Premieres Sunday on HBO
I have been trying to come up with something detailed and articulate to say about "True Blood," the vampire saga from "Six Feet Under" creator Alan Ball. And the best I can come up with is a shrug.
In the series premiere, the characters did not engage me — not even Anna Paquin, who can be a very interesting actress. The premise (vampires, able to drink synthetic blood, can now walk among humans even though humans have vampire prejudices and misconceptions) is only momentarily intriguing. And didn't Kenneth Johnson cover a lot of similar metaphorical territory in "Alien Nation," movie and TV series, some 20 years ago? By setting the tale in Lousiana, isn't Ball inviting even more comparisons to Anne Rice? And as overblown as Rice can be, her vampire tales have an energy that is lacking here.
"Angel," for that matter, had more interesting characters and a grander mythology. I might also throw in "Twilight," but I just started reading it recently. Still, it makes me want to keep turning the pages; aside from a cliffhanger, "True Blood" didn't even give me enough reason to tune to the second episode.
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True Blood reminds me of Heroes at first glance (just rented the first episode from Blockbuster), though the show still has an original feel overall