Giveaway! RT this tweet by 9/7 midnight ET to win The Vampire Diaries: The Complete Sixth Season on Blu-ray! U.S. only!
Release Date: September 1, 2015
Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: Approx. 928 minutes
The Vampire Diaries continues its sixth season with more delicious drama to sink your teeth into. In season five, after a passionate summer with Damon, Elena headed to Whitmore College with Caroline, not knowing Bonnie sacrificed her life for Jeremy’s. Meanwhile, Stefan and Caroline’s friendship deepened as they stood up to the Travelers, a nomadic witch tribe driven to strip Mystic Falls of magic and cast out its supernatural residents. In the shocking season finale, Damon, fearing he would lose his loved ones on the crumbling Other Side, made a huge sacrifice to bring them all back — with catastrophic and heartbreaking results. Season six follows the characters’ journey back to each other as they explore the duality of good versus evil inside themselves. Matt Davis reprises his role as Alaric Saltzman, recently returned from The Other Side. Plus, the season will make you misty-eyed as the departure of a major character will turn lives upside down and leave us asking what happened to Mystic Falls.
What a season. This is a season of grief and displacement, having a conscious and compulsion, covens and kissing, and more. One of my favorite story lines was Damon and Bonnie finding themselves in Mystic Falls in May 10, 1994 and being stuck in that day for a very long time. Matter of fact, the standout performer of this season was hands down Kat Graham. Wow. Bravo, Kat on all of your work as Bonnie this season. You were amazing. Watching Bonnie bond with Damon… that friendship has such a special place in my heart. Watching Bonnie fight Kai and eventually Kai fight everyone we love in town was so much fun to see. The most fun? Caroline and Stefan’s kiss. Finally. There’s surely more to come from there and I can’t wait to see it all play out in the next season.
Aside from Bonnie and Elena… I loved Caroline’s reaction to Bonnie’s return from 1994. The dynamic between these two with Caroline’s humanity turned off was hilarious. Other than that, I wasn’t all that moved by the new Caroline. The no humanity Caroline was very hit or miss for me. I’m getting ahead of myself though. Caroline turns her humanity off after the passing of her mother. Watching Caroline do everything she could to try and save her mother from dying of cancer was so heartbreaking, oh my goodness. Talk about being an emotional wreck.
“I didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my mom.” – Caroline
Season six welcomed Jodi Lyn O’Keefe (She’s All That) as Dr. Jo Laughlin or Jo, Colin Ferguson (Eureka) as Tripp, and Chris Wood (The Carrie Diaries) as the big bad Kai among others and by the end of the season, we said goodbye to Elena, Jeremy, Tyler, and Sheriff Forbes. All of their send offs were perfect and Mystic Falls won’t be the same without them.
This season also brought some very captivating origin stories, a very complicated coven, Matt being out of the loop, as per usual, a pregnancy, death, more death, and Damon and Stefan’s mother. Yep. Their mother. There is so much to appreciate about this season and so much to look forward to in the next. I am super intrigued by the final scene of the finale and will probably need some Kleenex in the first few weeks of the show’s return as we see how everyone is dealing with the loss of Elena…unless there’s a time jump that would explain how spooky the finale scene of the finale was. Anyway, this season as a whole was great. But what season of this show isn’t? There were a few episodes here and there that fell flat for me but overall, this season was just as strong as what I expected it to be so bravo to all of the cast and crew for giving their all because it shows in each and every scene how much love and care is put into these characters, their stories, and this world. Magnificent job.
The Vampire Diaries: Good Bite and Good Luck (13:30 minutes) – This season, we said goodbye to four cast members…Nina Dobrev, Steven R. McQueen, Marguerite MacIntyre, and Michael Trevino. This feature is a love letter to them as Julie and the cast talk about working with these actors and how they’ve grown since the Pilot. Hearing memories from Nina, Steven, and Marguerite will make you teary eyed. I did for me. So you may want to have some Kleenex near you before you begin watching this feature.
