Chelsea Mellin
Equinox Staff
It’s only a few weeks until summer, meaning my favorite bad-ass vampire series will be returning in just a few short weeks. If you are hunting for a guilty pleasure you wouldn’t want to watch with your parents in the room, this might be for you.
Gore? Check. Violence? Check. Sex? (Both homo and hetero) Check. Attractive Leads? (Human, vampire, and other) Check. Romance? Check. Hilarious one-liners? Check. This is not your run-of-the-mill sparkly, virginal, high school vampires, folks, this is “True Blood.”
The gritty dramedy premiered September, 2008 has since become a Golden Globe and Emmy nominated series. The main characters in “True Blood” even found themselves on a bloody cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. The release of the first season on DVD in 2009 saw more than one million copies sold in the first year. It has exploded in popularity over the second and third seasons, gathering as much controversy as it has critical acclaim. It isn’t hard to see why it is pretty popular for a cable television show.
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The series follows an alternative universe, where vampires have “come out of the coffin” now that they are able to survive on a synthetic blood substitute. Throughout the series, many other members of the mythological universe are discovered. The TV show stars Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse, a mindreading waitress at a rural Louisiana bar. The introduction of vampires into the area starts problems for Sookie, including her own vampire boyfriend Bill, played by Stephen Moyer. “True Blood” has been loosely based on the books in the “Southern Vampire Mysteries” series by Charlaine Harris, a New York Times bestselling author. Each season loosely corresponds with the book, and the upcoming fourth season is based on the fourth book, “Dead to the World.” If this book is any indication of what to come in the fourth season, it is going to be something you don’t want to miss.
This series has everything you could ever want. There is everything from vampire politics to tender romance, psychotic vampire violence to religious cults. Nothing in “True Blood” ever gets old or stale; instead it always feels like an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride. The vampires that reside in the “True Blood” universe are stunningly sexy, powerful and unyielding, adding to the never-ending string of sex, love, and violence. The story might be taking place in a world that doesn’t really exist, but its portrayal of the south and those humans who live there are realistic. It’s quite strange that a show based on mythological creatures could feel like a commentary on the world we are living in, but it’s true. More often than not its witty one liners and social situations feel like a observation on real-life issues. Sometimes, the comparisons between the “True Blood” universe and the real world are obvious, like the “god hates fangs” sign in the opening credits, but sometimes it goes a little deeper than that If you haven’t had the opportunity to check out “True Blood,” I urge you to seek it out. The first two seasons are available on DVD/Blu Ray, on Netflix, iTunes, and various places around the Internet. If you are anxious for the third season, it will be available on DVD/Blu Ray May 31, 2011. For those of you who have already discovered this gem of a series, HBO will start airing the fourth season starting June 26 at 9 p.m. Spoilers and teasers for the fourth season are already online, both official and unofficial. I have checked them out and I guarantee the fourth season of “True Blood” is going to be deliciously epic.
Chelsea Mellin can be contacted cmellin@keeneequinox.com
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You may have not intended to do so, but I assume you’ve managed to express the state of mind that a lot of folks are in. The sense of wanting to aid, but not knowing how or where, is one thing a lot of us are going through.