Watching on Wednesday: True Blood (Season 1)

Title: True Blood (Season 1)

Type: Show

Age Group: Adults

Release Year: 2008

My Rating: 4.5/5

Vampires are now among us. Some humans accept them, while others wish for them to be destroyed.

Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) is a pretty barmaid living in Bon Temps, Louisiana. Only her closest friends and family know that she is able to hear other people's thoughts. When Bill (Stephen Moyer), the vampire, comes along, she can not tap into his mind at all. This draws her towards him and it becomes the start of a new thrilling adventure for Sookie and the people around her.

I finished the entire series in a day. Yes, the entire series. Which was a little unfortunate because I had nothing to do thereafter. There might be some spoilers in this review.

Let me start with the characters. The first episode, I didn't really like Sookie. She was too perky in the beginning and it slightly annoyed me. However, she got better by the second episode. I like how she doesn't delude herself and when things get serious, she does distance herself away from Bill and anyone dangerous. Towards the end of the season, there were times where she got annoying as she was attached to Bill when he was away. However, she wasn't as bad as two other characters that I ended up hating.

Tara (Rutina Wesley), Sookie's best friend, is the first person I dislike. She has problems with her life and pretty much seeks out attention for it. I could understand that having an alcoholic mother is difficult but throughout the season, it seems like Tara is just making things worse for herself. Honestly, she continues putting herself in a position where she gets depressed and angry all the time. It made me pretty peeved. But, one person that annoys me even the heck more is Jason (Ryan Twanten), Sookie's brother. He's pretty much this sex crazed guy that continuously sleeps around. But that is not the part that bothers me. It's his stupidity. If you have seen the first season, you will know what I'm talking about. He is the most absolute idiotic person EVER. He is easily manipulated and will always listen to whomever is talking to him. He gets into so many stupid, stupid situations that it aggravates the hell out of you becayse he doesn't learn from ANY of them! I wanted to throw a boulder at him every time I saw his face.

Towards the end, I was so sad when my favourite character died. Literally, out of all the characters, he had to die! Anyone thought it was unfair when they could've written off like, Jason, or someone else? I was a little surprised (or maybe not) that this series is likely going to expand out to other supernatural creatures. I haven't seen the second season yet to see how much it will expand out to.

Anyway, enough with the ranting. I find that this series has a really engaging plot. It tackles common problems we see around us, such as discrimination and drug abuse. New situations always arise, keeping the audience engaged into the story. There's one main problem from the beginning where someone has been going around killing people. You don't find out who until the end though. In between all that, you get the sub-stories for the rest of the characters. But theirs are mended in perfectly that you can enjoy the side stories also.

I highly recommend True Blood. It is definitely different than most vampire stories. However, there are many explicit scenes so make sure that children or parents are not present when watching!