The Vampire Diaries Spinoff Legacies Has Cast An Intriguing New Character

jasmine once upon a time

As a spinoff within the supernatural universe that gave us The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, The CW's upcoming drama Legacies already has a built-in fanbase ready to see the next generation of vamps and witches get wild with it. On the way to the highly anticipated premiere, Legacies has added an interesting new character to the ensemble, with Once Upon a Time vet Karen David as the latest to join the romantically tinged drama.

Legacies is mostly centered on the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted, where coming-of-age teens are learning how to be their best selves, even though they all have supernatural instincts and abilities that threaten to cause the exact opposite to happen. Karen David will be entering the fray as Emma Tig, a lovely witch who works as the Salvatore School's guidance counselor. With that influential position, Emma is the moral backbone for the student body, offering everything from advice to a shoulder to cry on. Considering how many immoral acts will certainly go down during Legacies' run, Emma will have her work cut out for her.

Interestingly enough, the announcement from Deadline also states that for all of her talents, she is still unable to help out the person in the school that most needs her guidance: the attentive headmaster Alaric Saltzman, as portrayed by Matt Davis. Franchise fans already know that Alaric has quite a few skeletons in his closet from his days as a big bad on The Vampire Diaries, and his past is quite troublesome for quite a few reasons. But will Emma actually have an effect on Alaric's personality and actions, either positively or negatively? We'll have to wait and see.

This definitely won't be the first time that Karen David has joined a show with mystical and non-traditional narratives. Having lived in Canada and England, the India-born actress got her biggest claim to fame here in the U.S. with the role of Princess Isabella on the medieval musical comedy Galavant (which deserves a revival at some point soon). She is also known for playing another princess of the Disney variety, as she played Jasmine on ABC's fairy tale drama Once Upon a Time. Most recently, she co-starred in episodes of Ryan Hansen Solves Crimes on Television, Timeless, Barry and Criminal Minds. So there obviously aren't any genres that David can't conquer.

Created by Julie Plec, who was also behind The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, Legacies has a lead actress in The Originals' Danielle Rose Russell, and also stars Jenny Boyd, Kaylee Bryant, Peyton Alex Smith, Quincy Fouse and Originals recurrer Aria Shahghasemi. Fans can probably expect to see more crossover characters as the series goes forward, since that's how The CW rolls, especially since this spinoff will adhere more to a monster-of-the-week format as opposed to fully serialized arcs.

Legacies will make its way to The CW for its series debut on Thursday, October 25, at 9:00 p.m. ET. Be sure to tune in, and in the meantime, head to our fall premiere schedule to see what other quality shows are on the way.

Nick Venable
Assistant Managing Editor

Nick is a Cajun Country native and an Assistant Managing Editor with a focus on TV and features. His humble origin story with CinemaBlend began all the way back in the pre-streaming era, circa 2009, as a freelancing DVD reviewer and TV recapper.  Nick leapfrogged over to the small screen to cover more and more television news and interviews, eventually taking over the section for the current era and covering topics like Yellowstone, The Walking Dead and horror. Born in Louisiana and currently living in Texas — Who Dat Nation over America’s Team all day, all night — Nick spent several years in the hospitality industry, and also worked as a 911 operator. If you ever happened to hear his music or read his comics/short stories, you have his sympathy.