Claim: The Vampire Diaries' pilot attracted a large audience.

The Vampire Diaries is an American supernatural horror romance television series created by Kevin Williamson based on the novels of the same name by author L. J. Smith . It was officially picked up for the 2009 -- 10 season on May 19 , 2009 . It premiered on September 10 , 2009 , on The CW and received the highest ratings for a series premiere in the networks history scoring 4.91 million live viewers .   The series focuses on the fictional town of Mystic Falls , Virginia , that is charged with supernatural history . It follows Elena Gilbert portrayed by Nina Dobrev as she begins to get over her parents ' death and two vampire brothers , Stefan and Damon Salvatore , portrayed by Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder , respectively . Kayla Ewell portrayed Vicki Donovan for the first seven episodes until her character was killed off . Matt Davis was later cast as a history teacher in a recurring role to fill the void . He was later upgraded to series regular status . The season concluded on May 13 , 2010 , comprising 22 episodes .