True Blood

It’s been a few years since Six Feet Under last aired. I enjoyed that series, especially how each episode showcased a passing character’s death; I don’t think I’ll ever forget the guy that got cut in half by a malfunctioning elevator, spraying blood all over the remaining confined passengers. The series began as a morbid comedy but slowly morphed into some pretty heavy drama. So heavy, it sometimes became too weighty to watch week after week.

Ball has moved on since the series finale of Six Fee Under to a new series project, True Blood on HBO. Set in Louisiana, the show depicts a parallel universe of today’s United States, where vampires have “come out of the coffin” and now live side-by-side with humanity. Early in the episode, we see a news show interviewing a woman lobbyist for the “American Vampire League. Presumably a vampire herself, she defends a vampire rights amendment to the constitution and tries weakly to defend vampire feeding habits. It seems “True Blood,” a synthetic blood concoction, gives vampires a more pacific method for quenching their thirst.

Not a bad backdrop. If only the initial episode had been more compelling. Sure, the characters are colorful, if not a bit over-the-top. I found Anna Paquin’s character particularly manic. Early on, we figure out she’s telepathic. She hears people’s thoughts. I assume the skill occurs unbidden, but at one point she concentrated and successfully shut the voices out. She plays a waitress at a bar and is infatuated with vampires. When a blood-sucker walks in the restaurant door (for the first time ever!), she fumbles over herself taking his drink order (no, sorry, we don’t carry True Blood. No one ever orders it). She makes moon eyes at him later and becomes concerned when some local white trash leave the restaurant with him.

Out in the woods, she tracks down the white trash pair siphoning the blood from the hapless vampire. This guy has lived for centuries but he manages to get hoodwinked by a couple of amateur yokels. Paquin fends them off and the two talk. This is where the show loses me. Paquin alternates between innocent country bumpkin and fang-banger wanna-be. She coos over the vampire hunk, named Belle, like he’s the last biped on the planet. Throw in her gift for telepathy and that’s quite the train wreck of a character.

Or brilliant characterization, if future episodes pan out.

The episode ended with the white trash ambushing Paquin, beating and kicking the crap out of her. I assume her vampire friend will come to her rescue and either rip off some white trash heads or conduct a blood “transfusion” for Paquin. Either way, I’ll be looking for the show to begin heading in some kind of direction. Frankly, I was little bored with the premier; it didn’t help that the first vampire we see gets its ass kicked. If True Blood continues wandering so aimlessly, I’m going to open up its coffin lid, stake it in the heart, stuff its mouth full of garlic, and then move the coffin under some running water.

Translation: I’ll stop DVRing it.