True Blood
Jun. 13th, 2009 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxSo, I have the weekend off, yay! (I had another 100 hour time sheet. However, the building that will not die, went to the printers Friday. So, again, yay!) However, it began pouring rain late yesterday afternoon and continued to do so until this afternoon, and I've had little energy to do more than vegetate. In that vein, I've ended up watching the entire Season 1 of True Blood on HBO OnDemand, and now I have a few things to say about it.
First off, let me admit that I found the series to be entertaining. It is watchable and it goes at a fairly fast clip. On the other hand, entertaining though it may be, I don't think it's very good. I'll get to what I feel are the flaws in a minute. I first wanted to stress first that I watched the entire season and that says something. I found it entertaining or I wouldn't have done so. And, at the very least, the vampires don't sparkle.
Now, my issues, let me show you them:
* Vampire aesthetics. There are several artistic choices they've made with the vampires that I simply dislike. I don't mind how they die when staked. Joss Whedon invented dusting, so if "True Blood" wants to go the "dissolve in a blood puddle of disgusting goo" I'm okay with that. It's more disgusting, but it's HBO and makes as much sense as anything. So of all my vampire aesthetic issues, the pure grossness of their death isn't one of them. However, the special effect with their teeth really bothers me. I don't like the switchblade sound. And I don't like the way that instead of their canine teeth becoming the 'vampire fangs' it's the two teeth beside their front teeth. It makes all the vampires look buck-toothed when they go fangy. It's... dorky. Also, speaking of dorky, I don't like the speeded up look of the 'superfast.' It too looks awkward and dorky. Where the show has done a pretty good job of making vampires menacing, the menacing quality is changed with just how darn awkward the vampy things are on screen. Those artistic choices don't work for me.
* The southern accents are excruciating. Look, I'm southern. I grew up in Alabama for goodness sakes. But the accents on the show are deplorable. They seriously need to tone down the twanginess.
* Another artistic choice issue, why is every house -- other than Mary Anne's -- falling into ruin? What is it about vampires and living in complete decay. Bill has a freaking projection TV and a Wii, but he can't be bothered to notice that the wallpaper is literally falling off the wall? And, okay, I can see some metaphorical point to the vampire's house being in partial decay, but every house is. I'm sorry. I know that the characters aren't exactly upwardly mobile to any large degree, but still. Southerners don't all live in hovels or Tara. Not every character's home should look like there's a million years of mold mixed with peeling paint.
* The biggest issue of all is that I frequently and perhaps mostly find the two leads to be annoying. Bill (and Eric for that matter) just are not that hot. Not that they have to be hot. But sheesh, the show keeps pretending like they are, but Bill has a strange (okay Victorian) haircut and Eric looks like a posuer (I'm sorry, Owen Wilson playing Hansel in Zoolander rendered that look (and posing) useless for 'cool'. Get a brush and get the blond locks out of your eyes!) Back to Bill, while I don't find him nearly as hot as Sookie, I don't have actual issues with his looks or dress (though it does little for me). But at least not parody (or sparkle). Where he falls into cliche is...
Dear god, did he sit hunched over in a dark room reading poetry by candlelight? Angel couldn't pull that broody-boy shit off and it's still not working! Bill has entirely too much brooding vampire-hero stuff going on. Maybe having the -- excuse me from using the word -- childe forced on him will help because she at least cuts through the crap. With Angel it still had some whiff of "not done to death" about it. But it's now over a decade later, and Bill really needs to get his own schtick. And since I'm bringing Buffy characters into it... I must have had civil rights drilled into me in 8th Grade civics or something because when they had Bill go out and murder Sookie's uncle who had molested her as a child it reminded me of how happy Riley was to announce they he had the keys to all the stores in Sunnydale. I have some inkling that I'm to think it's cool and yet my first reaction is draw-back and have an inner voice bitch about civil rights. And, speaking of civil rights, hand it to Tara for flat out saying that Bill actually owned slaves. Himself. All in all, this just isn't a vampire that makes me swoon. And even with all of that, he annoys me less than Sookie!
