I tried to post this yesterday, but must have pushed the wrong button… Anyway -
My first exposure to this show was a 15 minute show on HBO named something like “In Focus: Vampires in America”. It was played completely straight as a 15 minute news show about how vampires had recently made themselves known after the introduction of the synthetic blood, “True Blood”. The “news” piece ended with interviewees pushing for the Vampire Rights Amendment to the Constitution – with the tag line “After all, vampires were people, too.”
Well, looks like we’re getting the pornographic version of the Sookie Stackhouse series.
I was disappointed with this first episode, although Anna Paquin was really good as Sookie, and I thought the mind-reading was done well.
The character of Tara was horrible. In fact, it seemed like they deliberately made all the women around Sookie as rude and crude as possible, to emphasize Sookie’s sweetness.
Was also kinda “meh”, but that’s often the case with a first episode. We’ll see how it develops. Agree with the consensus that the Tara character was bad. I know that in real life, decent people sometimes have a friend who’s a total asshole with no apparent redeeming qualities, but I don’t get it in real life, and it really throws me off in fiction, where you can’t just say “Well, that’s the way it is.” If Sookie likes her despite her atrocious behaviour, I’d like a little indication as to why.
Bill comes to Sookie’s rescue. In the book, anyway.
In the books, it’s not clear if the vampires are undead or not. They claim that vampirism is caused by something like a virus, but Sookie figures that’s what she would say in their position, so she’s not convinced.
These vampires go dormant and helpless during the day, and are burned by sunlight. They have super strength and speed, and they can fly (which for some reason makes me :rolleyes: when the other stuff doesn’t bother me). They’re incapacitated by silver, but I don’t think holy items affect them. They appear to be immortal: Bill is 170 years old, and there are some much older vampires that show up later.
Vampire blood has an extraordinary effect on humans, including healing powers (hence the Rattray’s attempt to drain Bill’s blood to sell) but it also gives the vampire a link to the human that consumes it.
I haven’t read the books either but I caught it last night and thought it was really weak. I thought every character was bad except for the grandmother. I’ll admit i’m biased though, Anna Paquin’s face is really difficult for me to look at so a whole hour was too much to bear. I think i’ll probably end up reading the thread about it but skipping the actual show.
I’m confused. I am not going to declare Anna Paquin a great beauty, but she looks cute to me and easy on the eyes. Did I missed something in your post?
I agree that vampires are really really played as a concept. Even the concept of Vampires drinking synthetic blood and living among us has been done (Interesting if flawed steampunk vampire movie, BTW.) Still, that doesn’t mean this show will be bad, I just wish epic horror fantasies would move to something new and fresh.
I thought it was OK. I find it very hard to judge shows based on one episode. It’s got promise, but it needs to grow. Since Sookie is telepathic, I assume this means there are more mystical things out there besides vampires. Hopefully the series will discover them, as Buffy did.
ETA: I think Anna Paquin’s fairly easy on the eyes. Her accent seems fake, though.
For a show about vampires, rough sex, and murder, I found it surprisingly boring, and the Southern-stereotype pulpy humor didn’t really “click” for me. (Not that I personally have anything against Southern stereotyping; it just seemed rehashed and unfunny.)
Paquin is cute, though. I’ll give it a while, but I’m already beginning to fear a “John from Transylvania.”
Nope didn’t miss a thing I just find her incredibly unattractive. Its weird but to me she doesn’t really look like a person. I think its the mouth and beady eyes.
I’m sure they’ll re-run it one or two nights this week. You never have to fret about missing an episode on HBO. Not only do they show episodes repeatedly the first week, as soon as we get three or four episodes in they’ll do a marathon.
I thought it was fun–a little silly and cheesy, but unapologetically so. After John from Cincinnati, it’s good for HBO to not be so far up its own ass. The over-the-top characters and even the thick Louisiana accents just add to the pulpy feel.
My only complaint is that they violate what I call Occam’s Supernatural Razor–don’t multiply supernatural entities unnecessarily. Here we have vampires, and Sookie is a psychic, but (at least for now) these things don’t have anything to do with one another. I’m curious to see how they play it.
