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Why I Love...True Blood

Stephen Moyer as vampire Bill in True Blood
  • Posted at 5:55pm
  • 20 July 2009
  • by JackSeale-RT
  • 11 comments

They say you must learn the rules before you can break them. Alan Ball served his time writing Six Feet Under, a dry TV drama about how life is a long, slow rehearsal for death, and American Beauty, an achingly earnest film about middle-class angst. You'd expect his vampire drama to be pained, drained and pretentious.

It's not. True Blood is a lusty wade through our darkest desires; a salty mess where the supernatural mingles with explicit sex and violent death in the sultry Deep South; the sort of shamefully addictive titillation that's just what you need on Friday nights in summer.

We're in Bon Temps, Louisiana, a no-horse town where the hicks have just got even more gossipy and fearful: having hidden for centuries, vampires are now "out of the coffin" and coexisting with mortals, thanks to the invention of synthetic blood that means they don't have to bite humans. They still do bite humans so this bit doesn't make sense, but programmes that make sense can contain dull moments, and True Blood avoids dull moments.

Anna Paquin is Sookie, a virginal barmaid who's also telepathic. (Hell, why not?) Sookie's life revolves around: her brother Jason, a demented hussy who's defined by his sexual conquests but has a deflating fear of vampires; her snappy best friend Tara, who's in love with Jason; and Sookie's apparently innocuous boss Sam, who's in love with Sookie. Before long, everyone's slept with, longed for or lusted after everyone else. Or killed them.

Sookie's life changes when dishy vampire Bill (Brit actor Stephen Moyer, whose perfect vampire look and imperfect accent suggest he got the part by simply sending in a photo) starts wooing her in a glowering, Heathcliffy way. Whereas other vampires are insatiable sex machines - adventurous humans sleep with them for the ultimate thrill, their bars are wild goth/fetish joints, and their blood is sold by drug dealers as a sort of unpleasantly strong Viagra - Bill is a quiet, principled, "yes, ma'am" sort of guy, who fought in the Civil War.

Their swoony romance, with Bill generally saving Sookie from the sweaty, screaming peril she's in at the end of most episodes, is the most sensible element of True Blood. It doesn't hang together at all - although the vampires' outsider status leads to some vague stuff about discrimination, we don't linger on it - but it's got a wicked, weird, David Lynch sense of humour, and every episode has something to leave your jaw agape. Drink it in.

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Post a comment | 11 comments

Comments

  • Posted on 18 November 2009
  • at 5:35pm
  • by lizo

toned it down? more like sexed it up! as SFX says "more sex please, we're HBO!

  • Posted on 12 November 2009
  • at 7:14pm
  • by Angela

There is something spooky about sam I think that he might be a werewolf.I thought vampires could smell them though.

  • Posted on 12 November 2009
  • at 4:52pm
  • by Cascara

I absalutly LOVE true blood, its just a breath of fresh and lusty air to finally see something that is proper sexy on Brittish telivision. I would love to be Sookie for just one night with Bill Compton - he is seriously georgous !

  • Posted on 10 November 2009
  • at 11:55pm
  • by trulove

june whats wrong with you bill is soooooooooooooooo atractive he is damn hot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Posted on 02 November 2009
  • at 12:26am
  • by alisha

i love ture blood and the books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Posted on 23 October 2009
  • at 10:44pm
  • by Cheryl

June, the Sookie Stackhouse novels came out a few years *before* Twilight.

  • Posted on 22 October 2009
  • at 2:37pm
  • by June

I am really surprised that Stephenie Meyers hasn't sued the writer of True Blood for plagiarism. Moral virgin, vampire - mirror image, she reads minds but unable to read his, the level of emotional contact between the protagonists -the 'look' - the speed - all covered with oodles of sex - BUT he is very unnatractive, a real turn-off - I taped, so I was able to ff whenever I want.

  • Posted on 20 October 2009
  • at 7:40pm
  • by jimB

I think the casting is terrific, all the best programmes rely on the way the actors blend. I know the leading pair are an item but the chemistry is spot on. The one liners are corny but they are nicely timed,imaginative sets and sex and violence. I am looking forward to the next episode.

  • Posted on 15 October 2009
  • at 11:50am
  • by Readie

"...vampires are now "out of the coffin" and coexisting with mortals, thanks to the invention of synthetic blood that means they don't have to bite humans. They still do bite humans so this bit doesn't make sense..."

Picker of nits that I am, I have to take issue with this contention. My understanding is that the vampires who still bite humans do so because they dislike the taste of True Blood and find it impossible to consider living on it alone. In the same way that we could all live off vegetables, but it doesn't mean we're all vegetarians.

  • Posted on 11 October 2009
  • at 2:27pm
  • by Cassandra

This is vampires as they should be: moody, sexy and violent. From the original Dracula to the books of Anne Rice, the genre has evolved and is still evolving, becoming more relevant to today's society as a way of showing discrimination in its most extreme forms.

The one thing I know.

A (fictional) vampire saved my life, when I was twelve. Love you guys!

  • Posted on 01 October 2009
  • at 12:56pm
  • by DewiCasgwent

I assume they have toned it down for TV as in the books the bite was a genuinely a love bite

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