Forget 1864. The Vampire Diaries is preparing to take viewers back to the 15th century...

... in Bulgaria.

“The episode that we start shooting on Tuesday is set around 1490 – and in Bulgaria," producer Julie Plec said at New York Comic-Con over the weekend. “We’ve talked about wanting to show Katherine’s origin story, and it is cool.”

Viewers learned a couple weeks ago that Katherine's original last name was "Petrova," and fellow producer Kevin Williamson says they plan to depict how this character "came to become who she was."

But, as much as we love the pace and excitement of the series, might it be revealing too much too quickly? Is there fear of burning storylines out?

No way, says Williamson.

“We’re trying to figure out the breaking point, where we are going to stop at the end of this season. We kind of know what we want for our season finale, we know what the cliffhanger is already, so [it's all a matter of] ‘What do I get in there before?’”

** In other spoiler news, fans can look for Bonnie to get more involved later this season, as a mysterious father and son duo come to town, armed with questions for this witch.

** Of note: Nina Dobrev is of Bulgarian descent. Her family's original last name? Dobreva.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.