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Well that was fast — only two outings and HBO renews True Blood lickety-split even though reviews were generally marginal, vampires are a tired premise, and the show is nothing more than a contemporary version of Interview With The Vampire with rough sex and dopey romance thrown in. So here’s what HBO brass Richard Plepler and Mike Lombardo won’t tell you but my research sources will: the pay channel is desperate. Sundays have been so decimated that the key adult 18-to-49 demo is down an average 60% from last year to this year. Eyeballs have sank as well. Sundays in 2003-2004 averaged 2.2 million households, then in 2006-2007 plunged to 1 million, then in 2007-2008 bottomed to just 343,000.
Now comes this salacious drivel based on Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series of books. And its pisspoor writing demonstrates that either Oscar and Emmy winner Alan Ball (American Beauty and Six Feet Under) is phoning it in or else he’s got a talent-less nephew with the same name. (What he does have is his UTA agent Sue Naegle now prez of HBO Entertainment.) So HBO gives it a decent launch with all the usual hype and glory so audiences are fooled into thinking there’s finally something good on. And the first Sunday night airing attracts 899,000 viewers, which is way better than any other series on the channel recently. And then the second Sunday night jumps 37% to 1.2 million plus substantial gains across all demos. And the series winds up ranked #9 among all cable shows with adults 18-49 and #8 with women 18-49 its second week out, which is meaningful since HBO only has 32% penetration nationwide.
So Plepler and Lombardo now think they’re heroes. I’m here to tell them they’re not. True Blood is the definition of craptastic. When Alan Ball was first pitching it, he told HBO, ”This is popcorn TV for smart people.” But I felt like a dumbass for watching all four advance episodes expecting some kind of intelligent life to emerge on the small screen. And if the pay channel bosses had half a brain between them, and taste that wasn’t in their mouths, they’d feel ashamed to feed this junky show to HBO’s already malnourished viewers.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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This time I agree. The show is awful. How the same guy who was behind American Beauty and Six Feet Under could be behind this, I can’t believe it.
Totally agree, Nikki, Vampires are the second most played out premise in Hollywood, behind zombies. Honestly, no matter how cute you make, it’s been done.
Wait, so HBO should be lambasted for renewing a welll-performing show at a time that their ratings are suffering?
Yeah, makes sense. CBS needs to cancel Two & A Half Men. Who cares if it gets good ratings? It’s no good.
I thought it would be so much better, but the writing lacked intelligence, and the acting, well, actors didn’t have a lot to work with. An underwhelming beginning. Honestly not interested in seeing what happens next.
I’m the target audience too, but bad is bad.
The books it was based on are campy trashy fun. Something got lost in translation for me. I’m giving it one more episode and if it doesn’t get better I’m done.
They really need to get a dialect coach in there so that everyone doesn’t have a different version of the same accent.
So Nikki, I take it you won’t be on the True Blood panel at next year’s Comic Con?
I really like this show so I digress with NF here. The ad campaign to bring it in was really good. Several of my friends and I were actually wondering who would want to buy a bottle of liquor that tasted like blood until we realized it was a farce. So that got us talking. I mean- yes it’s corney sometimes, based on a concept used repeatingly but they handle it in a new way. The perfect show to watch before gearing up for Monday. I like Vampires and I love Southern Gothic so we keep watching. It really does keep getting better with each episode. I’m happy HBO renewed it.
Needs more Ryan Kwanten ass.
True Blood showcases african american talent like few other shows on television. And to feature an african american male cross dresser? Where do you see risks like that being taken anywhere on television? Or in film for that matter. And why hasn’t anyone commented on the strength of the opening credits? True, credits do not a show make, but I think its representative of the envelope-pushing that might be expected a few eps down the line. They had to open big, so its not a surprise that the writing tended to be overly dramatic. But give Alan Ball some credit. Over time this may turn out to be gem like six feet under.
What happened to allowing a show to develop a little before completely writing it off??
give it time, give it time.
Man you people need to get a life! That show is awesome! It’s funny, it’s sexy, and sometimes a little scary it. LUV IT!