I'm not sure at what point in the season Sookie began to annoy the crap out of me but I suspect it was right around the time that she and Bill consummated their relationship. The OTT perkiness began to grate. Are we supposed to view her reactions as natural or unnatural? Because they seemed unnatural to me. And the entire world -- and whether or not it was worth being happy about -- seemed to begin to revolve over whether or not she was having sex with Bill. Giddiness is one thing, but walking around on air the day after finding her grandmother murdered in the kitchen just felt inappropriate. When it got around to Sookie's big fight with Tara, was I supposed to be on Sookie's side? Because I wasn't. Sookie was accusing Tara of being self-involved? Really??? Does Sookie know anything about the crap going down in any of her friends lives? No. For her everything revolves around whether she is getting laid. And having everyone just fascinated by her, be it Bill, Sam, Eric, or Pam is overkill. The girl is skirting quite close to Mary Sue, so they don't have to have everyone fascinated/in heat/in love with her. It was enough at two. And then there's the hypocrisy in her. Good grief, the hypocrisy! She gets mortally offended at anyone calling her a "fang banger" but she also looks down on... 'fang bangers.' What, pray tell, is the difference between her and the other men and women who seek out vamps for titillation and sex because I swear with the way she is so myopically caught up in having sex with Bill, I really am not seeing the difference here. She may say it's 'love' but, I'm not really buying. It's not like she and Bill have conversations where she actually knows the stuff he's doing -- or even asks. Hell she rendered his whole issue with having killed Long Shadow as "vampire politics" and pouting as though he had abandonned her rather than his being tried for vampire murder. And then there's stuff like when he arrived at the end of the season saying he'd healed himself because "I've fed", my thought was "On what?" Sookie, on the other hand, just went straight into the kissing. I guess I can cut some of this slack if we're supposed to see Sookie as a hypocrite who is as intoxicated by vampire blood as her brother who is addicted to the stuff, but I keep feeling that we're supposed to see it as "true love" and... um... I don't.
So, there it is, the two leads annoy me. That can't be good. And, I have to say that their romance was the least interesting thing on the show to me. The characters I actually like were Tara, Lafayette, and Sam. Tara and Lafayette at least have humor and a way of pointing out the real truth of a situation. Unfortunately Lafayette was murdered by the finale which is a shame because he was the most dynamic and interesting character on the show. And as far as Tara and Sam go, I feel more for both of these characters than I have for anything involving Sookie or Bill. I've enjoyed Tara's storyline more. And I'm also more curious about where her plot is going. (What is Mary Anne anyway? And, well, Mary Anne is Michelle Forbes so she's bound to rock.) And Sam comes off as someone with an actual heart (though he really needs to cut out the love of Sookie before it turns into stalking. Tara was right when she told him that is never going to work out. Damn fool should know, shape shifters and werepeople never 'get the girl' over the brooding vampire. Besides, Sookie isn't all that and a bag of popcorn.)
I even found Sookie's brother storyline interesting. Not rootworthy because he's a dog and because of what he and Amy did to that poor vampire. But even if he's an oversexed idiot, at least his plot was interesting.
Basically, I like most of the characters. I like Tara, Sam, etc. It's just that I wish that Sookie and Bill weren't quite so cliched and annoying.
First off, let me admit that I found the series to be entertaining. It is watchable and it goes at a fairly fast clip. On the other hand, entertaining though it may be, I don't think it's very good. I'll get to what I feel are the flaws in a minute. I first wanted to stress first that I watched the entire season and that says something. I found it entertaining or I wouldn't have done so. And, at the very least, the vampires don't sparkle.
Now, my issues, let me show you them:
* Vampire aesthetics. There are several artistic choices they've made with the vampires that I simply dislike. I don't mind how they die when staked. Joss Whedon invented dusting, so if "True Blood" wants to go the "dissolve in a blood puddle of disgusting goo" I'm okay with that. It's more disgusting, but it's HBO and makes as much sense as anything. So of all my vampire aesthetic issues, the pure grossness of their death isn't one of them. However, the special effect with their teeth really bothers me. I don't like the switchblade sound. And I don't like the way that instead of their canine teeth becoming the 'vampire fangs' it's the two teeth beside their front teeth. It makes all the vampires look buck-toothed when they go fangy. It's... dorky. Also, speaking of dorky, I don't like the speeded up look of the 'superfast.' It too looks awkward and dorky. Where the show has done a pretty good job of making vampires menacing, the menacing quality is changed with just how darn awkward the vampy things are on screen. Those artistic choices don't work for me.
* The southern accents are excruciating. Look, I'm southern. I grew up in Alabama for goodness sakes. But the accents on the show are deplorable. They seriously need to tone down the twanginess.
* Another artistic choice issue, why is every house -- other than Mary Anne's -- falling into ruin? What is it about vampires and living in complete decay. Bill has a freaking projection TV and a Wii, but he can't be bothered to notice that the wallpaper is literally falling off the wall? And, okay, I can see some metaphorical point to the vampire's house being in partial decay, but every house is. I'm sorry. I know that the characters aren't exactly upwardly mobile to any large degree, but still. Southerners don't all live in hovels or Tara. Not every character's home should look like there's a million years of mold mixed with peeling paint.
