"True Blood" Impressions
It's no secret that I had high expections for "True Blood", HBO's new vampire series. So, after I finally freed up an evening to watch the debut episode, I thought I would post my impressions on the show.
First off, I have to say that I love Anna Paquin as "Sookie Stackhouse", who is a small town waitress with a soft heart, a propensity toward diversity and the ability to listen to the thoughts of other people. When she is on-screen, the show moves. The premiere didn't feel like it was an hour long - it moved that smoothly.
Alan Ball and company have also done an excellent job in adapting the accepted vampire myths and then letting us in on what they changed. They didn't go out of their way to beat us over the head that vampires can be hurt by silver - they just simply trapped our resident (presumably) good vampire "Bill Compton" (Steven Moyer) with a silver chain. The "TruBlood" beverage that allowed the vampires to come "Out of the Coffin" was mentioned several times, but never in a heavyhanded way. The overall introduction to the mythos of the show was extremely well handled.
There is really very little bad to say about the show. It's different than "Moonlight", with a few more supernatural overtones and a much more rural feel - but still very good. And, remember that it is on HBO, so it is definately adult-oriented.
I did feel that the writers really made an effort to populate the world with every stereotype imaginable (i.e. belligerent black girl, gay black guy, fat southern bubba, slutty waitress, etc.), but I really believe these stereotypes are there to be contrasted to the prejudice against the vampires, which trumps all of these other petty differences.
After the first episode, I have faith that they will make this work. The first episode, "Strange Love", can still be seen at various times this week. The second episode will be aired on Sunday at 8:00 PM EST on HBO.
