DVD. true blood

diana suckered me into seeing this. i had no interest in it, but she got a copy from her friend, so we gave it a try. on a friday night we watched one, figured we had some extra time, so we watched another. by sunday evening we had finished the whole season! the story follows a southern town as they deal with the fact that vampires are real. sookie, a local waitress, becomes entangled with a vampire who is traveling through. over the course of the season we follow their relationship as they try to make sense of their differences as well as everyone elses opinion of what's going on. also, there happens to be a slew of murders going on in this town and some people are pretty curious about the vampire's involvement.over all the series is pretty good, there is a strong southern dirty style to the show and an interesting premise at its base: if vampires no longer need to feed on humans, could they be accepted and live among us? this question is just one of many different layers that the show deals with, this question in particular is used as a metaphor for the plight of gays in america. there are other deep issues as well, but the show rarely takes time to linger on the issues, the depth does not bog down the action. i enjoyed the twists and turns, the murder mystery, and the relationships between many of the different characters. with that said, this show falls into the same problem that so many other shows succumb to: the characters are not even remotely believable. they act one way during one episode, and then change completely to suit the story told in the next episode. and worst of all- almost all the problems they face could be solved with just a little clear thinking and a good honest discussion. i always think that its a bad sign of writing to contrive a conflict instead of dealing with any real issues. sookie, the main character is one of the worst culprits of them all. she's about as clear headed as a bowl of mud. most of the time i didn't really feel very sorry for her, she brought it on herself! oh, but even worse then her is her brother jason! what a complete idiot! he life is terrible and falling apart because he just does whatever others tell him to do- grow a pair already! but back to the good: the quality of the show is very high, it looks great. another aspect that i really enjoyed, which is easily noticeable when you watch the episodes back to back, is that each episode starts off immediately after the last one like its one big giant movie with no wasted time to slow down between episodes.