* The biggest issue of all is that I frequently and perhaps mostly find the two leads to be annoying. Bill (and Eric for that matter) just are not that hot. Not that they have to be hot. But sheesh, the show keeps pretending like they are, but Bill has a strange (okay Victorian) haircut and Eric looks like a posuer (I'm sorry, Owen Wilson playing Hansel in Zoolander rendered that look (and posing) useless for 'cool'. Get a brush and get the blond locks out of your eyes!) Back to Bill, while I don't find him nearly as hot as Sookie, I don't have actual issues with his looks or dress (though it does little for me). But at least not parody (or sparkle). Where he falls into cliche is...
Dear god, did he sit hunched over in a dark room reading poetry by candlelight? Angel couldn't pull that broody-boy shit off and it's still not working! Bill has entirely too much brooding vampire-hero stuff going on. Maybe having the -- excuse me from using the word -- childe forced on him will help because she at least cuts through the crap. With Angel it still had some whiff of "not done to death" about it. But it's now over a decade later, and Bill really needs to get his own schtick. And since I'm bringing Buffy characters into it... I must have had civil rights drilled into me in 8th Grade civics or something because when they had Bill go out and murder Sookie's uncle who had molested her as a child it reminded me of how happy Riley was to announce they he had the keys to all the stores in Sunnydale. I have some inkling that I'm to think it's cool and yet my first reaction is draw-back and have an inner voice bitch about civil rights. And, speaking of civil rights, hand it to Tara for flat out saying that Bill actually owned slaves. Himself. All in all, this just isn't a vampire that makes me swoon. And even with all of that, he annoys me less than Sookie!
I'm not sure at what point in the season Sookie began to annoy the crap out of me but I suspect it was right around the time that she and Bill consummated their relationship. The OTT perkiness began to grate. Are we supposed to view her reactions as natural or unnatural? Because they seemed unnatural to me. And the entire world -- and whether or not it was worth being happy about -- seemed to begin to revolve over whether or not she was having sex with Bill. Giddiness is one thing, but walking around on air the day after finding her grandmother murdered in the kitchen just felt inappropriate. When it got around to Sookie's big fight with Tara, was I supposed to be on Sookie's side? Because I wasn't. Sookie was accusing Tara of being self-involved? Really??? Does Sookie know anything about the crap going down in any of her friends lives? No. For her everything revolves around whether she is getting laid. And having everyone just fascinated by her, be it Bill, Sam, Eric, or Pam is overkill. The girl is skirting quite close to Mary Sue, so they don't have to have everyone fascinated/in heat/in love with her. It was enough at two. And then there's the hypocrisy in her. Good grief, the hypocrisy! She gets mortally offended at anyone calling her a "fang banger" but she also looks down on... 'fang bangers.' What, pray tell, is the difference between her and the other men and women who seek out vamps for titillation and sex because I swear with the way she is so myopically caught up in having sex with Bill, I really am not seeing the difference here. She may say it's 'love' but, I'm not really buying. It's not like she and Bill have conversations where she actually knows the stuff he's doing -- or even asks. Hell she rendered his whole issue with having killed Long Shadow as "vampire politics" and pouting as though he had abandonned her rather than his being tried for vampire murder. And then there's stuff like when he arrived at the end of the season saying he'd healed himself because "I've fed", my thought was "On what?" Sookie, on the other hand, just went straight into the kissing. I guess I can cut some of this slack if we're supposed to see Sookie as a hypocrite who is as intoxicated by vampire blood as her brother who is addicted to the stuff, but I keep feeling that we're supposed to see it as "true love" and... um... I don't.
So, there it is, the two leads annoy me. That can't be good. And, I have to say that their romance was the least interesting thing on the show to me. The characters I actually like were Tara, Lafayette, and Sam. Tara and Lafayette at least have humor and a way of pointing out the real truth of a situation. Unfortunately Lafayette was murdered by the finale which is a shame because he was the most dynamic and interesting character on the show. And as far as Tara and Sam go, I feel more for both of these characters than I have for anything involving Sookie or Bill. I've enjoyed Tara's storyline more. And I'm also more curious about where her plot is going. (What is Mary Anne anyway? And, well, Mary Anne is Michelle Forbes so she's bound to rock.) And Sam comes off as someone with an actual heart (though he really needs to cut out the love of Sookie before it turns into stalking. Tara was right when she told him that is never going to work out. Damn fool should know, shape shifters and werepeople never 'get the girl' over the brooding vampire. Besides, Sookie isn't all that and a bag of popcorn.)
I even found Sookie's brother storyline interesting. Not rootworthy because he's a dog and because of what he and Amy did to that poor vampire. But even if he's an oversexed idiot, at least his plot was interesting.
Basically, I like most of the characters. I like Tara, Sam, etc. It's just that I wish that Sookie and Bill weren't quite so cliched and annoying.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-14 06:55 am (UTC)I thought Bill killing Sookie's uncle was cool, LOL. He's a vampire. Killing is no big thing to him, and probably his first reaction to any problem is "kill it." But I also expected there to be some sort of consequence. Since he's supposed to be playing nice with humans, this isn't the sort of thing he should be doing.
