Supernatural Meets Wednesday In The CW's Underrated 4-Part Fantasy Series

Published Aug 20, 2026, 7:30 PM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. While fantasy fans have been crying out for a show that blends the monster-of-the-week structure of early Supernatural with the magical school setting of Wednesday, one spinoff of The Vampire Diaries fulfilled this promise and went largely ignored. The ‘90s cult classic The X-Files has a lot to answer for. Without that series popularizing the premise of a sleuth who investigates paranormal threats instead of conventional criminals, viewers might never have received subsequent spins on this setup like Grimm, Evil, Supernatural, and Fringe. This rundown doesn’t even mention the shows that took a more unique, esoteric spin on the basic “Police procedural with supernatural elements” story of The X-Files, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the “Supernatural meets Bosch” detective drama Lucifer. However, while there are plenty of shows that borrowed from the setup of The X-Files, only one can be credited with truly recapturing its appeal while still differentiating itself from the original show. Since the heroes of Supernatural were brothers, they had a very different dynamic from Mulder and Scully of The X-Files, but still had a compelling blend of camaraderie and conflict that resonated with a huge fan base. Meanwhile, since the threats they faced were, as the title implied, supernatural rather than sci-fi, the show could incorporate ghosts, ghouls, demons, and eventually even gods and angels into its increasingly loopy storytelling, unlike The X-Files. What Supernatural didn’t have, however, was the magic school setting of Wednesday. That belonged to The Vampire Diaries’ underrated spinoff Legacies. Legacies Felt More Like Wednesday Than The Vampire Diaries The Vampire Diaries debuted in 2009, taking advantage of the shared popularity of Twilight and True Blood to offer a supernatural romantic drama that was more mature than the former, but not as gory and R-rated as the latter. Long before Interview with the Vampire gave small-screen vampire romance critical credibility, The Vampire Diaries was a pop culture sensation that lasted over 170 episodes and spawned a pair of spinoffs. The first, The Originals, ran from 2013 until 2018 and introduced Danielle Rose Russell’s Hope Mikaelson, who went on to become the star of the second spinoff, Legacies. Running for four seasons from 2018 until 2022, Legacies was set at the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted and followed the fortunes of the institution’s students. While everyone at the school had magical powers, Hope was more than a little unique. As the Tribrid, Hope was a witch/ werewolf/ vampire hybrid who was unique even within the world of the franchise, and this subsequently made Danielle Rose Russell’s protagonist one of the most overpowered main characters in fantasy TV history. Fortunately, Legacies was essentially a PG-13 blend of the Harry Potter franchise and Riverdale’s campiest excesses, so credibility wasn’t a major concern for the series. With its magical school setting, its focus on teen drama and romance over high-stakes tragedy, and monster-of-the-week supernatural villains, Legacies essentially functioned as a mixture of Netflix’s Wednesday and Supernatural. Tim Burton’s Addams Family spinoff might boast an incredible cast in stars Jenna Ortega and Emma Myers, as well as guest stars like Christina Ricci and Gwendoline Christie, but Wednesday’s downfall was its reliance on a serialized storytelling style. Legacies Brought Some Much-Needed Humor To The Vampire Diaries Universe This limited the number of supporting characters and villains a given season of Wednesday could focus on and meant that, when the show honed in on a dull or predictable antagonist, viewers could sadly be sure that they would remain the focus of at least half a season of the series. In contrast, as a traditional network TV show, Legacies had longer seasons that borrowed Supernatural’s monster-of-the-week storytelling approach. This was the show’s magic touch, as Legacies largely abandoned the angsty, tortured tone of The Vampire Diaries in favor of a far campier and more humorous, self-aware take on its world of magic and mystery. Leprechauns, zombies, a unicorn, dragons, Krampus, a mummy, a merman, and a disgusting slime monster proved that some of the villains on Legacies owed their inspiration to Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark as much as Dracula or even Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Say what you will about the spinoff, Legacies never took itself too seriously, and the monster-of-the-week format allowed the series to offer viewers creatures that would have been too silly even for Supernatural. While many of Wednesday’s competitors went for a darker tone than the Netflix show, this earlier hit succeeded with the opposite approach. Although its teen heroes were a little older, The Vampire Diaries’ spinoff certainly wasn’t more self-serious than the Addams Family show. Legacies Deserved Better Than Its Rushed Finale Sadly, the fun times at the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted couldn’t last forever, and Legacies eventually ended in ignominy just before the supernatural drama trend was revived. The 20-episode final season ended in June 2022, only a few months before, in November of the same year, Wednesday season 1 became Netflix’s biggest success since Stranger Things season 1. Although season 4 of Legacies was 20 episodes long, as opposed to the shorter 16-episode runs of seasons 1-3, this wasn’t enough to allow the show enough screen time to wrap up its story right. Throughout its entire run, the spinoff dragged out the doomed romance between Hope and Aria Shahghasemi’s Landon Kirby, a storyline whose many twists, turns, and tragic shocks called to mind the most melodramatic excesses of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals. After more than three fake-out deaths for Hope’s love interest, viewers were understandably eager to see the pair finally get their happily ever after ending as the show wrapped up. However, in a twist that thoroughly betrayed the fun, campy feel of the series as a whole, Legacies season 4’s finale instead let down the pair by leaving Landon stranded as the ferryman in limbo while Rose lived a normal life in the real world. The decision to end Hope and Landon’s entire romantic relationship despite the grueling set of trials they faced to be together was one that felt borrowed from a far more serious series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or The Vampire Diaries, so many fans were understandably annoyed. However, before Legacies stumbled with its ending, The Vampire Diaries spinoff deserved props for bringing the monster-of-the-week madness of Supernatural to the magic school setting of Wednesday. Release Date 2018 - 2022-00-00 Network The CW Showrunner Julie Plec Writers Julie Plec, Brett Matthews Franchise(s) The Vampire Diaries