Summer, known for its long weekends, mindless blockbusters, and lazy strolls in the park, has always been viewed as something completely different for network television executives: a fertile dumping ground for shows that didn’t (NBC’s Kings and ABC’s Eli Stone are good examples), or wouldn’t (I’m a Faux Celebrity, Shoot Me in the Head with a Nail Gun springs to mind) make it during the other nine months of year. This three month period of television purgatory, akin to your fridge the day after Thanksgiving, is of the take it or leave it variety; you’re either eating leftovers, or you’re going hungry.
But as the major networks lick their collective wounds, trying to figure out a way to staunch their slow audience bleed, cable has quietly moved in on their territory. TNT and USA have thrown the harmless Burn Notice, HawthoRNe (“she’s a RN, who’s the SOUL of the ER”), and Royal Pains into the ring, and they’re uniformly forgettable. Maybe summer just wasn’t made for watching TV. But three weeks ago, HBO, in all its infinite wisdom, premiered the second season of its wonderfully addictive True Blood. The show, run by Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball, shares absolutely none of its predecessor’s pathos,
which for a show about transsexuals, shape shifters, and vampires, is a good thing. Based on the ‘Southern Vampire Mysteries’, a series of novels by Charlaine Harris, Blood follows Sookie Stackhouse (played by Anna Paquin), a mind-reading, Bon Temps (a fictional Louisiana town) waitress, who falls in love with a two-hundred year old vampire. True Blood is steeped with allegory, and Ball (who is out), clearly wasn’t playing for subtlety. When a synthetic blood is discovered, successfully mimicking human blood types, vampires finally “come out of their coffins” (a line pulled directly from the show) and during the opening credits, “God Hates Fangs” is posted prominantly on a church billboard (pretty much summing up Bon Temp's opinion of vampires).One would imagine that Blood was originally envisioned as HBO’s response to the mega-popular Twilight, but Blood shares none of the tween staple’s forced seriousness. Instead, True Blood flourishes in its own brand of absurdity. Sookie’s brother Jason (played by Ryan Kwaten), is a dumb as dumb gets, and by Season 2 Kwaten has nailed the furrowed brow of idiocy. As Jason’s roped into a retreat for the vampire-hating Church of the Sun, you’re just waiting for him to sleep with the minister’s wife - and promptly get caught (cue said furrowed brow of idiocy).
The beauty of Blood is that it’s often laugh-out-loud funny. While there are a few season-long mysteries, and horror scenes that aren’t actually scary (they’re usually just gag inducing), Ball’s smartly kept the show light and airy, with fleshed-out characters, high production values, and some much needed nudity. If True Blood were a junk food, it would be one of those chips with a big ‘No Trans Fats’ plastered on the front of the bag: you know it’s bad for you, but at least it could be worse.
True Blood airs Sunday at 9PM on HBO.
A few of my favorites clips:
The opening credits:
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