True Blood (Spoilers)(Merged from both True Blood threads)

[Listener]

I got my hands on the preair of HBO's new series "True Blood", based on Charlaine Harris's "Southern Vampire" novels.  Anna Paquin is the star.

Having read the first two books in the series, I'll say that so far, it's pretty true to the novels, compared to many other shows loosely based on fiction.  They do a nice job explaining just why Sookie takes to Bill so easily.  I'm not thrilled with the ending of the episode, but they needed a cliffhanger to lead you to Episode 2, and I know what happens so I know the beginning of it will be pretty kickass.

Paquin does an amazing job at expressing her character's amusement at the vampire's name.

I think this'll be a good one when it hits in September.

[DKT]

Thanks for posting this.  I've been meaning to check out those books -- I keep hearing good things about them.  Too bad I don't get HBO, though.  Guess I'll wait for DVD.

For anyone interested, there's a great interview-type thing with Charlainne Harris on the Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing podcast. 

[Listener]

Thanks for posting this.  I've been meaning to check out those books -- I keep hearing good things about them.  Too bad I don't get HBO, though.  Guess I'll wait for DVD.

For anyone interested, there's a great interview-type thing with Charlainne Harris on the Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing podcast. 

I don't get HBO either...

The books are... okay.  I kept waiting for them to get better, and they didn't.  They were interesting, to be sure, and I liked them, and the editing was WAY better than whomever edits Laurell K. Hamilton (bitter, party of one), but it's been a while.  I'll have to get my copy back from my friend.

[stePH]

Thanks for posting this.  I've been meaning to check out those books -- I keep hearing good things about them.  Too bad I don't get HBO, though.  Guess I'll wait for DVD.

For anyone interested, there's a great interview-type thing with Charlainne Harris on the Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing podcast. 

I don't get HBO either...

The books are... okay.  I kept waiting for them to get better, and they didn't.  They were interesting, to be sure, and I liked them, and the editing was WAY better than whomever edits Laurell K. Hamilton (bitter, party of one), but it's been a while.  I'll have to get my copy back from my friend.

I'm not into vampire lit; haven't read one since Rice's Interview (didn't bother with the rest of the series and didn't watch the movie either).  But I'm interested in Tanya Huff's "Blood Ties" series, having watched the adaptation series on teevee (Lifetime channel, I think).

[Listener]

Thanks for posting this.  I've been meaning to check out those books -- I keep hearing good things about them.  Too bad I don't get HBO, though.  Guess I'll wait for DVD.

For anyone interested, there's a great interview-type thing with Charlainne Harris on the Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing podcast. 

I don't get HBO either...

The books are... okay.  I kept waiting for them to get better, and they didn't.  They were interesting, to be sure, and I liked them, and the editing was WAY better than whomever edits Laurell K. Hamilton (bitter, party of one), but it's been a while.  I'll have to get my copy back from my friend.

I'm not into vampire lit; haven't read one since Rice's Interview (didn't bother with the rest of the series and didn't watch the movie either).  But I'm interested in Tanya Huff's "Blood Ties" series, having watched the adaptation series on teevee (Lifetime channel, I think).

My problem with vampire lit is that you have four basic schools: camp, cutting-edge, classical, and omgtehsecks.  Southern Vampire is a combination of cutting-edge and omgtehsecks.  I think it really lends itself to a video presentation quite well.

Laurell Hamilton used to be cutting-edge but now she's sex.  Anne Rice is classical, as is Dracula.  Camp is more along the lines of humorous vampire stories.

[DKT]

Interesting...For some reason up until today when you posted here and when I saw this pic and article on AICN, I thought this was more of a sex comedy with vampires than cutting edge.  But "sex scenes in the pilot are Exorcist-level disturbing sounds pretty damn disturbing." 

[Listener]

Interesting...For some reason up until today when you posted here and when I saw this pic and article on AICN, I thought this was more of a sex comedy with vampires than cutting edge.  But "sex scenes in the pilot are Exorcist-level disturbing sounds pretty damn disturbing." 

WEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell... this is a VERY minor spoiler, but I didn't consider the one "scary" sex scene very scary.  Weird, and a little creepy, but not scary.  The sex between the humans was scarier on a safe/sane/consensual level.  Nothing is as strange and creepy as what we humans will do to each other...

[sirana]

Hehe, funny thing. I thought it was based on this book series and I wanted to keep the hell away.
But then I discovered it was based on another series entirely and now that I've seen the first three episodes I like it.
The characters are solid, the writing is fun, but what really makes this ring for me is the Deep South/Vampire setting. There is just something about Rednecks that really resonates well with the living dead.
Anybody else watching it?

[Heradel]

Hehe, funny thing. I thought it was based on this book series and I wanted to keep the hell away.
But then I discovered it was based on another series entirely and now that I've seen the first three episodes I like it.
The characters are solid, the writing is fun, but what really makes this ring for me is the Deep South/Vampire setting. There is just something about Rednecks that really resonates well with the living dead.
Anybody else watching it?

