‘The Vampire Diaries’ season 4 spoilers: Progress for Ian Somerhalder, Nina Dobrev

So how far along are the cast of “The Vampire Diaries” into season 4? The show’s executive producer has just shared an answer, and it gives us an indication that even though we are actually has at the halfway point when it comes to the new episodes airing, they are actually much further along behind the scenes.

In a brand-new post on her Twitter account during Thursday night’s #TVDParty, Julie Plec explained that they are currently filming the sixteenth episode of the season that will likely air at the end of February, and that she is actually deep into the writing process for the twentieth episode of the season (which is of course very close to the end). The series has 23 episodes this year, which means that there may be a tiny hiatus in March before new episodes pick up again to carry through the rest of the season.

In case you are wondering whether or not this extra episode means more work for the leads, it may not. Why? As we have already heard, the April 25 installment is a backdoor pilot for “The Originals,” and we anticipate that the involvement of Nina Dobrev, Paul Wesley, and Ian Somerhalder here is going to be relatively minimal. However, they do have quite a bit of a story to tell outside of that.

Speaking of these three actors, they all took part in the Twitter party as well during Thursday night’s new episode, but tragically did not really share too much outside of constant reminders that Daniel Gillies is awesome coupled with the message below from Paul Wesley:

“If I could have it my way stefan would be basically be a permanent ripper with occasional bouts of being a nice guy”

In case you want to read some more concrete scoop about what is going to be happening soon for some of these “Vampire Diaries” characters, you can do so over at the link here.

Photo: The CW