When a beloved series ends, that's usually, well, the end. The story has run its course and gets to live on in reruns or on streaming unless it somehow manages to get a reboot some years down the road or finds some other form of continuation. But every so often, a series gets a follow up and in the case of one Disney vampire show, that revived series is turning out to be an instant hit with audiences five years after the original came to an end.

Vampirina: Teenage Vampire just hit Disney+ on October 15th, but has already become a hit for the streaming platform, currently sitting at number 6 on their top 10. The series previously debuted on the Disney Channel on September 12th. The series stars Kenzi Richardson as Vampirina "Vee" Hauntley, a 13-year-old vampire with a passion for singing who leaves Transylvania to attend a performing arts boarding school. The series also stars Jiwon Lee, Shaun Dixon, Milo Maharlika, and Faith Hedley.

What's particularly interesting about Vampirina: Teenage Vampire is its roots. The series is a follow up of sorts to Vampirina, an animated children's television series that first debuted on Disney Junior and Disney Channel back in 2017. That series followed a young Vee Hauntley as she ends up the new kid on the block when she and her family move from Transylvania to Pennsylvania so her family can open up a bed and breakfast (the Scare B&B) for ghouls and goblins. The show centered around the Hauntley's learning to do things like normal folks -- aka the "Pennsylvania way" -- while Vee worked to keep her own monster life secret from her new school friends. The series featured some notable voice talent, including Gilmore Girls star Lauren Graham and Dawson's Creek star Jams Van Der Beek as Vee's parents and Wanda Sykes as Gregorina, the 473-year-old gargoyle living with the Hauntleys.

Vampirina was based on the Vampirina Ballerina series of books by Anne Mari pace and was largely geared towards preschool and elementary school age children and was well-received by critics. The series ended after three seasons, the third season of which kicked off in October 2020 and concluded in 2021, but it was never cancelled. Instead, the series simply ran its course. Then, in 2024, Disney Channel announced that a live-action Vampirina series was on its way. The new series now follows Vampirina in high school, creating a rare situation where a beloved character has been able to grow with its audience. With five years since the end of Vampirina, much of the animated series' audience is themselves in middle school, making the teen Vee's adventures familiar and relatable.

Part of what may be making Vampirina: Teenage Vampire such a hit beyond nostalgia for the original animated series is that it offers Vee new challenges but keeps the spirit of the original series. In the new series, Vee is still having to hide her vampire identity from those around her, but now there's an additional challenge: she has to hide from the Van Helsing vampire hungers and one of her classmates is also trying to hide his own identity as a Van Helsing himself.

By aging Vee up (as much as one can age up a vampire) and giving her adventures and challenges that are in line with what audiences themselves are experiencing, Vampirina: Teenage Vampire has given a beloved character new relevance and a new life, one that the series' fresh streaming success is proof of.