This paper deals with the theory of film and television adaptation, which provides a new life and interpretation for fiction. The focus is placed on novels featuring vampire characters and their film and television adaptations, concentrating on two recent television shows: The Vampire Diaries and True Blood. It also provides the most popular adaptations of Bram Stoker´s Dracula as the most adapted vampire novel. The paper presents the basic features of adaptation with examples from the television shows to emphasize the necessary changes which have been made to provide the original novels with further interpretation. The aim is to show that despite the dismissive attitude of many critics, adaptation plays a crucial role in the interpretation of the texts.