Appearing in this Feature:
Writer/director, Julie Plec
Executive Producer, Caroline Dries
Cast Members, Steven R. McQueen, Marguerite MacIntyre, Zach Roerig, Nina Dobrev, Michael Malarkey, Candice Accola, Ian Somerhalder, Kat Graham, Paul Wesley, Michael Trevino, Chris Wood
The Vampire Diaries: Best.Reaction.Ever. (6:09 minutes) – In this feature, the cast reads tweets from fans which is very entertaining, humbling, and pretty amazing considering how much of a social media presence the show has always had but how much it’s grown over the years and become such a staple for the fandom. This is awesome!!!! Didn’t see any of my tweets in the feature but there are literally millions of us TVD fans out there so I can only imagine how tough it was finding tweets for this feature. Simply knowing our presence in this format has been acknowledged is more than enough to bring a smile to my face.
Appearing in this Feature:
Cast Members, Kat Graham, Candice Accola, Paul Wesley, Zach Roerig, Nina Dobrev, Michael Malarkey
Writer/director, Julie Plec
The Vampire Diaries: 2014 Comic-Con Panel (28:19 minutes) – This is an edited version of TVD San Diego Comic Con panel in which we get a few clips here and there intertwined into the panel footage which I didn’t mind at all as the clips corresponded well with the topics at hand. We also get the fan questions written on the screen rather than having to deal with hearing the wonky audio of each fan not to mention the fangirling (which is great but is time consuming so I very much appreciated this edit). As a longtime SDCC attendee, I think it’s pretty great that these panels are preserved so well for blu-ray footage. What a keepsake!
Appearing in this Feature:
Moderator, Damian Holbrook (TV Guide Magazine)
Writer/director, Julie Plec
Cast Members, Ian Somerhalder, Kat Graham, Nina Dobrev, Paul Wesley, Matthew Davis
Commentary – There is only one commentary for season six which was super sad since this is Nina’s last season so I was really hoping we’d get one last commentary from her and the other cast members leaving but alas. The commentary for “Let Her Go” is conducted by writer/director, Julie Plec. This episode was actually Plec’s directorial debut so it was really exciting getting her commentary on such a standout episode from her TVD journey. Her commentary was not necessarily entertaining, it was very technical but it was still so captivating and so insightful, I really enjoyed it. I think any fan of the show will enjoy this, no matter what you’re looking for with a commentary.
Deleted Scenes (Approximately 22 minutes) – There is no option to play all of the deleted scenes on any given disc at one time. If there’s more than one scene per episode, they play back to back but that’s about as consistent as viewing gets.
There’s one scene from “Black Hole Sun,” “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here,” and “Fade Into You” which are all passes for me, one humorous but still forgettable scene from “Stay,” two blink and you’ll miss them scenes from “A Bird in a Gilded Cage,” two scenes from “Woke Up With a Monster” and “Prayer for the Dying,” three scenes from “Do You Remember the First Time?” and “I’m Thinking of You All the While,” and five must see scenes from “Let Her Go.”
My favorite deleted scenes came from “Woke Up With a Monster,” “Prayer for the Dying,” and “Let Her Go” but other than that, the rest of the deleted scenes definitely did not need to be in any of the episodes so I’m glad that they were tossed on the cutting room floor.
Come Visit Georgia PSA (2:33 minutes) – In this feature, the crew makes a fun PSA about shooting the show in Georgia, before we see the crew on location/set talking about how important Georgia is to the show. It’s great to see the show acknowledge the gift that just keeps on giving because the setting of the show really brings the whole look and tone together and visually speaking, Georgia is quite the gem. Not to mention, it’s not Hollywood and provides so much more of an opportunity to local actors and guest stars. Great feature! Short, simple, and to the point.
Appearing in this Feature:
Co Executive Producer, Pascal Verschooris
Key Make-up Artist, Danlee Winegar
Head Make-up Artist, Tarra Day
Production Designer, Garreth Stover
Props Master, Joe Connolly
Special Effects Coordinator, David Fletcher
Stunt Coordinator, John Medlen
Location Manager, Danny Sconyers
Co-Producer/ Unit Production Manager, Trish Stanard
Casting Director, Bajo Sonubi
Second Bite: Gag Reel (4:17 minutes) – My favorite part of the gag reel? Let’s just say that it’s always funny when someone sneezes and the other person says, “Bless you” in character. Fun reel!
Watch the season seven premiere of The Vampire Diaries Thursday, October 8, 2015 at only on The CW.