True Blood Rises From Its Coffin

The creator of Six Feet Under has taken it upon himself to bring a world of vampires to HBO in the new blood thirsty series - True Blood.

Going into this I was expecting cheesiness, camp and some cliches to develop their vampire characters. Then I sat down and watched it and that's exactly what we got.

The first thing you'll notice is that the show doesn't take itself seriously. The show starts and we're already in the realm of camp, and that doesn't bother me at all and it opens up the show for anyone to jump in and have fun.

Now in the pilot episode we learn that vampires are no longer legends, they are beings that have come out of their coffins and made mankind aware of their existence. In this time the Japanese have also created synthetic blood called "True Blood" and this bloody drink provides vampires with all of their nutrients they use to get from feeding off of humans.

Yet, now that vampires have reveled themselves to humans they want to be intertwined into human society. This of course doesn't sit well with some mortals and we are introduced to a world that is prejudice and discriminative against vampires - which plays out a lot like the X-Men movies and how the mutants were shunned by society.

I know that this theme has been over used and if used wrong it can come off preachy, but the show does it surprising well and never takes the themes too seriously.

Then we have the main character Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and the prejudice never occur to her and she seems intrigued by vampires. She is also psychic and I don't know if anyone else saw this, but I thought I saw her use some telekinetic power in a specific scene.

Paquin is the perfect person for the role of this innocent character, who always remains perky and happy despite being able to hear every ones thoughts - yup she can hear any ones thoughts, but vampires. This ability really allows the writers to give you a look at what the characters are truly about without saying it.

The problem I have with the cast is their bad accents. The show is set in Louisiana and none of these actors or actress' seem not to be from this area. Their accents are bad and the stereotypes they give the characters are also typical and seen coming.

Then we move to the center of the pilot episode and it's the meeting of Sookie and the vampire Bill who is played very well by Stephen Moyer. They combined the elements of every vampire that came after Rice and combine it with a southern gentleman and it turns out well but also cliche at times.

I don't want to get too deep into plot, because it has very adult themes. What I will say is that this show is fun just because of the performances from Paquin and Moyer, with out them this show wouldn't be worth watching. I will be coming back next week to see what happens and if I enjoy that episode I will keep returning.

This show is not for everyone and I stress that. Some people will find it over explicit in some scenes and also some will not be turned on by it's tongue and cheek material and its poorly executed southern accents.

7 out of 10