True Blood (Sangre fresca)

True Blood suffered the same fate as Heroes: clutter. The first season was excellent, both the world of humans and the world of vampires respected the rules of logic, were clearly defined and their intersection was interesting and attractive. Just like its main characters, whether it was the dignified vampire Bill, the over-the-top Lafayette, the sex-addicted Jason Stackhouse, or the macho sheriff Bellefleur. Season 2 and 3 still continued in a more or less tolerable trend, with the latter adding the funniest character of the whole series: the loquacious vampire Russell Edgington. But starting with season 4, the team around Alan Ball completely lost the plot and flooded the show's world with bizarre, nonsensical storylines with even more bizarre characters, as if they were trying to fill the 600 minutes of one season and didn't know which way to go. And they made quite a mess of it. So after all the shapeshifters, panthers, plasma-beam fairies, voodoo monsters, witches, fire spirits, and vampire castes, I was just waiting for aliens to show up, or a bloodthirsty Godzilla to come out of nowhere. During season 5, in the scene where the ghost in the form of a fire golem was chasing the cook Terry, I asked myself why am I still watching this weird crap, and reached for the DELETE button deliberately and with gusto. (08.12.2012)

A modern fantasy series that looks at old vampire legends through different eyes than horror classics like Bram Stoker. The series presents us with a world where vampires are widely known and their community is inseparably connected to the human race. They strive for political rights, love, hate, and intrigue, and work similarly to humans. The series is definitely more mature and smarter than, for example, Buffy or Angel, but it doesn't remotely reach the quality of top mystery genre series like Twin Peaks or The Kingdom. True Blood is not sophisticated and layered enough for that. As is typical for similar high-quality American series, the genre exaggeration serves the screenwriter to portray real political, social, and family conflicts. The struggle between two different communities is actually an allegory for racial issues. The casting of Anna Paquin in the lead role is a plus, as she is a sufficiently adaptable and likable actress. However, in my case, the promising start was hindered by the realization that sometimes the series takes itself too seriously, and instead of light ironic detachment, it produces sentimentality or pathos. Overall impression: 60%. (10.10.2010)

After five and a half seasons of this series, a wonderful new world opened up before me from the novels of Charlaine Harris known as "The Sookie Stackhouse Novels." An alternate reality in which vampires have left their coffins and become part of "our" lives. I find it very sympathetic that Harris openly admits to being inspired by the world of Anne Rice, because the only place in America that I consider a natural habitat for vampires is, quite simply, Louisiana, with its ubiquitous Mississippi swamps. The individual characters become interesting story agents over the course of a few episodes and evolve until they pass out of sight. I hope it's not going to be forever just with Sookie and Bill. (28.06.2012)

Who would have expected that Oscar-winning screenwriter Alan Ball would decide to adapt a paranormal romance about the tumultuous adventures of telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse and her encounters with vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, fairies and witches. The series is gothic TV-fantasy, but it can also be seen to some extent as a psychological probe into the everyday lives of lonely outsiders. The vampires who come out into the open and try to integrate into society (after the Japanese invent synthetic blood) are an obvious sexual metaphor. Ball, however, stated that True Blood is such an antidote to the seriousness of his other series Six Feet Under, and that he basically treats this series as popcorn entertainment for smart people. At its core, then, it's a clever metaphor, but with each new season (where new creatures are introduced) it becomes increasingly eccentric and a guilty pleasure for those who want to unwind with a wild ride packed with sex, violence, pitch-black humour and wacky moments. In short, the kind of TV entertainment during which you prefer to change the channel as soon as an someone else enters the room, and switch back after they leave. Still, True Blood has become a huge pop culture phenomenon (credit for that goes to, among other things, a cleverly provocative ad campaign and savvy merchandising). (01.09.2014)