to see her mother, but that was only used to help fuel whatever the Originals were doing back in Mystic Falls. And the one scene in which Bonnie would have been able to tell her mother off for being, well, inept, the series decided that would be better fit for Caroline to do.

Okay…?

I don’t know where they’ll go with Jeremy and Matt in season four, but it seemed promising that Bonnie was finally going to stop being the show’s plot device, relegating to changing and ending storylines when the show has trapped itself in a corner. (The promo was a different story.) It appeared as if she may even veer off into “evil” territory. Obviously, Bonnie is one of the audience’s least-liked character; well I say, let’s give the audience an actual reason to dislike her other than saving all the main characters on a weekly basis!

This one is basically just self-indulgent because I’ve always wanted a full out war between vampires and witches on this show.

3. Make use of Elena’s vampirism

Not Elena. But you get the point.

“I somewhat expected, maybe even yearned, that the whole Big Bad In Town For Elena was coming to a screeching halt”

This may seem like a given, but I honestly think it needs to be stated. Season three was mainly salvaged for me because of the entire Crazy Alaric and supernatural rings storyline. I will say that I actually, really liked that storyline and don’t think it was able to shine as brightly as it could because it was stuck in the muddled up mess that season three as a whole was.

When the third season ended, it promised that the entire fabric of this universe was about to change. Up until then, the series has been about several different people (some good, most bad) wanting to find Elena because she’s the doppelganger…and with that, it means she holds supernatural powers. Not directly, mind you. She more or less is the key to different things: she’s “the key to breaking the curse,” her blood can make hybrids, it can bind an entire family’s bloodline together, and so on.

But with Elena as a vampire, those things were bound to stop happening right? I mean, her blood is basically useless now.

Not according to the promo. It appears that Elena will still be in high demand to random people entering Mystic Falls. In some ways, that’s pretty much a given. It’s not like Elena is going to announce to the world she’s a vampire. She’s not going to tweet out: “LOL I be a vampz nao dont take mah blood kthx.” There’s no reason for people to not be after her, if in fact they still believe she’s the doppelganger (in human form anyway) and that’s who they’re after. But I somewhat expected, maybe even yearned, that the whole Big Bad In Town For Elena was coming to a screeching halt.

I can understand how that new territory may be way too different for the series, however. So if the show can’t make use of Elena becoming a vampire that way, I at least hope that it will add more depth to Elena’s character. We know for a fact that Elena never wanted to become a vampire, and I personally believe that seeing her struggle with her newfound immortality could be quite entertaining. I know this show is more about getting to point B in the plot, but don’t be afraid to explore the internal dilemmas of your characters, Vampire Diaries. You’ll find they can be plot points all on their own; no need for Big Bads even, sometimes.

2. Choose a tone
“But should his effort to stay “good” really justify his ability to be completely villainous as to murdering people in cold blood?”

Being that The Vampire Diaries is on The CW, you can’t expect it to not be a teenage gothic soap opera, and for a while I was very much okay with that. But I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary to want it to veer off into absolute darkness. I’m a weird individual that way.

Some of the most interesting parts of season three were Stefan’s dive into “ripper” status or Alaric becoming…well, insane. The not-so-great moments consisted of characters not truly being aware of their surroundings or not suffering consequences that matched up to their actions. The example that comes to mind is Caroline and Alaric’s first talk after it was confirmed that he, well, killed her father. Of course, it technically wasn’t him him, it was his crazy alter ego, but even then a simple conversation that just cushioned the blow seemed a bit too…easy, wouldn’t you say? Caroline also killed someone, and she shared sympathy for knowing that it was out of his control, but Caroline hardly suffered from that indiscretion either (all the way back in season 2). The same goes for Stefan killing people by chopping their heads off and just being greeted with a sympathizing Elena. Let’s get gritty here: that’s absolutely, one hundred percent not okay. But somewhere along the line the show decided that murder is sort of justified as long as you’re “disturbed.”

We get it, Stefan’s cold turkey approach to deling with the demons within causes him to go on killing sprees. But should his effort to stay “good” really justify his ability to be completely villainous as to murdering people in cold blood? The series never seems to want to ever go there or answer any of these questions. The same happened to Klaus (which we’ll get to in a second…or a first, get it?). It’s happened to Damon. It’s happened to everyone, so much so that witches, who are supposed to keep the balance of nature intact, are seen as The Bad Ones on this series.

In fact, a new vampire hunter will be introduced, according to spoilers I couldn’t avoid, and is already being touted as the Big Bad. How is someone who slays evil bad again?

Let’s take, for instance, Caroline and Klaus in Tyler’s body. There are rumblings of this being the antithesis of romantic and the very description of appalling (if to be used as a love storyline). And that’s absolutely true. But that’s not what’s wrong. If The Vampire Diaries wants to be gross and appalling, let it be. I’m completely okay with that; I just urge that the characters treat that situation as such, that this storyline which could be considered rape even is treated with the weight it deserves to be treated with.

1. Deal with the Klaus situation


“His hybrids were a complete joke, easily killed by the weakest of humans”
The number one thing I want in season four of The Vampire Diaries is Klaus’s story dealt with in some way. Klaus was introduced as this huge evil character that wanted to begin a war against the entire world, but his hybrids were a complete joke, easily killed by the weakest of humans. Once he realized Elena was the key to making these hybrids, however, he became absolutely non-threatening — soon he was falling in love with Caroline and drawing pictures of animals. It was almost laughable.

Look, I like Klaus and I like Joseph Morgan as Klaus and I don’t want him to be out of a job, but for the sake of the story here, what is the point of keeping Klaus around any longer? Meanwhile, everyone’s always talking about what a huge threat he is. Klaus has harmed maybe about…uh…zero people we care about since Jenna, but the characters continue to reiterate that he’s a huge danger. He’s just not a believable threat. This became a problem for the series, since it always likes to introduce villains and then introduce people who are even more dangerous than them. But once the show killed Mikael and then revealed the bloodline aspect of its mythology, it’s as if they backed themselves up into a corner. They decided they could sink Klaus in the ocean, but then that wasn’t enough! Where do we go from here? My wish is that it doesn’t go back to him dillydallying around Mystic Falls with his siblings, crowding up the town. I hope we move on from that.

However, there is an alternative. Klaus could become a villain again! He could be a threat! He could kill people! And the gang could be trying to get rid of him for reasons that make sense! If this happens, then I will totally be fine with Klaus staying and murdering everyone. That’s cool with me.

And those are four of my wishes for the upcoming season of The Vampire Diaries. Of course, I have my more “ridiculous” ones, like a Phoebe Tonkin and Claire Holt falling down as an homage to H20: Just Add Water, or having Matt and Rebekah hook up even though it makes no sense, no more love triangles please lord, or… just bring Katherine back please for all that is good and pure! But the aforementioned ones are flaws that need a bit of fixing, in my humble opinion. I won’t fault the show for not changing anything; I just may be coming to with it not exactly developing into what I wish it could be. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with The Vampire Diaries fixating on being a show about love triangles that just so happens to have vampires. It’s just that, if that’s the case, it’s not the show for me anymore.

But I stay ever so optimistic and look forward to Thursday at 8pm. Time to catch VD.