TRUE BLOOD - Episode 1 Review:"Strange Love"
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HBO's vampire series "True Blood" kicked off last night with it's premier episode "Strange Love". The episode is the series pilot where a waitress as a local New Orleans bar meets a vampire named Bill, and from there a complicated relationship begins. So what did I think of the initial episode of the show? Do I think it has legs? All of those questions will be answered soon enough within this review. But for now, let me tell you what I did and didn't like about it, starting off with the "likes" first. I did like the gothic look to it, which is perfectly expected and normal considering it's filmed in Louisiana, the deep south. If you're familiar with 2005's releases "The Skeleton Key" with Kate Hudson, and "Venom" with Agnes Bruckner, then you already know the landscape of the series visually. Another like of mine was Anna Paquin's character Sookie...well...atleast halfly. Paquin plays the role of a southern barmaid pretty well, and her look is certainly right for the role and the show overall. I also appreciated the attempt at adding some diversity to the show with two black main characters, one of the standouts being Sookie's best friend Tara Thorton, played by Rutina Wesley.
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Although in most shows or series filmed in New Orleans, the casting directors are quick to represent the correct racial makeup of the city, unlike "Seinfeld" which managed to get through an entire 8 seasons without representing the extreme diversity of midtown New York City. The character was originally supposed to be played by Brooke Kerr (Whitney from Passions), but I felt Wesley was alot more authentic in look and attitude. I also liked the opening scene of the first episode, which had a young couple going into a local store and getitng into a verbal confrontation with the storeclerk posing as a vampire, and a real vampire/redneck. That then leads to a confrontation between the poser vampire and the real vampire in which the vampire/redneck tells threatens the poser for "pretending to be one of them." This scene is especially classic because the poser is dressed as a total goth while the redneck is dressed like a typical beer-swilling hick.
So it really reverses a full-on stereotype of how the viewer may have thought the whole situation was gonna play out. If writing like this continues on within the show, future episodes will indeed be quite entertaining. Now onto what I didn't like about the first episode of "True Blood". The biggest problem I had with it was the bottom half of the cast. While there are familiar names within it such as Ryan Kwanten (Dead Silence), I think better actors could've been chosen, and adding to that...they needed to add some serious depth to some of the characters they already have. In the moments when Paquin's character or Wesley's characters aren't on screen...the interest level of the show really begins to hit rock bottom. Hopefully that will change if and when some more characters are added to the show later on, or when Sookie and Bill's relationship is cofused upon more.
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Speaking of Bill, the vampire who Sookie becomes enamored with in the middle of episode one...it's already apparent that he's gonna be one of the series more annoying characters. I don't know what Hollywood's obsession is with making vampires out to be sweet-talkers, but I would've preferred it if the vampire Bill were a smart-ass type, or a brooding and slighly mean type. See James Marsters as Spike in the "Buffy" series on how to write a good, interesting vampire character. Bill instead is a huge stereotype of the vamps we've seen in recent movies. Charming, soft-spoken, and suave. Chicks might dig it, but for a dude such as myself, it's just eye-roll time.
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Episode one doesn't contain many action scenes, which is expected considering it is an introduction to the players and sets up future storylines. However, there are some good dramatic moments, including two vicious assaults, and alot of great comedic moments where Sookie, who possesses the unique ability to hear peoples thoughts...hears some of the most interesting and chuckleworthy things rattling around in peoples minds about herself, and others. This should become a key staple of the series, watching anxiously every new episode to see what the people who Sookie wait on at the bar are gonna say without really "saying it". The real downsides to episode one though are the sex scenes involving Kwanten's character and a slew of women, setting his character up as the town man-whore. There are times where said scenes feel forced, and the writers had nowhere interesting to go and so they decide to toss us a sex scene involving Kwanten's character Jason. Personally, I'm not a fan of sex scenes, I'm more of a "singular female nude scene" guy myself. But while the scribes may have felt this adds to the series adulthood, I felt that the character of Jason was heavily overexposed...and this only in the first episode! The guy gets as much if not more screentime than Sookie does! Which isn't right by my count at all. All in the all, episode 1:"Strange Love"...gets a 2 and a half star rating from me. I think this show has some promise if it pushes the envelope in a clever way, and doesn't lend itself to too much toilet humor and sexcapades.
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