The New “Strange Love” of True Blood…
I have been a long time fan of vampire shows on TV, Dark Shadows, Forever Knight, I liked what I saw of Moonlight, and of course there is Buffy and Angel. When I heard that HBO was working on a vampire series I was excited, finding out the Alan Ball of Six Feet Under was the creator I was even more excited. When I found out that Anna Paquin was starring in it I could barely contain myself.
True Blood, premiering Sept. 7th on HBO, takes place in a parallel reality where vampires have recently “come out of the coffin” and outed themselves to the world. With the invention of a synthetic blood drink called Tru Blood the vampires no longer need to feed on humans for survival. Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) works as a waitress in Merlotte’s, a bar in rural Lousiana. She is intrigued by the vampires and is excited when Merlotte’s gets its first vampire customer, the 173 year old Bill. Sookie has a not-so-well-kept secret of her own in that she can hear the thoughts of every one around her.
The Best Buy exclusive disc (free with the purchase of an HBO TV on DVD title) comes with the first episode of True Blood, “Strange Love.” I wasn’t sure what to expect from the show going into it. I knew from the viral campaign that there would obviously be a social commentary, but what I didn’t expect was that the show would be as dark and sexual as it is. From oral, to “fangbangers”, to even some chains; there was a lot of sexuality crammed into these 58 minutes. The series also has a nice cast of characters that give the show some minutes of laughter. Sookie’s best friend Tara and Merlotte’s short order cook Lafayette both bring some big laughs in this episode.
All in all it is a nice introductory episode. “Strange Love” sets up the locale and the characters and seems to touch on where the series will be heading. It has definitely caught my interest and I will be faithfully watching this series throughout it’s 12 episode run. I am also interested in reading some of the “Southern Vampire” books the TV show is based on by Charlaine Harris.
The down sides to this particular DVD is that it only has a 2.0 soundtrack and is watermarked with a huge HBO logo across the middle of the screen throughout the entire episode. I don’t mind the intermittent “Personal use” text that pops up, but there is no need to watermark a DVD that you have released to the public.
The Episode:
The DVD:
More information:
http://www.hbo.com/trueblood/