Chicago’s Red Eye Checks Out “True Blood”

Chicago’s Red Eye takes a first look at True Blood. Here are their thoughts:

Some readers have asked me for news about HBO’s fall vampire series “True Blood,” which, like Fox’s “Fringe,” has been leaked online in the past few months.

I now can tell you about the show, since I’ve seen the first two episodes. HBO sent screeners last week and I immediately popped them into my DVD, poured a big glass of red wine and watched.

I won’t give you a full-fledged review, since the show—from “Six Feet Under” creator Alan Ball—doesn’t debut until Sept. 7. But I will tell you that “True Blood” wasn’t what I expected.

It’s good—for a vampire tale with very little bite. Ball has said he wanted to ignore all the vampire clichés, and he has. The series is more Southern gothic tale than vampires attack thriller.

Ball uses the vampire tale as a metaphor to hang a love story about prejudice and bigotry—and some viewers aren’t going to like that.

Adapted from the Sookie Stackhouse novels of Charlaine Harris, “True Blood” begins just a few months after the world’s vampires decide to come out, if you will, of their coffins. Japanese researchers have developed a synthetic blood called Tru Blood that can be mass-produced and is sold in six-packs like beer.

Because of Tru Blood, vampires no longer need to stay hidden because they no longer need to attack humans for blood. But, as usual, not all people are accepting of those who are different.

All the action in “True Blood” takes place in the small Louisiana town of Bon Temps, where Sookie (Anna Paquin) works as a waitress—and tries not to read the minds of her co-workers and friends.

Sookie is a telepath, which causes her a lot of pain when she can “hear” all the nasty, sexual things men are thinking about her as she waits on them. Her head’s just loaded with noise from everyone’s thoughts.

That’s partly why she’s drawn to Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), a 173-year-old vampire who sits at one of her tables: She can’t hear in his head.

Paquin pulls off her part as the innocent but independent-minded Sookie, but Moyer seems a little too sedated as the vamp she’s hot for. The supporting characters add layers to the story.

Sam Trammell plays Sookie’s boss, who’s sweet on her. Rutina Wesley is Sookie’s friend Tara, who doesn’t keep anything she thinks quiet. Lois Smith plays Sookie’s Gran, who seems to have some vampire secrets of her own. And Ryan Kwanten brings the hotness and conflict as Sookie’s lothario brother, Jason, who’s alternately turned on and repulsed by sex with a vampire.

Thanks to Kwanten’s scenes, the first episode swings from drama to mystery to, well, soft-core porn—not that I’m complaining.

It’s not until the end of the second episode, when Sookie meets some more sinister vamps in Bill’s house (One says “She smells freeesh,”), that I felt “True Blood” was moving more toward a good, bloody vampire tale.

It kept my interest, but it wasn’t the bite in the neck most viewers will be expecting after seeing the viral marketing campaign HBO unleashed earlier this year.