Blue Ray Movies

True Blood: The Complete First Season (HBO Series) [Blu-ray]

Stills from True Blood: The Complete First Season (Click for larger image)

TRUE BLOOD chronicles the backwoods Louisiana town of Bon Temps… where vampires have emerged from the coffin, and no longer need humans for their fix. Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin, Academy Award®-winner for “The Piano”) works as a waitress at the rural bar Merlotte’s. Though outwardly a typical young woman, she keeps a dangerous secret: she has the ability to hear the thoughts of others. Her situation is further complicated when the bar gets its first vampire patron - 173-year old Bill Compton (Steven Moyer, “Quills”) - and the two outsiders are immediately drawn to each other. Delivering the best of what audiences have come to expect from Creator and Executive Producer Alan Ball (writer of Oscar®-winning Best Picture “American Beauty”, creator of the Emmy® Award-winning HBO® series “Six Feet Under”), TRUE BLOOD is a dark and sexy tale that boldly delves into the heart - and the neck - of the Deep South.

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Eventually finds it’s own rhythm but not without hitting some wrong notes….
First off, don’t even try to compare this to Allen Ball’s groundbreaking first series, SIX FEET UNDER - the acting and writing of which was shoulder-to-shoulder with the SOPRANOS and made HBO what it was at its peak. If “SIX FEET” was a prime rib then this is cotton candy. And yet when you get past the shaky first 3-4 episodes it is absolutely a guilty pleasure.

I am not crazy about the casting Paquin as Sookie. She didn’t deserve the roll, let alone the Emmy she got for it. I don’t get HBO’s love affair with her. Her accent is annoying and she is so clearly “acting”. To add to the over-wrought awkward performances is her brother, Ryan Kwantan (who was clearly hired because of how he looks with his shirt off and not because of his acting…eeek) and Bill the Vampire who sounds like Elvis when he says “Aww Sookie” Most of the supporting players also look like they’re trying WAY too hard to appear southern or the clichet version of “gay” but end up coming off as plastic pretty people.

I love Vampire anything and while this show definitely feeds that monkey, I still wish it could be even be darker with more poetry and less camp. Ball’s use of the Vampire as an allegory for gay-tolerance is both brilliant in its concept and clunky in its execution. I was very excited to see this show and like many of my friends was disappointed.

As I continued to watch each week, I found some things very entertaining in the series, long after my friends had written it off as mere cheese. Funny how TRUE BLOOD got a second season ONLY 2 episodes into the first season which I believe happened because HBO needed a hit show so badly (and NEEDS Allen Ball) that they were going to give it a second season despite its obvious growing pains. We’ll see if HBO’s unconditional love for Ball pays off in season 2. I ultimately, think that HBO should hold all of its shows to the highest standard like it used to (when it HAD shows:-(

As I said, TRUBLOOD is junk food, a guilty pleasure and though mostly fun to watch, it isn’t really as aware as it thinks it is.

4 Stars “I wanna do bad things with you”
Since The Sopranos, Deadwood, Rome and Carnivale have left HBO, I was waiting for the next big thing from this once dominate original series network. To fill the void, I have been watching and remain hooked to Showtime’s Dexter.

Being a horror fan, I knew that this show would be right up my alley. I will admit that it took me longer than expected to get into the characters and the whole vampires being “out of the coffin” aspect. Since this is a show about vampires it thankfully doesn’t shy away from the gore and nudity either. You will get more than your fill in almost every episode. Forget the watered down Twilight crap, this is how vampires are suppose to be.

True Blood is a show that will grow on you and I am now really looking forward to the second season. By the way, sorry Dexter, True Blood has the best opening credits ever and a song that fits it like a savage bite to the neck.

5 Stars WOW! Best thing for vamps since Near Dark!
I’m really digging this backwoods hillbilly vampire vibe. It’s sort of a cross between Near Dark and Blade (without the Daywalker of course). I’ve only seen the first episode so I am anctiously awaiting the BD set.

4 Stars waiting for Season Two
I agree with everything in the previous reviews, especially the Tara/demon and V-fantasies subplots. I got hooked on the series from Episode One and bought a boxed set of the books since I didn’t want to wait for the new season to start. There are TONS of differences between the books and the series, though the series is able to stand on its own. I think the differences are good since you don’t know exactly where the HBO series is going to go from here.

I think Anna makes a wonderful Sookie and Stephen Moyer is a perfect Bill. However, I think Alexander Skarsgaard falls short of Eric. Sam Trammel does a great job as Sam Merlotte and I love how he and Anna are able to portray the intense relationship between the two characters. Of all the relationships between the characters in the books or the series, theirs is my favorite.

I did have difficulty with the series finale. Bill stepping into the sunlight to try to save Sookie was very romantic and incredibly unbelievable. Not to mention, if they are going to follow at least some of the plot of the books, it sets up a problem later in the series when Bill’s reasons for coming to BonTemp are revealed. And Tara’s car accident and rescuer will make season two interesting as to how they bring it all together with the plot line of the book, or if they even try.

I do have to say, I love the series-all in all. The acting is incredibly good and the story keeps you interested except for the few errant sub-plots that I watched once and then skipped over on subsequent viewings (thank God for Tivo). Sookie’s shock at her Grandmother’s death and everyone’s reactions to that were extremely well done.

I have had some people react negatively to all the sex scenes in the series but I believe they are an essential part of the books and the series. They give you alot of insight into the characters and how they interact with the world and each other.

So, 4 stars-if I could give it 4 1/2 I would and I will keep waiting for season two. I just hope they make it all the way through the series. If so, we have quite a few seasons ahead of us.

5 Stars great show
Robert Moore’s review was very dead on and even very informative as I did not know that the show came from novels. I do know that HBO passed up on a show about the comic book known as The Preacher(which was a horror/vampire comic book that was going to be 10 times worse than true blood in terms of sex, blood, gore, violence,religious themes and anything else that you could think of in a show like that;which is why they went with true blood instead bc it was toned down:))which I think they still could have both but probably never will. True blood is an excellent show that was finally starting to get very interesting now that more vampires and characters were being introduced and developed further. One interesting note I found funny was the fact that the only person who sounded like he was from the bayou in Louisiana was faking the accent the whole time and now everyone sounds like they are from the country, not by the bayou. I am from Louisiana and most cajun people speak how the character of Aaron was pretending to speak. And Mr. Moore, there are plenty of openly gay,flamboyant people in Louisiana. Apparently you have never been to Bourbon Street before. Not only that, but Anna Paquin won a golden globe for her work as well as her and Lizzy Caplin getting nude! Fantastic show keep up the good work.

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