But Nikki, apparently gushing all over crap vamp stuff for the sake of just how awful it is is the new Cool Kids Clique these days. One word: Twilight. Seriously, sparkly vampires? Anne Rice is probably trying her damnedest to scrub out some new piece of drivel to capitalize while she still can. Course, she’d have to dumb down her writing more than it already has been to compensate.
Jpon,
While True Blood does have some african-american actors, I wouldn’t start celebrating. The sassy black friend who is throwing herself at the white town stud/slut? The male is a cross-dresser ala Meshach Taylor in Designing Women?
I don’t think many people would call these roles progress. Granted, in today’s Hollywood, there’s something to be said for just holding steady since there are so few minorities on TV but I wouldn’t really credit True Blood for any breakthroughs in casting.
I don’t see why anyone should be surprised this show is renewed, regardless of whether it’s good or not.
Fact: vampires are hugely popular amongst women right now. You can talk about S&M fantasies or whatever, but the novels that TRUE BLOOD are based on have a huge following and you can bet all the fans tuned in or started subscribing to HBO to see this. And look at the insane popularity of Stephenie Meyer’s Young Adult TWILIGHT novels, which are 100 times more repulsive – and Republican – than anything in TRUE BLOOD.
It’s a genre with a pre-sold niche audience, and HBO knew this going in. It wasn’t much of a gamble for them.
The acting has it’s moments, the premiss is completely lame, it’s like a good ol’ 50′s B horror flick, without the good, or the horror… No real room to grow plot lines- i.e. John from Cincinnati. All the best, but it’s a “dead show” walking;)
I willingly fall for the writer’s construct. And I am not surprised that viewership increased among women. It resembles the soap opera’s of the eighties…in a good way. I am not a professional reviewer and I have enormous respect for you, but I admit to willingly suspending my disbelief mostly because of the amazing chemistry between the two main characters….it might be cheese-y but it’s a guilty pleasure!
Kill it! Kill it! This vampire sucks whale.
I love this show. I didn’t like the first ep until I watched it again later in the week. The second one builds on the first and I love the characters, especially Anna Paquin and that black girl. It’s so much better than Entourage.
The insidious thing about the vampire genre is the way it plays on woman’s submission fantasies.
This kind of thing tends to set feminism back over 100 years.
I didn’t see it, Nikki. Now I won’t have to.
This and Fringe? Sounds like another lost year for TV.
Well, at least CNBC has some viewers. Haha!
TRUE BLOOD, aka Vampires Are People Too, is a mess. Awful concept, writing, acting (Lois Smith excepted), direction, production values.
Oh well. Maybe Cinemax will craft a sexy, scary, atmospheric, entertaining lesbian vampire series.
BREAKING: Nikki shows disdain for a work of mass entertainment. Millions die of shock.
First off, Blacks are over-represented on TV, far in excess, and I’m just waiting for someone with guts to file a lawsuit over discrimination (Blacks are only 12% of the population, have about 50-75% of commercial roles for example).
Second, while Tru Blood has revived the network a bit, there is implicit a cost. It’s not reached Sopranos type levels, it’s 32% penetration is the same as 2003 — I suspect there will be a lot of cancellations as belts are tightened.
But worse, as HBO is known as the gays and girls ghetto, with what amounts to soft-core vampire stuff, if/when the economy revives, they won’t get the male Sopranos office. They’ll be chasing after the same demo that can get that stuff for free on Bravo, Logo, Lifetime, Oxygen, WE, CW, etc. For the price for a small but significant uptick now.
Ball was never that good either. Cliches that were old in 1968. American Beauty was nothing but the same tired old Cliche fest by a guy who cannot understand the interplay between men and women or the nuclear family.
HBO was built as the “guy’s network” with Sopranos, that’s all gone now.
“No real room to grow plot lines- i.e. John from Cincinnati.”
You can only grow a plotline when the show has one in to begin with. “John from Cincinnati” wasn’t canceled; it was euthanized.
I like it. Anna P is amazing and while it falls on it’s face sometimes I think it’s new and engaging. But did anyone notice last week when Anna and her beau are out for a walk you can see their breath? Yikes. Not what I think of in LA.
As far as the lighting prod values etc…I think many of you are missing the point. Alan Ball didn’t want to adhere to vampiric cinematic tradition, and he’s not. It’s soapy, sudsy and pulpy and if you take it at face value. Entertaining.