True Blood: thumbs up so far
Sep. 25th, 2008 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperI've been reading the Sookie Stackhouse books for quite a while now. As I've posted before, I kind of fizzled out a bit on them for fear that they were about to cross into the territory of too much sex, not enough story; I'm behind by three books at this point, I think.
However, now that I've seen the shiny new show True Blood, my affection for the earlier books may have been rekindled.
Here's the thing... the show gets the overall vibe right, not only of the books in general, but also of the South. I've seen complaints that the accents are too over the top, but, speaking as one who's lived among those accents, they really rather aren't. In fact, after![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mamishka showed me the first couple of episodes, my Kentucky came roaring back with a vengeance, so hard that it shoved me almost down to Tennessee. This quite startled poor solarbird, who jumps every time she hears a renewed drawl coming out of my mouth. *^_^*;; Even the credits seem to establish the proper mood. I like the overall look of them, and the song played over them works too.
But more importantly, characters and plot. Anna Paquin is pretty much nailing Sookie, and the gentlemen playing Bill and Sam and Jason are all solid. I've seen complaints that the guy playing Sam looks too young, but for Meems and me, after a while he actually doesn't--he's a little grizzled around the edges if you look closely enough. Tara is not a mouthy black chick in the books, but I'm liking her implementation so much in the show so far that I don't care. Grandma Stackhouse absolutely rocks.
There's more sex than I care for--but hey, it's HBO, so this hardly surprises me. And in actuality, there doesn't seem to be more sex in this version of the story than there is in the books; it's just that as a writer, Charlaine Harris tends to cut a lot of fade to blacks. Whereas on TV, it's all right on camera. I also note that the on-camera sex we've had so far all involves Sookie's brother, not Sookie herself, and it's actually contributing to the plot and the characterization of Jason (which is to say: horny little idiot ;) ). So I don't particularly mind this, so far.
I'm really appreciating that the show so far seems to be following the initial book fairly closely, taking its time to build the tension of what's going on. A different show might have tried to cram a lot more action into each episode, but for me, the way they're doing it really works. It gives them time to increase the atmosphere and the general creepiness of dealing with vampires. We as viewers are getting into it an inch at a time, right along with Sookie. And since this is yet another show about vampires, it helps a lot to remind people that OH YEAH THIS is why these creatures are scary.
Keep it coming, HBO. I'll be checking the site regularly now that I know the episodes are getting streamed up there. And I think I'll re-read the earlier books again, too.
However, now that I've seen the shiny new show True Blood, my affection for the earlier books may have been rekindled.
Here's the thing... the show gets the overall vibe right, not only of the books in general, but also of the South. I've seen complaints that the accents are too over the top, but, speaking as one who's lived among those accents, they really rather aren't. In fact, after
mamishka showed me the first couple of episodes, my Kentucky came roaring back with a vengeance, so hard that it shoved me almost down to Tennessee. This quite startled poor solarbird, who jumps every time she hears a renewed drawl coming out of my mouth. *^_^*;; Even the credits seem to establish the proper mood. I like the overall look of them, and the song played over them works too.But more importantly, characters and plot. Anna Paquin is pretty much nailing Sookie, and the gentlemen playing Bill and Sam and Jason are all solid. I've seen complaints that the guy playing Sam looks too young, but for Meems and me, after a while he actually doesn't--he's a little grizzled around the edges if you look closely enough. Tara is not a mouthy black chick in the books, but I'm liking her implementation so much in the show so far that I don't care. Grandma Stackhouse absolutely rocks.
There's more sex than I care for--but hey, it's HBO, so this hardly surprises me. And in actuality, there doesn't seem to be more sex in this version of the story than there is in the books; it's just that as a writer, Charlaine Harris tends to cut a lot of fade to blacks. Whereas on TV, it's all right on camera. I also note that the on-camera sex we've had so far all involves Sookie's brother, not Sookie herself, and it's actually contributing to the plot and the characterization of Jason (which is to say: horny little idiot ;) ). So I don't particularly mind this, so far.
I'm really appreciating that the show so far seems to be following the initial book fairly closely, taking its time to build the tension of what's going on. A different show might have tried to cram a lot more action into each episode, but for me, the way they're doing it really works. It gives them time to increase the atmosphere and the general creepiness of dealing with vampires. We as viewers are getting into it an inch at a time, right along with Sookie. And since this is yet another show about vampires, it helps a lot to remind people that OH YEAH THIS is why these creatures are scary.
Keep it coming, HBO. I'll be checking the site regularly now that I know the episodes are getting streamed up there. And I think I'll re-read the earlier books again, too.