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| CD Details | Released
26 October 2009 | | Certificate
18 | | Distributor
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True Blood: Season 1 (18)
 Review
Twilight fans, cover your eyes. HBO’s latest runaway hit (in the States it’s garnered the network’s biggest ratings since The Sopranos), True Blood invites serious comparisons to the Bella-and-Edward saga: both are based on a series of novels (Charlaine Harris’ The Southern Vampire Mysteries actually predate Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight books, though they’ve reached the screen later); both are set in a sleepy, backwater town; and both involve a love triangle between a naive human, a shaggy shapeshifter and a courtly vampire. But while the tween-targeting film franchise involves nothing racier than hand-holding, True Blood is fair seething with sin. We’re talking voodoo exorcisms, sleazy sex, weird violence and more pairs of jiggling breasts than TV viewers have seen since the heyday of the Bada Bing.
The action goes down in Bon Temps, a burg in the swampy outskirts of Louisiana with an ironic name — no-one here’s having a good time. While set in the present day, vampires have “come out of the coffin” and now co-exist with the rest of us, resisting their primal urges by drinking a synthetic blood-substitute called Tru Blood. Tension is rife between monster and man. Vampire groupies, charmingly dubbed ‘fangbangers’, are ostracised for craving sex with the undead, while others profit from the narcotic qualities of their blood, kidnapping them and draining the ‘V’ to sell to addicts. In the middle of all this is wide-eyed Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a bar waitress with the power to read minds.
Coming from Oscar-winning Alan Ball, the mordant genius who created funeral-home show Six Feet Under, you’d expect this set-up to yield a smart socio-political satire. But Ball, it seems, has given in to the humidity and indulged his trashier impulses. Ludicrous (and ludicrously clichéd) characters, like Sookie’s lunk-headed brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten) or flamboyantly gay short-order cook Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), are matched by soap-opera storylines, one of which involves Jason OD-ing on V and getting an erection that looks like an eggplant. Anyone looking for vérité in their vamp-drama will have to keep searching.
Those who enjoy a guilty pleasure of an evening, however, will likely find this a fun if over-cooked ride, a juju-laced, borderline-bonkers slab of Southern Gothic that delights in its pulpiness. Season 2, which aired to better reviews than the first in the US, widens out into a battle between vampires and evangelical Christians — the blood’s going to run and run...
Reviewer: Nick de Semlyen
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Average user rating for True Blood: Season 1
| | | Stop watching it when it turned into teenage love drama.
Best title song and sequence, though... ... Read More
| | | scabzine About me | | 19:48, 17 November 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | RE: True Blood: Season 1 | | | Sexy and stylish - a violent, erotic series with a touch of dark humour. Not the best, but it is Twilight for the older audience and it is certainly the most fantastic vampire venture to have ever hit the small screen.
7/10 ... Read More
| | | robwillphill About me | | 19:52, 05 November 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | | | Deffo gets better in the second season due to less Sookie camera time. More focus on the politics of the vampire community would elevate this show to much greater heights.
"Charlaine Harris’ The Southern Vampire Mysteries actually predate Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight books, though they’ve reached the screen later;" First episode of true blood aired 09/07/2008 Twilight premiered 17/11/08. So True Blood came first unless my calendar skills need recalibrating.
... Read More
| | | nickthestag About me | | 13:26, 05 November 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | Fangtastic!! | | | First Six Feet Under (best tv show ever)and now True Blood.
Alan Ball I salute you. ... Read More
| | | arronskie About me | | 18:03, 27 October 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | RE: Gets Better and Better | | the first two episodes of ood season 1strange one, and the first taste was quite average but the third episode named mine was most convincing for me.
... Read More
| | | alexjoe224 About me | | 09:19, 26 October 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | Gets Better and Better | | | After watching the first 2 seasons in 4 days flat, This series is everything Twilight should have been. The characters are utterly convincing and Ball has managed to weave intimacy and horror so perfectly that you forget whose side you're on.
Season 2 does step it up a notch, with a far more sinister narrative, but it wouldn't be without it predecessor. One of the best TV shows in a while where you forget that your watching a cliche because it's so expertly written. Bravo! ... Read More
| | | billkiller About me | | 12:40, 20 October 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | True Blood Season 1 | | | I really enjoyed watching True Blood. It brings a new spin on the vampire lore. I think the actors did a great job and some of the adaptions for the show which are not in the books, worked in the shows favour. ... Read More
| | | white mage About me | | 20:03, 17 October 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | enjoyed most of it | | | Quite a decent show overall, however the finale was a little disappointing. Bit of a rag tag effort to shoe horn in the obvious serial killer to boost the final hour. concentrate on the characters, which make the show what it is. ... Read More
| | | bonchez1904 About me | | 23:31, 15 October 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | RE: True Blood: Season 1 | | true blood wat a load of shit it is vampire hillbillies wat next ah i blame it on the buffy series dat started it all off damn vampire movies ... Read More
| | | Steven Seagal Mark 2 About me | | 15:28, 11 October 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | Best thing on tv! | | | I watched the first 10 episodes in one day! I have never done that with a tv show before. I recommend it to all my friends now they love it to! Empire you've lost it ... Read More
| | | SweetAs About me | | 16:35, 05 October 2009 | Report This Post | |
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| DVD Extras |
True Blood: Season 1
Released: 26 October 2009
No ‘making of’ doc, no video interviews. But what you do get is decent, like the commentary tracks that accompany half of the episodes — in the pilot track, Ball talks through the show’s origins, claiming he came upon Harris’ books while killing time before a dentist’s appointment, and slagging off the colour tinting of the Underworld films. You’ll need the Blu-ray for the best feature: a picture-in-picture mode that has Lafayette popping up to archly comment on the action on screen.
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