HOLLYWOOD Q&A

Q: My whole family loves “The Vampire Diaries,” and we would love more episodes. We just finished season 8. Can you tell us if any more are coming out?

A: Alas, no, “The Vampire Diaries” are closed for good.

The good news is the show’s universe has expanded quite a bit from there. In fact, there’s a new spinoff (the show’s second) airing episodes as we speak.

“Legacies” features some characters from “The Vampire Diaries,” particularly the Saltzman family — Alaric, Josie and Lizzie — so you’ll feel right at home with the new show.

It also picks up directly where “The Vampire Diaries” ended (well, part of where it ended — there was a lot going on in that finale), with the founding of a boarding school for supernatural children.

While you won’t be getting any more “Vampire Diaries,” the outlook is actually quite good for “Legacies.” It’s still in its freshman season, but that was already extended by CW, and while it hasn’t yet been renewed for a second, the extension is a pretty big show of support.

Its ratings haven’t been amazing — it’s drawing 1.1 million viewers per episode, which puts it seventh out of the CW’s 12 original shows this season — but given the show’s pedigree and built-in audience, that’s likely good enough to earn a pickup.

Q: What happened to one of my favorite shows, “The Amazing Race”? I haven’t seen it yet this season.

A: “The Amazing Race” is taking the slow boat to get to our screens this time around, but it will get here eventually.

Last season, the show’s incredible 30th, aired over the first months of winter, but that won’t happen for the 31st. We’ll have to wait until late spring to see the next group of competitors hit the road.

CBS announced in late fall that “The Amazing Race” would return on May 22. That’s a long wait since the end of the show’s last season in February of last year, and in some ways fans have become victims of CBS’s success.

The network waited a long time before even giving it a return date. Prior to the announcement, the TV watchers at GoldDerby.com formulated a theory as to why: CBS’s freshman shows this season were all doing well, so “The Amazing Race,” which CBS had used as a fill-in show for the past few seasons, wasn’t likely to have anything to fill in for. Sure enough, the network waited until the end of November, when the fates of all of its new shows had been decided, to announce that “The Amazing Race” would return in May, after all of those shows had completed their runs, and after “Survivor” had aired its new season as well.

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