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True Blood


Brandon Stark

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I caught the premier of True Blood on HBO before Entourage last night, and I have to say I was pretty entertained. It looks like its going to try and use a healthy dose of humor to stay away from the near-oppressive heaviness that a lot of HBO's shows delve into, and I think the twist of vampires being out in the open and attempting to interact with society should keep things from falling too far down cliche mountain.

The only complaint I have is that I think I liked the original actress playing the best friend from the pilot more than the girl they recast the part with.
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Just watched it...pretty entertaining and an interesting idea to have vampires "out of the coffin". I'm intrigued enough to give it a few more episodes to find out more about Sookie and what is going to be sort of the point of the show.
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[quote name='Weekapaug' post='1509419' date='Sep 8 2008, 10.21']Just watched it...pretty entertaining and an interesting idea to have vampires "out of the coffin". I'm intrigued enough to give it a few more episodes to find out more about Sookie and what is going to be sort of the point of the show.[/quote]

I will say though that I'm a HUGE fan of Anna Paquin ever since I saw Finding Forester. So uh, definitely gonna watch this when I get home today.
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[quote name='Brandon Stark' post='1509245' date='Sep 8 2008, 06.28']I think the twist of vampires being out in the open and attempting to interact with society should keep things from falling too far down cliche mountain.[/quote]

While I guess it hasn't been done much on screen, it's been done to undeath in paranormal romance land.
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This show is definitely getting canceled. The pointless meandering and random scenes reminded me of John from Cincinnati, but at least that show had the Milch dialogue. The worst offender was the best friend character. What a disaster. I mean who doesn't like the stereotypical Wanda Sykes Jr who's so smart and sassy and always telling the man how it is. The gay cook was another example of stereotypical awfulness. The lead actress who I guess is supposed to be attractive having a Michael Strahan like gap between her teeth really didn't help matters either.

The best part of the show for me was recognizing actors from better shows, the highlight being Frank Sobotka and EB Farnum as the cops. It also took me about all episode to remember where I saw the vampire drainer scumbag guy before but he was the prisoner that got hanged in the first episode of Deadwood.
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I thought the premiere was extremely silly and lightweight.... but hey, I'm good with that. The brutal tone at the end did come completely out of left field and was jarring, rather than interesting.

Either be dark and violent, or silly and sassy. Repeated swings from one to the other like last night will do nothing but piss me off Still, I'm gonna watch next week too.
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[quote name='Zadok' post='1509605' date='Sep 8 2008, 11.23']This show is definitely getting canceled. The pointless meandering and random scenes reminded me of John from Cincinnati, but at least that show had the Milch dialogue. The worst offender was the best friend character. What a disaster. I mean who doesn't like the stereotypical Wanda Sykes Jr who's so smart and sassy and always telling the man how it is. The gay cook was another example of stereotypical awfulness. The lead actress who I guess is supposed to be attractive having a Michael Strahan like gap between her teeth really didn't help matters either.[/quote]

The big difference is that Vampires are inherently interesting, while surfers are not. Also I watched a whole season of JfC and never really understood the plot. I already understand quite a bit about what is going on in TB, and where it is going.

What scenes did you consider random? They all seemed to push the plot forward to me.
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Silly and heavy-handed with the metaphors. At no point did it feel like they seriously tried to answer the question of what would actually happen if vampires existed, became public, and how we would react. They just copied and pasted the current plight of and rhetoric against gays with some added graphic sex, cause hey they're vampires and this is HBO. Sure they've only had an hour, but the X-men movies handled the dangerous outsider bit with more thought and sophistication.

And the problem with the gay parallels stems from the fact that vampires really are murderous beasts that prey on humanity, so the religious rhetoric and small town xenophobia isn't terribly misplaced. I'm sure alot of Christians might imagine that gays eat people...but these fuckers REALLY do. I find it hard to believe that only 2 years after coming out public acceptance has reached the point of some unkind words and hard stares at worst. I'm thinking mass burnings myself. And sure as hell not appearances on Real Time.

In either case, the show still has the potential to be interesting, though I can't say that any character has earned that label yet. But overall it'd have a much better shot if it didn't try so hard to be relevant. If there's a social message to be had, let it flow from the story you're trying to tell, don't convolute the world and story to push the message you're trying to peddle.
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[quote name='Ken Stone' post='1509625' date='Sep 8 2008, 12.37']The big difference is that Vampires are inherently interesting, while surfers are not. Also I watched a whole season of JfC and never really understood the plot. I already understand quite a bit about what is going on in TB, and where it is going.

