Since you're gone my empty arms have nothing left to hold

That is one thing TVD does well--no filler. Every episode is building on something and moving toward something. But mainly, it just doesn't have the "oh, that's the X episode" thing going for it. What I mean is, there's rarely an episode that is centered around one thing, with only one thing going on. You know, like how I can say with SPN--the time travel episode, the body switch episode, the convention episode, the Anti-christ episode, the wishing well episode, etc. Ditto with BtVS. Good episodes, bad episodes--many can be summed up with a few words. With TVD, this is rarely the case. It is interesting that it moves more like a fast soap opera (or like, say, Desperate Housewive) than a genre show that's plotted out with major eps intersected by filler, or entire episodes that simply stand alone. There's no TVD equivalent so something like Changing Channels or Hush.