HBO’s True Blood in Tru Blu This May
Being too cheap to pay for HBO premium cable service, yet being a huge vampire fan, I find myself very excited and intrigued by this latest news released by Warner. HBO’s vampire sensation True Blood, Season 1, will grace the Blu-ray format on May 19th (the same date the DVD comes out). Warner/HBO Home Video has offcially dubbed the Blu-ray collection True Blood: The Complete First Season. All 12 episodes will be released on the 5 BD-50 disc set. We will get the full Hi-Def experience with 1080P VC-1 video and Dolby True HD 5.1 surround audio. Amazon already has their pre-order up for this exciting release. I’m sold!
Pre-order your copy of True Blood: The Complete First Season today with Amazon’s Pre-order Price Guarantee and know that 1% of your purchase will go directly to making a difference in the life of a child at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. To pre-order True Blood: The Complete First Season click on the link below.
Take a peek below and find out what several Amazon customers have been saying about season 1 of True Blood.
Since The Sopranos, Deadwood, Rome and Carnivale have left HBO, I was waiting for the next big thing from this once dominate original series network. To fill the void, I have been watching and remain hooked to Showtime’s Dexter.
Being a horror fan, I knew that this show would be right up my alley. I will admit that it took me longer than expected to get into the characters and the whole vampires being “out of the coffin” aspect. Since this is a show about vampires it thankfully doesn’t shy away from the gore and nudity either. You will get more than your fill in almost every episode. Forget the watered down Twilight crap, this is how vampires are suppose to be.
True Blood is a show that will grow on you and I am now really looking forward to the second season. By the way, sorry Dexter, True Blood has the best opening credits ever and a song that fits it like a savage bite to the neck.
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I’m not sure that any good series on the supernatural has ever tried as hard to be simply good fun. It isn’t the masterpiece that BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER was, but I don’t think Alan Ball set his sights that high. While Joss Whedon strove in BUFFY to create an icon and redefine television narrative, Ball just seems to want to tell a compelling story filled with memorable moments.
TRUE BLOOD is, of course, based on the series of novels written by Arkansas writer Charlaine Harris. The series was originally known as the Southern Vampire Mysteries, but has since come to be better known as The Sookie Stackhouse novels. The premise is that a Japanese corporation has successfully created artificial blood, a product so like the real thing that vampires, previously relegated to feeding off humans in the dark, come “out of the coffin” and into society, intent on living off the new fake blood. The series’ title comes from the name of the artificial blood marketed and sold in stores. The television series wisely does not try to hew too closely to the novels, though for the most part Sookie’s story does. And the way things turn at the end of the season, it is clear that Season Two (the show was renewed very early in the season) is going to pick up with the second novel in the series, though the action most likely will be in Bon Temps and not in Dallas (the second novel is entitled LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS).
The major difference between the novels and the TV series is that while the novels focus almost entirely on Sookie, the series has elevated a number of secondary characters and padded out their story. The focus on Sookie in the books is inevitable given that she is the narrator. But since few shows attempt to tell a story primarily from one character’s point of view (an exception is Season One of VERONICA MARS, in which the title character features in very nearly every scene), elevating several characters was a necessity. Tara is a very minor character in the books (and white to boot), but on the show she is black and one of the most important characters. Sookie’s brother Jason is a moderately important character in the books, but definitely not as central as Bill, Eric, or Sam. Tara was promoted on the show partly to balance out the show in terms of race and gender. I’m not quite sure why Jason was made more important. The story arcs that are given to these characters are not always successful, but they do give the show some diversity. Lafayette, Tara’s flamboyantly gay cousin and short order cook at Merlotte’s, the tavern where Sookie is a barmaid, likewise is a major character on the TV series, but barely makes an appearance in the novels.
I’m not always comfortable with the additions the show makes to the story and they usually are the weakest part of the show. For instance, the long story of Tara’s mother and her demon possession is an addition that I feel clutters the show, even as it raises the question of why Tara herself struggles with relationships. The character of Amy, who is weirdly involved with Jason in the latter half of the season, sits on the rest of the story like a weird, disconnected appendage. In fact, the entire obsession with V (or vampire blood, which is taken like a drug) is unique to the show and not the books, I think to the show’s detriment. Terry Bellefleur is a slightly more important character in the series, and about 20-30 years younger (and played by Todd Lowe, who played Zack, Lane’s band mate/boyfriend/husband in THE GILMORE GIRLS), and a veteran of the Gulf War instead of the Vietnam War. I don’t expect for a show to be especially true to its source material. I don’t look for a scene-by-scene recreation. But I do think that the additions show actually add something of value to the story. All in all, I do not think the completely original aspects improved the overall story.
There is a lot of controversy on boards where fans of the books linger about Anna Paquin. Physically she isn’t quite like how Sookie is described in the books, where she is far curvier and extremely busty. I personally love Anna Paquin’s performance. She has a haunted, hunted look that someone who has had to struggle for years of hearing the thoughts of others might have. She does very much seem to embody “Crazy Sookie,” as she is known to everyone in Bon Temps. I also like all the actors who played the three other major characters from the books, Stephen Moyer as Bill, Alexander Skarsgaard as Eric (who will, given his stature as an actor and the precedent of the books, become a more important character in Season Two — and let me just add, could anyone have been found more perfect to play Eric?), and Sam Trammell as Sam Merlotte. My favorite performer to play a major role on the show but a minor one in the books is Nelsan Ellis, who also had a recurring role on the sadly short-lived THE INSIDE and was on an excellent episode of VERONICA MARS, and who on TRUE BLOOD plays Lafayette. Though I have to add that he is s completely unbelievable character. I’ve lived three years in a town not terribly distinct from Bon Temps and I can assert that you simply will not find many if any openly gay people and definitely not one a flamboyant one.
All in all I really enjoyed the series TRUE BLOOD, though on the one hand I prefer the books (and I strongly recommend anyone who loves TRUE BLOOD to give the books a try, though I also warn them that the show does seem to be following to a greater or lesser degree the books — Season Two is already set up to follow many of the second novel’s storylines) and on the other I prefer Alan Ball’s earlier show SIX FEET UNDER. Still, it is a good, fun show.
And can I just add that this show has my all time favorite opening credits. It is filled with one astonishing image after another, from a coiled water moccasin to a Holy Ghost inspired preacher doing a 180 jump in church to lasciviously dancing strippers, all to a wonderfully appropriate song by country performer Jace Everett entitled “Bad Things.”
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Robert Moore’s review was very dead on and even very informative as I did not know that the show came from novels. I do know that HBO passed up on a show about the comic book known as The Preacher(which was a horror/vampire comic book that was going to be 10 times worse than true blood in terms of sex, blood, gore, violence,religious themes and anything else that you could think of in a show like that;which is why they went with true blood instead bc it was toned down:))which I think they still could have both but probably never will. True blood is an excellent show that was finally starting to get very interesting now that more vampires and characters were being introduced and developed further. One interesting note I found funny was the fact that the only person who sounded like he was from the bayou in Louisiana was faking the accent the whole time and now everyone sounds like they are from the country, not by the bayou. I am from Louisiana and most cajun people speak how the character of Aaron was pretending to speak. And Mr. Moore, there are plenty of openly gay,flamboyant people in Louisiana. Apparently you have never been to Bourbon Street before. Not only that, but Anna Paquin won a golden globe for her work as well as her and Lizzy Caplin getting nude! Fantastic show keep up the good work.
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