Tara is awesome, from the first moment she threatened her manager at the store that her "baby daddy" would come beat him up.
I haven't read the books, but it seems that everyone is just as enamored with Sookie in them. She dates different supernatural guys and discovers her otherwordly heritage. Which borders more on Mary Sue for me. But I haven't read the books, so someone who has, feel free to call me out.
I think Bill and Sookie's problem toward the end of the series is not communicating. He won't tell her about his vampire problems, and she accuses him of abandoning her. And really, Bill, could you not have stopped Longshadow from killing Sookie without staking him? You knew the consequences for staking a vampire.
>>What, pray tell, is the difference between her and the other men and women who seek out vamps for titillation and sex
Tru wuv, obviously. Though, remember how excited she was when Bill first came into Merlott's?
no subject
Date: 2009-06-14 06:52 pm (UTC)And I think the problems related with Bill killing Sookie's uncle is the fact that it was an isolated scene without consequence. If he's mainstreaming and there's all this stuff about vampire-rights, then they have to live by the law. Not doing so should result in the same penalty as anyone else. Secondly, because there were no consequences and because it was a totally isolated scene, I'm left wondering whether we really were to see it as a "white knight" action, because... no. It needed some more consequences so as to make a bit more sense of how the show intended it.
And I truly see no difference in Sookie and the other 'fang bangers' other than her feeling she's just 'better' because she's doing the exact same thing. She lit in on Bill because he was a vampire. She gets off on being bitten while having sex. She's all about getting off on the vampi-ness, so other than naive claims of 'twu wuv' she's doing the exact same thing as all the people who go to Fangtasia looking for excitement and sex with vampires. She's just wrapped her urges up by romanticizing it, but, at the end of the day it's not very different, not enough for her to feel particularly superior to anyone else having sex with vampires.
That said, the show is entertaining and I'll continue watching.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-14 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-15 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-15 05:21 pm (UTC)I enjoyed Tara's voodoo priestess plot because it made sense in that universe. She lives in a world where fairly recently vampires (and increasingly other things) have been proven to be real, so when her alcoholic and abusive mother announces that she (the mother) needs an exorcism because she's posessed by a demon, Tara is skeptical... but eventually gives in because it might be true. So, still fully skeptical, she goes along with her mother's exorcism, which seemed to actually cure her mother, only for the voodoo priestess to tell Tara that she (Tara) is possessed by an even worse demon. Tara scoffs at that, but it preys on her because (as the adult child of an abusive alcoholic) she does have issues. Eventually, even against her own best judgement, Tara comes to believe that, yeah, maybe she is possessed and forks over a not insubstantial amount of cash to pay for her own exorcism, which was pretty scary... only for her later to discover that the voodoo priestess is in fact a fraud. She chose not to tell her mother, as faith in the exorcism has kept her mother sober for several months, but the whole thing did send Tara off the rails, making her easy prey to Maryanne and the audience knows that Maryanne is in fact some sort of supernatural being, we just don't know what (other than she a)doesn't believe in gods b)seems to have an endless supply of tropical fruit c) has a house with copious amounts of white d) is played by Michelle Forbes who usually turns in interesting performances. And in the season primiere the NotReally!Voodoo Priestess turned up dead with her heart having been ripped out with Tara pulled in for questioning... best part of that being that it was Voodoo Priestess dead in the car instead of Lafayette! Lafayette lives! Yay!
Because the gay prostitute drug dealer or, as he thinks of it, 'entrepreneur', Lafayette, is the most interesting character on the show. Even if he's locked up in the Vampire Sheriff's basement chained up like Kunta Kinte in retribution for his having dealt 'V' (which is vampire blood which is a hallucinagenic drug in their world) he lives! And has a storyline. So yay.
And I was even somewhat interested in Sookie's brother's plot. Not because he's interesting in and of himself, but because it provided necessary counterbalance if they really want anyone to take the whole "vampire rights' plot at all seriously. When even the vampire 'hero' Bill is in fact murderous, it makes it hard to think that the anti-vampire people are prejudiced rather than just 'not crazy'. Having the plot where Sookie's brother and his girlfriend had a nice, wholly non-threatening vampire chained up with silver in the basement in order to drink his blood because of their 'V' addiction at least muddied the waters on exactly who is the victim and who is the victimizer here.
Unfortunately, as promising as some of the secondary characters are, I find the Sookie/Bill thing to be rather lame. Been there, done that, shouldn't the people producing the show know enough about the genre to know what has already been done to death? (I saw an interview with the writer/producer that he'd never seen Buffy or read Anne Rice. Well, if you're going to be treading some of the same ground, it would behoove him to know what ground has already been trod).