10 Reasons to Watch True Blood

SciFiWire.com posted their list of reasons to watch True Blood. They’ve called their article 10 Reason True Blood Won’t Suck, but shouldn’t that be 10 reasons True Blood Will Suck? Get it? Vampires suck…never mind. Moving right along, here is their list of reasons to watch this fun and fabulous show. Personally, I would add one more reason to watch: Stephen Moyer. Need I say more?

True Blood is coming to HBO on Sept. 7, the latest offering from Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) and a new twist on the vampire genre. Does it suck? A preview of the show’s first two hours reveals that Ball’s southern-fried take on fang-banging has real bite.

Based on Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries series of books, True Blood centers on small-town psychic waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and the mysterious gentleman vampire, Bill (Stephen Moyer), who catches her fancy. The comedic drama is set in an alternate-universe Louisiana in which vamps are real and have “come out of the coffin” only recently with the advent of a synthetic blood beverage–“Tru Blood”–that removes their need to feed on live humans. Or does it?

Ten reasons why True Blood deserves to live forever.

1. Oscar clout. Creator Ball has a golden statuette for writing American Beauty, not to mention intimate familiarity with the dead from his previous award-winning HBO undertaking, the brilliant Six Feet Under. Paquin, similarly, has her own Academy Award (won at age 11 for her role in 1993’s The Piano) and brings the same snarky attitude she developed for X-Men’s Rogue. This time, however, she’s tanned, blond–and does have more fun.

2. Keeping it dark. Ball admitted that he’s never read an Anne Rice book, but he isn’t messing with vampire mythology to the point that his vampires will break some of the standard rules. There’s no wandering out in daylight, and a lot of the show takes place at night. When asked about CBS’ failed vampire show Moonlight, Ball said, “I think it’s pretty lame when you let your vampire go out in the day just because you don’t want to shoot at night. I personally have never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel. I’m not really a big vampire fan. This was really my first.” He does redeem himself by saying that Kathryn Bigelow’s 1987 film Near Dark is one of the best vampire films ever made.

3. Missing mythology. Ball dispenses with some vampire mythology–crucifixes kill, mirrors don’t reflect–by arguing that vampires themselves have generated them to fit in better among humans. Vampires created some of the more common myths, the argument goes, to prove that they’re not walking dead. That’s not to say Ball avoids mythology altogether: He invents some of his own, like the fact that vampire blood can heal humans or that they can be disabled with silver. Just don’t tell anyone.

4. Vampy metaphors. In the world of True Blood, vampires seek equal rights with humans: the right to vote, to own property, to marry humans. Vamp-o-phobes spew hatred against Undead-Americans, saying that they shouldn’t be allowed “special privileges” as they all start “coming out of the casket.” Ball, who is openly gay, said that he didn’t really mean the show to be a metaphor for gay rights. Oh puh-leeze, girlfriend!

5. Weird product placement. The synthetic blood drink Tru Blood is mass-produced by the Japanese and frees vampires from the need to suck on people. Is it only a matter of time before the crimson beverage makes it into a convenience store near you?

6. Quippy quotes. The fast-paced dialogue features some pretty hysterical double entendres and pop-culture references. Paquin’s character hears people’s thoughts, which are often nasty. Also look for tabloids with headlines like “Angelina Adopts Vampire Baby.” And then there are those tender romantic moments. When a vampire lover asks Paquin if he can ask her a personal question, she deadpans: “You were just licking blood out of my head. It can’t get much more personal than that.”

7. Fangs a lot. The biggest expense on the show isn’t for special effects, but for the very cool retractable fangs that the vampires sport. “We went to great pains to sort of depict a certain kind of physiology for the fangs,” Ball said. “I wanted to approach the supernatural not as being something that exists outside of nature, but something that is more deeply rooted in nature.” The production designer modeled them after rattlesnake teeth.

8. Southern hospitality. The show is set in a backwater Louisiana town, which allows for a lot of dumb cops and prejudiced rednecks. Ball said he wanted to create an air of isolation, and he isn’t concerned that viewers may think that the townsfolk would be more Internet savvy. “It’s a world that isn’t so media-saturated,” he said. “It’s a world where people are actually interacting with each, [rather] than, like, sitting at their computer and reading blogs all the time. … That’s a long-winded way of saying I don’t really care.” The actual location is a rural area around Shreveport, La. They named the fictional town Bon Temps. As in, let them roll …

9. Dental roots. Ball discovered Harris’ vampire novels while waiting for the dentist. “I found the first book totally by accident,” Ball said. “I was early for a dentist appointment, and I was wasting time at Barnes & Noble, waiting for the time for me to go sit in the lobby. I saw a book, the first book in the series, Dead Until Dark. I bought the book; I started reading it, and I couldn’t put it down.”

10. Vampire boyfriend. The tagline for the books that created Paquin’s character is “Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend wasn’t such a good idea.” Paquin quipped, “I stopped dating vampires when I was 15. … Having a vampire as a boyfriend isn’t always the simplest of things to choose.” Then, she added with a wink, “Vampires are better lovers. Yeah, they’ve had hundreds of years to, like, figure things out and to learn things.” True Blood premieres Sept. 7. —Mike Szymanski at SciFiWire.com.