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True Blood Season 1 (HBO) [DVD] [2008] starring: Anna Paquin, Chris Bauer, Stephen Moyer

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Average rating -

Rating: - Takes a while, but the fangs soon sink in!

I bought this as a gift for my girlfriend and was initially dismissive. I thought it would be a slightly more 'adult' Twilight. After watching a couple of episodes I can gladly admit I was wrong.

It's ideal to watch in boxset format as I wouldn't have thought it was suspenseful enough to wait a full week for the cliffhanger of the previous episode to be resolved.

My one main grievance of this and the 2nd series is that, for me, there is no real scares! Some tension but no terror. This should be a pre-requisite on all vampire films/TV for me, although the 2nd series veers heavily towards the supernatural it still lacks, well, real horror. (I was brought up on things like Salem's Lot and Fright Night, etc.)
That said, however, it is bursting with a wonderful dark humour. I suppose you would expect nothing less from the writer of '6 Feet Under'.

Lastly, a special mention must go to the sometimes (uniintentionally I'm sure) hilarious rubber facial expressions of Anna Pacquin as Sookie Stackhaus. Sure, she is a stunning women with lips (and other things) to die for but look out for some Jim Carrey-esque gurning buffoonery!

Rating: - Truely... middle of the road

Gosh, what a mix of reviews! From brilliant to downright awful. I think I'm going to drop down right in the middle.

I have enjoyed the books although I think they become a little formulaic as they go on, but they have been quite gripping; 'Twilight for adults' I read in one review which is pretty apt. I didn't catch the series on television but bought the box set and watched an episode a night which I'm not sure is always a good thing as it all gets a little samey after a while, but I did want to know what happened.

Having said that, I didn't think it was awful but it wasn't brilliant either. I don't mind Anna Paquin - I do think the accent is a little obvious, but she does well for a New Zealander. She's certainly not ugly as some have said, but maybe tries a little too hard to be sexy which I actually find faintly amusing. Bill is a bit of a surprise; I can't stop focusing on his terrible hair because it makes him look so nerdy which is a shame, because in civvies he's actually pretty good looking. I find Tara really annoying - too loud, too brash, too defensive. Nasty. I have to admire the Jason character - that amount of nudity and simulated sex every episode takes some guts in a room full of cameramen, technicians and the like.

Yes, there is a lot of swearing and lots of sex - a bit gratuitous I suppose but it's pretty entertaining. I like Alexander Skarsgard as Eric - suitably tall, blond and Vikingesque, and Sam is pretty much as I imagined him when reading the books. However, I do agree that the fangs are dire; surely in this day and age they can come up with something that doesn't make the actors lisp and barely able to close their mouths - it certainly isn't menacing or threatening, just a little ridiculous.

All in all, not great, not terrible - pretty entertaining and I am looking forward to the next series.

Rating: - True Blood

I'll start off with the only criticism I have for this series. The people who make it are obviously aiming for shock value to sell this show, rather than let the entertainment and writing speak for itself. I found most of the sex scenes unneeded and they didn't really add much. A curious 13-year might find value in it, but as an 18 year old, it's just embarrassing. I'm not a prude for sex and violence, I'd just rather it be more suggestive, instead of the softcore pornography they seem intent on forcing upon us today. I recently bought a DVD of 30 Rock (an innocent situational comedy series), and I was oddly more aroused during certain episodes of that than I was for the entirety of True Blood.

It was the same with Sex and the City (same producers as True Blood). I used to enjoy the program, but the perversion in it (light by this standard) was something I'd have to tolerate and ignore till the rest of the story came back into focus. Funny thing is, towards the end of the series, the producers seem to grow tired of the endless irrelevant sex scenes, and don't bother with them as much.

Of course, there's the inevitable comparison to Twilight this series has garnered, and I'd have to side with this. Sookie Stackhouse is a lovably innocent and naive girl who can read people's minds, and suffers much in her personal and professional life for it. It is only when she encounters Bill Compton, a vampire, that she finds solace, as she cannot read his thoughts. Interestingly, in Twilight, it is Edward Cullen who can read minds, but cannot read Bella Swan's. He doesn't seem to suffer much from his psychic abilities though. I never cared much for Edward Cullen. He had nothing to care about himself. He was forever young, perpetually in high-school, had an entire extended family to spend his immortal days with. Why should I care about him? Because he's handsome? Maybe, but I think he knows he is, all too well.

Bill Compton, on the other hand, is a troubled man with a dark, and yet not stupidly overdramatic past. He returns to his old house before he was bitten after many years, and struggles to gain acceptance among the human community. They begrudgingly try not to act out on their prejudices against vampires because Government legislation forced them to. Bill and Sookie face a crux in their on-off relationship over whether they'll be able to have a normal life together. Bill can't wake up next to her in the morning, as he'd likely burn to death from sunlight. Edward Cullen wouldn't even have to worry about getting a tan. And is Bill as handsome? I'd like to think more so. He is a man of traditional masculinity, and holds old-fashioned views about being a gentleman - that is when he's not fighting off thoughts about joining his other vampire friends in a bloodbath. And the thought of his sexual appeal seems to have never crossed his mind for a second.

These were the only characters I was aware of before buying this DVD. There are tons of others that surprised and disturbed me in equal measure. Sam, the mild-mannered bar owner at which Sookie and her friends work, has a secret that could be considered more disturbing than being a vampire. His crush on Sookie is extended by his jealous nature. Sookie's best friend, Tara, is outwardly abrasive for reasons that are thought to be other than psychological. Her cousin Lafayette is an odd case, as the town's African-American Bisexual (Visexual too) Drugdealing short order cook. He's probably the breakout character. And of course, there's Sookie's brother Jason, who's high-energy libido and dumbness gets him into trouble on countless occasions. There are also some touching minor characters, like a war veteran, who's flashbacks to Iraq are sometimes confused with the Vampires in town. And there's the sweet town idiot, who's innocence astounds even Sookie when her loose friend is murdered, and his inner thoughts are of a much less catty nature than the rest of the town residents.

Watching it the first time, I was wondering "is the plot going to go anywhere soon?". Only after the end, did I realise the connections between what appeared to be a few random incidents in the town, and how far the characters had come. And they still had more to come. Bring on season 2!

Rating: - Fantastic

I watched this when it ran on Channel 4 and loved it from the beginning. Where Twilight is about abstinence this a much more gratuitous and sexy take on the vampire theme. It's extremely gory and violent in parts, there is plenty of sex, nudity and colourful language, but it all fits in fluidly with the general feel of the show. The characters are interesting and well depicted. It's hard not to get addicted to the show and the books are just as good.

Rating: - true blood excellent

Fantastic DVD I am absolutely hooked on true blood series now I have seen the first one and can't wait for the next season to be released on DVD. If you love vampire related stories then this is for you, it makes you laugh, cry and swone for more.Loved it highly rcommend it.

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