I have been, I was going to post a thread on it last weekend but life intervened. I'm not a huge vampire person, but I've been liking it, though the episodes always ending on a cliff-hanger/shocker is getting a little annoying. But I like the sense of it being more of a long movie than episodic, which makes it hard to 'end' an episode. 

Edit:[subtitles] It's better than it's marketing campaign. Also, a pre-air of the pilot was discussed in Chamber of Horror here.[/subtitles]

[sirana]

Also, a pre-air of the pilot was discussed in Chamber of Horror here.[/subtitles]

Ahh shoot, I missed that. Sorry. I'll repost it in that thread and you (or another mod) can delete this thread.

[sirana]

Hehe, funny thing. I thought it was based on this book series and I wanted to keep the hell away.
But then I discovered it was based on another series entirely and now that I've seen the first three episodes I like it.
The characters are solid, the writing is fun, but what really makes this ring for me is the Deep South/Vampire setting. There is just something about Rednecks that really resonates well with the living dead.

[sirana]

Also, if this series makes money maybe that will give HBO enough courage in book series adaptations they finally greenlight GRRMs Song of Ice and Fire.

[Heradel]

I wasn't saying it to say that this thread shouldn't exist — that was a discussion of it based on a leak (not necessarily the final cut), and it had been dormant for a while.

There is a question of what forum it should be in — Vampires can fall under Fantasy and Horror, but the synthetic blood aspect is SF makes it probably SF according to Heinlein's definition because it is necessary for the story.

[Russell Nash]

Also, if this series makes money maybe that will give HBO enough courage in book series adaptations they finally greenlight GRRMs Song of Ice and Fire.

HBO doesn't work like a regular network.  This show can not make or lose money*.  HBO is subscription based.  The story goes that both Rome and Deadwood were big ratings successes, but since they both were watched by the same people, HBO only needed one of them and canceled Deadwood. 

True Blood is an attempt to get new people to sign up for HBO.  If the series has horrible ratings, but everybody who watches it hadn't been a subscriber before that makes it a success**.  HBO won't sink money into two expensive series at the same time if they play to the same audience.

*DVD sales is another issue.
**If there are enough new subscribers that is.

[Russell Nash]

I merged the two threads.  I just thought it was silly to have so many multiple posts.  I'm open to moving the thread to whatever board people think it belongs in.

[Listener]

So I watched the "actual" first episode... except for a bit of recasting, it didn't change any.

Still converting episodes 2 and 3 to iPod format so I can watch them.

[Talia]

I'm an avid fan of the books, so I was a bit leery about the show. Its not bad, so far.. Sookie's pretty good, Bill is very good (in terms of matching the mental picture I have of him from the books). Its just a bit.. I donno, disconcerting, for me, the leap in mediums. Part of the appeal of the books for me is Sookie's narration, which obviously can't be a part of the show.

Just odd. I just finished the most recent book in the series before starting to watch the show, so the contrasts are all the more glaring.

[Heradel]

I'm an avid fan of the books, so I was a bit leery about the show. Its not bad, so far.. Sookie's pretty good, Bill is very good (in terms of matching the mental picture I have of him from the books). Its just a bit.. I donno, disconcerting, for me, the leap in mediums. Part of the appeal of the books for me is Sookie's narration, which obviously can't be a part of the show.

Just odd. I just finished the most recent book in the series before starting to watch the show, so the contrasts are all the more glaring.

I think they've said they'll stick the plot of the first few books before veering off.

Is it just me or do books tend to work better as series than movies?

[Russell Nash]

Is it just me or do books tend to work better as series than movies?

They definitely do.  There's normally just too much info in a book to fit into a two hour movie.  That's why IMHO the best Stephen King movies are made from his short stories.

[stePH]

Is it just me or do books tend to work better as series than movies?

They definitely do.  There's normally just too much info in a book to fit into a two hour movie.  That's why IMHO the best Stephen King movies are made from his short stories.

Curiously enough, they're also the ones that don't have "Stephen King's ..." in the title.

Except for Apt Pupil.  I thought that one was toss, despite a fine performance by Sir Ian.

[Listener]

I like the way True Blood is allowing us to see the lives of the other characters in Bon Temps, stuff we couldn't see with a first-person POV. Episode 6 kind of threw me, though, in that Sookie wakes up the day after her grandmother's funeral and THAT is when she goes to Bill for some sex and neck-biting? It threw me in the book too though.

Lafayette is a MUCH more likeable character in the show.

[Heradel]

I like the way True Blood is allowing us to see the lives of the other characters in Bon Temps, stuff we couldn't see with a first-person POV. Episode 6 kind of threw me, though, in that Sookie wakes up the day after her grandmother's funeral and THAT is when she goes to Bill for some sex and neck-biting? It threw me in the book too though.

Lafayette is a MUCH more likeable character in the show.

Referring to the white-ed out part, it didn't seem that weird for me. Her being so hyper-happy afterwards was a little weird, but I'm attributing that to the vamp sex doing some weird stuff with her hormone levels because otherwise I think she's still be dealing with her grandmother's/mother figure's death. I did think it was weird that no one brought up the passing though to say it was odd that she was like that.