Promotional Photo

Anna Paquin cast as a vampire lover in True Blood

True Blood
Created by Alan Ball. Cast: Anna Paquin, Sam Trammell, Stephen Moyer, Brook Kerr. Premieres this fall on HBO, air date TBA.

In the press these days it's very en vogue to talk about HBO, more specifically on the declining state of its original programming. Yes, it's true that such HBO standbys as Sex and the City, Rome, Deadwood, Six Feet Under and The Sopranos have all either been cancelled or have simply called it a day. And, yes, I doubt anyone would be calling this a banner year for its original programming. Entourage has slipped more and more into the realm of broad, goofy humor (a recent episode had the boys bumming a ride on Kanye West's jet) and there's been endless water-cooler debates about either the brilliance or idiocy, depending on your perspective, of the The Sopranos series finale.

Plus, there's the little matter of Showtime kicking ass. Between The Tudors, Weeds, Californication, Masters of Horror and Dexter, Showtime built a stable and critically beloved cluster of original programming. These shows may not have the prestige or sheen of the HBO projects, but they do a lot to move the cable channel out of the ghetto of second-run movies and soft-core skin flicks. These days, Showtime is looking more and more like legitimate competition.

Because the cable channels work on a more internalized system of checks and balances (instead of advertising dollars they make decisions based on subscriptions and pay more credence to critical reactions and surveys), it's hard to know when a show isn't working or when it's fallen out of favor. Think about how long Arliss ran on HBO before someone gave them the memo that it wasn't in the least bit funny. And I think it may be too early to be lamenting HBO's loss of creative steam. After all, Flight of the Conchords is easily the weirdest, funniest, most gutsy (and sweet) comedy since Arrested Development's brief, brilliant run. (And what's more—it's been renewed for next year.) But a sitcom about a couple of gawky New Zealand folk singers trying to make it in New York doesn't generate the kind of deafening buzz that HBO is gunning for, no matter how hilarious it might be.

There is a project like this in the pipeline, however, and I cannot wait for it to be unleashed on the unsuspecting cable subscriber.The show is True Blood and its creator is Alan Ball, who guided five dysfunctional years of Six Feet Under. It is an adaptation of cult writer Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire novels and stars Anna Paquin as tough-as-nails barmaid Sookie Stackhouse. Excited yet? What if I told you Sookie was telepathic and that the show takes place in a world where vampires have come "out of the coffin."

Before you can claim that this is yet another instance of HBO's misguided loyalty (as many felt with Deadwood creator David Milch's difficult but underrated John from Cincinnati), I am here to say that it is not. This is the real, and really entertaining, deal.

I have read the pilot script and I must say that it is a big fat multi-layered club sandwich of brilliant. It's a violent, visceral, sexy page-turner for sure; I can only imagine what it'll be like when it's realized visually.

Considering there's no premiere date set (online reports indicate this fall but considering HBO's juggernaut of a marketing department, you'd think we would have seen something by now), I won't spill too many beans except to say that it's the closest thing we have to a scary, funny successor to Buffy's insurmountable genius. True Blood is self-referential without being obnoxious, the characters are genuine and it adds much to the mythology (in an opening scene we have an Ann Coulter?like vampire advocate spitting insults at Anderson Cooper), both in relation to the vampires and how humans deal with them.

True Blood is packed with the kind of itchy, must-see-next-week's-episode agitation last experienced in season one of Lost; it's the stuff heated message board posts are made of—and it's looking more and more likely that a vampire show could bring HBO back from the dead.

dtaylor246@aol.com