Some True Blood for Monday
Anyone who reads this blog, or follows my Twitter stream will know I'm a huge fan of the horror-romance-mystery TV series True Blood. Based on the series of novels, The Southern Vampire Mysteries / Sookie Stackhouse Chronicles by Charlaine Harris (which I'm slowly making my way through), True Blood's central premise is that vampires have "come out of the coffin" so to speak and are attempting to integrate with a highly distrustful mainstream society. The series is chiefly set in the small fictional Louisiana town of Bon Temps and centres on a telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) who finds herself embroiled in all kinds of supernatural drama when she falls in love with Civil War era vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) - the first man whose mind she can't read. Sporting a colourful supporting cast and a pitch black sense of humour, True Blood is a delicious mix of the supernatural, sauciness, smuttiness and Southern cliches. It's also cable channel HBO's most watched show since The Sopranos... even if it obviously isn't to everyone's taste.
Think of True Blood as Twilight for grown-ups, where the vamps are fanged, like to fuck and generally don't give a damn about human feelings (let alone talking about them at length).
Season 3:
Anyway, the highly anticipated Season 3 of True Blood is set to start in North America in just under a month's time - on 13 June. Of course South African download junkies will be watching then too, although God knows when the show will be broadcast on subscription TV channel MNET for the rest of us locals 'down south'. My estimate is sometime between August and October.
Each season of True Blood is loosely based on one of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, and Season 3 draws its inspiration chiefly from the third book in the literary series, Club Dead. Without revealing too much, Season 3 will shake up the show's supernatural mix, introducing werewolves ("weres") and a much wider community of shape shifters ("shifters"). Sookie will also find herself allied with another prospective supernatural beau in the form of sexy working man werewolf Alcide Herveaux. What's that you say? Jacob who?
The first 30 second trailer for True Blood Season 3 debuted last week, and, as expected, it's full of tantalising naughtiness. It's worth noting at this point that it's becoming very difficult to compare the True Blood TV show to the books on which it is based. While Season 1 was very faithful to first novel Dead Until Dark, Season 2 was substantially different from its source material. Unlike most TV shows and films based on novels, however, the changes - typically involving characters - made by True Blood's writers have been intelligent and intriguing on the whole, without altering the spirit of the origin text. And for fans of the books there's now always an element of surprise while watching the show.
Really, at this point True Blood, the TV show, and the literary Sookie Stackhouse Chronicles can be appreciated as two separate but equally enjoyable pop culture entities.
Minisodes:
Along with the trailer for Season 3, HBO has also been generating excitement for the show through the release of minisodes - short 3-5 minute video clips that are standalone and set right at the end of True Blood Season 2. The minisodes are intended to better explain certain characters' motivations and highlight issues that will be relevant in Season 3 (e.g. in Minisode 3, Sookie's best friend Tara is absolutely disgusted at the thought of dating a vampire).
For the record, the use of minisodes is not at all dissimilar to the webisode approach adopted during the latter seasons of Battlestar Galactica.
Returning to True Blood, however, there will be 6 minisodes in total. The first 3 are embedded below, in order:
DVD and Blu-ray release:
It's been a very long wait for fans of True Blood, or anyone wanting to catch up with the series, but you'll be able to buy Season 2 of the show on DVD from next week, 24 May.
In South Africa, the 12-episode True Blood Season 2 will be retailing for R400, and available online for approximately R360. Meanwhile, Americans will be able to buy the Region 1 box set from 25 May.
Fangtastic times are ahead!
Think of True Blood as Twilight for grown-ups, where the vamps are fanged, like to fuck and generally don't give a damn about human feelings (let alone talking about them at length).
Season 3:
Anyway, the highly anticipated Season 3 of True Blood is set to start in North America in just under a month's time - on 13 June. Of course South African download junkies will be watching then too, although God knows when the show will be broadcast on subscription TV channel MNET for the rest of us locals 'down south'. My estimate is sometime between August and October.
Each season of True Blood is loosely based on one of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, and Season 3 draws its inspiration chiefly from the third book in the literary series, Club Dead. Without revealing too much, Season 3 will shake up the show's supernatural mix, introducing werewolves ("weres") and a much wider community of shape shifters ("shifters"). Sookie will also find herself allied with another prospective supernatural beau in the form of sexy working man werewolf Alcide Herveaux. What's that you say? Jacob who?
The first 30 second trailer for True Blood Season 3 debuted last week, and, as expected, it's full of tantalising naughtiness. It's worth noting at this point that it's becoming very difficult to compare the True Blood TV show to the books on which it is based. While Season 1 was very faithful to first novel Dead Until Dark, Season 2 was substantially different from its source material. Unlike most TV shows and films based on novels, however, the changes - typically involving characters - made by True Blood's writers have been intelligent and intriguing on the whole, without altering the spirit of the origin text. And for fans of the books there's now always an element of surprise while watching the show.
Really, at this point True Blood, the TV show, and the literary Sookie Stackhouse Chronicles can be appreciated as two separate but equally enjoyable pop culture entities.
Minisodes:
Along with the trailer for Season 3, HBO has also been generating excitement for the show through the release of minisodes - short 3-5 minute video clips that are standalone and set right at the end of True Blood Season 2. The minisodes are intended to better explain certain characters' motivations and highlight issues that will be relevant in Season 3 (e.g. in Minisode 3, Sookie's best friend Tara is absolutely disgusted at the thought of dating a vampire).
For the record, the use of minisodes is not at all dissimilar to the webisode approach adopted during the latter seasons of Battlestar Galactica.
Returning to True Blood, however, there will be 6 minisodes in total. The first 3 are embedded below, in order:
DVD and Blu-ray release:
It's been a very long wait for fans of True Blood, or anyone wanting to catch up with the series, but you'll be able to buy Season 2 of the show on DVD from next week, 24 May.
In South Africa, the 12-episode True Blood Season 2 will be retailing for R400, and available online for approximately R360. Meanwhile, Americans will be able to buy the Region 1 box set from 25 May.
Fangtastic times are ahead!
Comments
Thanks for the awesome post
Natashia
I'm dying for season 3!
So, it's a little more like Buffy for grownups...
And True Blood - amazing adaptation of the books. So tantalizing and sexy! Can't wait for Season 3!!
MJenks, I think you're right: True Blood is more Buffy in terms of it having a healthy sense of humour and sexuality - both lacking in Twilight (more the films than the books).
Anna, I'm on book 5 (Dead as a Doornail). I also just checked out your site, and it's awesome. Great work, from one vampire lover to another:)