What scenes did you consider random? They all seemed to push the plot forward to me.[/quote]

The opening scene was completely pointless, except to have the vampire show his fangs I guess. Which by the way are completely cheesy and awful. The sex scene and the vampire sex tape with the mimbo brother was completely gratuitous and frankly the vampire sex was laughable. That whole plot line is also completely stupid. We get it, the brother didn't do there are murderous vampires going around.

The whole human/vampire love thing is so played out at this point that if you're going to do it you better do it really well and from what we saw of the 2 main characters it is not going to be done well.
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What were the vampires eating before the "True Blood" was created? Should the Vampires be forgiven their prior murders?

"I know we used to prey upon and drink the blood of the people in this community... but that's all in the past now that we have this wonderful product 'True Blood.' You shouldn't use our past murders to discriminate against us. In fact if you do you are bigots."

Isn't that essentally what this show is saying?
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[quote name='Zadok' post='1509672' date='Sep 8 2008, 11.59']The opening scene was completely pointless, except to have the vampire show his fangs I guess. Which by the way are completely cheesy and awful. The sex scene and the vampire sex tape with the mimbo brother was completely gratuitous and frankly the vampire sex was laughable. That whole plot line is also completely stupid. We get it, the brother didn't do there are murderous vampires going around.

The whole human/vampire love thing is so played out at this point that if you're going to do it you better do it really well and from what we saw of the 2 main characters it is not going to be done well.[/quote]

The opening scene wasn't pointless. It was a quick glimpse into the relationship between Vampires and Humans. If you consider that scene pointless then the opening scene in Deadwood, the Sapranos, and 6' Under were equally pointless.

As for the sex scene it is further coloring how humans and vampires interact. You might have a point that it is "played out" but since I'm not really up to date on the vampire romance novels and such, I can't really say. I'm not a big goth or anything so it all is pretty new to me.
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[quote name='Ser Scot A Ellison' post='1509706' date='Sep 8 2008, 12.22']Ken,

See my previous post, why would anyone simply forgive Vampires their past murders?[/quote]

AFAIK, vampires can feed on people without killing them. Regardless it would still be quite the violation.

I'm assuming that some suspension of disbelief is required to watch a show about Vampires living openly in human society. Your point above is a good one and probably should be counted as one of those things for which we need to suspend disbelief, along with the psychic girl, the ghouls, and the probable werewolf bar owner.
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[quote name='Ken Stone' post='1509715' date='Sep 8 2008, 17.27']AFAIK, vampires can feed on people without killing them. Regardless it would still be quite the violation.

I'm assuming that some suspension of disbelief is required to watch a show about Vampires living openly in human society. Your point above is a good one and probably should be counted as one of those things for which we need to suspend disbelief, along with the psychic girl, the ghouls, and the probable werewolf bar owner.[/quote]
Heh.


I've gotta check this out. And uh, this is based on a series of books? Which one?
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I'm not talking about goth or romance novel stuff, I'm not into that either. But even so there is a ton of stuff in the recent pop culture memory just from interview with the vampire or buffy. I think they've got to contend with that stuff. I mean I'm not sure what you could do with vampires that's "new" but the way this show is going about it it just feels like an inferior rehash of previous efforts.
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Ken,

[quote name='Ken Stone' post='1509715' date='Sep 8 2008, 13.27']AFAIK, vampires can feed on people without killing them. Regardless it would still be quite the violation.

I'm assuming that some suspension of disbelief is required to watch a show about Vampires living openly in human society. Your point above is a good one and probably should be counted as one of those things for which we need to suspend disbelief, along with the psychic girl, the ghouls, and the probable werewolf bar owner.[/quote]

If they are trying to make an analogy between vampires and homosexuals and their perception in society that's just not going to work. Homosexuals aren't killing people. Vampires, presumably, are. I understand suspension of disbelief, but if you are making a political statement with your story, that's just not going to work if you ignore the fact that the Vampires who are attempting to assimilate were killing people before they had their "True Blood."
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[quote name='Ser Scot A Ellison' post='1509729' date='Sep 8 2008, 12.36']Ken,



If they are trying to make an analogy between vampires and homosexuals and their perception in society that's just not going to work. Homosexuals aren't killing people. Vampires, presumably, are. I understand suspension of disbelief, but if you are making a political statement with your story, that's just not going to work if you ignore the fact that the Vampires who are attempting to assimilate were killing people before they had their "True Blood."[/quote]

I don't really think they are trying to make a political statement about homosexuals. If anything I thought they were drawing the vampire "coming out of the coffin" parallel for comedic effect, more than anything else. I'm not sure this show is making the statement you think it is trying to make. I think it is only trying to entertain.
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