If this DVD release proves one thing it’s that you need not look far to find a few favourable quotes. I happen to find the following favourable quotes for True Blood to be somewhat misleading and I will take this opportunity to address each of them.

 ‘Stylish, scary and darkly comedic. A modern classic.’
The Guardian

‘Story lines that would make Sarah Michelle Geller blush’
The Times

‘HBO’s biggest hit since the much-missed Sopranos’
The Telegraph

‘Addictively pulpy Vampire raunch’
Time Out 

I suppose “stylish” is accurate as obviously low-lighting + vampires = stylish but True Blood isn’t “scary”, nor is it “darkly comedic” whatever that means, and “modern classic” is a term thrown around too often without much thought. I can’t tell if the story lines would cause Sarah Michelle Gellar to blush. She could be the kinkiest girl on earth for all I know. What I can tell you is that I’ll also be comparing this show to Buffy but in a less than favourable way. This may very well be HBO’s most watched show since Sopranos but as far as quality is concerned it doesn’t even come close to that show. I will concede that True Blood must have something about it as I watched the entire season in two consecutive nights but I wouldn’t describe it as addictive as I won’t be in a rush to give those episodes a second viewing. I like to think of “pulp” as a word for a piece of work which pushes some boundaries and will be copied by others. This offers nothing inventive and I dread the day a critic describes something as being “a True Blood clone” since the earlier works which heavily influenced this show are vastly superior.

A few things were certain of True Blood. This show would feature men in dark clothing standing around in a brooding manner, in familiar HBO style it would include copious amounts of sex, and would inevitably be compared to Buffy. I’ll pick up on this last point as while watching the first episode I immediately saw similarities with characters from Buffy. Sookie is Buffy, Bill is Angel, Sam is Xander, and Tara is Cordelia. Sookie’s brother Jason, on the other hand, is a sex-crazed lunatic and a law unto his own. Sookie (Anna Paquin), with her vampire fetish, is a more sedate version of Buffy with an additional talent for mind-reading. Reading minds is useful but she of course avoids using the talent as to do so would help her solve the mystery in a matter of minutes and that would make for a very short series. Bill (Stephen Moyer), the recipient of Sookie’s affection, not only shares the vampire affliction with Angel he also suffers from that same emo wishing he was human thing. Sam (Sam Trammell), and his unhealthy obsession with Sookie, is a lot like Xander except nowhere near as funny or interesting and even his big secret turns out to be disappointingly dull. Tara (Rutina Wesley) is one of the rudest characters to ever appear in a TV series. It’s actually quite harsh of me to compare this monstrosity to Coredlia who in all fairness underwent an attitude adjustment and blossomed into something lovely after moving to Angel. We are then left with Jason who stands out as being unlike any character from Buffy. It is worth noting the character is played by Ryan Kwanten who once played the cheeky scamp Vinnie in Home and Away. It is also worth noting that Jason’s penis brings more bad luck than walking under a ladder, while a black cat runs across your path, as you open an umbrella indoors, which hits and smashes a mirror, and then hearing a garbled “seven days” as you answer the telephone.

The attitude of the characters is what poses the biggest problem in True Blood. Through the entire series there are only two characters who avoid being a complete and utter asshole and to call them secondary characters would be an exaggeration. The characters I refer to, for those in the know, are the tall goofy friend of Jason and the ex-Marine. Every time a character was introduced who appeared to be nice they would go ahead and ruin that by doing something truly awful. A perfect example of this is a love interest of Jason (not giving away much as he is the town bike) who initially seems adorable but turns out to be a twisted psychopathic little bitch.

This brings me nicely onto the topic of racism. I have never before witnessed such casual and unchallenged racism in a TV series. True Blood is set in the deep south and an element of racism is to be expected. The significant and unusual thing about the racism found in this show is that it’s directed solely at the undeserving white population. The three culprits are Tara, her mother Lettie May, and her cousin Lafayette. I can only apologise if I missed the word “Nigger” or any other racist statements directed at black characters but I can honestly say I didn’t notice anything of the sort.

Alternatively you would think “Cracker” was just as acceptable as “hello” in every-day speech. I really wish one over-used word was the problem but the black characters go out of their way to spout racist bile at every opportunity. At one point Lafayette tells Jason no-one wants to see his “stubby white dick” and Lettie May describes a bank manager as having a narrow ass and being a “white devil” and no-one says a word. Tara is the worst of the three as she runs around accusing everyone else of being racist without any reason whatsoever. The worst example is when she accuses one man of being racist when he playfully mentions she grunts in her sleep, like a Tennis player, and Tara takes offence and asks “like Serena Williams?” As though it’s unacceptable to compare a famous black female Tennis player to someone who grunts like a Tennis player, is female, and black. Her “reverse racism” nonsense reminded me of Ali G asking “is it coz I is black?” and this would be worthy of laughter had it not made me despise the character instead of caring about her. I must add that the alcoholic antics of Lettie May and the ensuing troubles with Tara made for one of the most ridiculous and boring sub-plots of all time.

I have very mixed feelings about the series. I can’t imagine it was the creator’s intention but when something semi-interesting happened, such as the addiction to “V”, something absolutely ridiculous would come along and smash it to pieces. Another area which left me feeling numb was the focus on showing sex just for the sake of it. There’s absolutely no way I could ever be considered prudish when it comes to sex but when Sookie finally jumps into bed we are shown a few minutes at the end of one episode followed by a few minutes at the beginning of the next as though we’re too dumb to understand what happened. It seems to me the creative team found themselves on a long leash at HBO and were blinkered by what they could get away with rather than focussing on something more valuable such as depth.

This is where things get slightly confusing because you’d think I’d keep my distance from any show which I believe fails in almost everything it attempts to do. There is a second series. I want to watch it. This doesn’t make any sense so I can only put it down to True Blood being car-crash TV and an acceptable way to waste a weekend. Apparently the second series is a lot better than the first but to be fair I heard this was great before watching. As far as I’m concerned this is a very average show, and I almost forgot to mention it has a terrible intro and theme tune, which is decent in some parts but really poor in others. If you’re a fan of vampires I suggest watching Buffy instead, or The Lost Boys, or 30 Days of Night, or From Dusk Till Dawn, or Count Duckula, or almost anything else featuring vampires apart from Twilight because vampires don’t sparkle.

5/10

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