The last few nights we've been watching the first season of True Blood, and I've been pleasantly surprised.
Having read the books (at least, everything out so far in softcover, because I can't bring myself to pay for hardback for these), I had expectations going in.
There was far more sex than I expected. It's also a lot more free with swearing than I anticipated, but I'm not really used to watching HBO, either. But the sex- DAMN. Not always that hott, but fairly graphic and a LOT of it.
I do find myself comparing to the books quite a bit. Mostly I feel that the departures from the book have been good so far, but that enough of the book has remained that this is more than a "Based on the novels of" type show, and more of a re-telling with some liberties taken. Whatever- it's working for me.
In fact, some of the departures are, in my opinion anyway, driving the show. It's certainly not riding on the (non-existent) acting abilities of Anna Paquin. The "secondary" characters of Tara (who is COMPLETELY different than in the book) and Lafayette (who is not so much different as more fleshed out) make this show considerably more enjoyable. It only makes them that much better that the actors portraying them are rather easy on the eyes.
"Tara"- Rutina Wesley and "Lafayette"- Nelsan Ellis
(Of course, that's not a still of Tara from the show, just a particularly... interesting... picture of the actress who portrays her.)
And Anna Paquin as Sookie is... Anna Paquin as Sookie. She's awful. Downright DREADful. Watching her act is like watching a train wreck, if there could ever be an utterly unconvincing and boring train wreck. Is that possible? Maybe that's her real superpower- being awful in the most boring way possible. She has all the acting depth of a piece of paper. Her Torgo-like attempts at flirting (except with several minutes of akward facial twitches instead of several minutes of akward reaching) is painful. The object of her flirtations, Bill, may not have screamed, but I wanted to. I've seen better acting in Junior High drama productions.
And, while she may be attractive when she's not twitching or talking, those conditions are met only about 2% of the time, leaving us with the other 98% when we have to endure looking at her REALLY NOT ATTRACTIVE face. ("I hate you and your ass face!" [Name the quote!]) In fact, it's difficult for me to find many, if any, redeeming attributes. It's sad, really.
(Thank goodness for Tara and Lafayette. Let's scroll back up and look at those pictures some more until we recover...)
But even with Sookie being so terrible and boring, I still can't get enough of this show. I don't know if it's actually good or a guilty pleasure, but it's certainly addictive.
