I loved season 1 of True Blood. But as time has gone on, I have grown increasingly disenchanted with the show, even as its popular reception has improved. Part of that is obviously due to the initial freshness of being immersed in a new fictional universe--a freshness that inevitably wears off.
But it’s more than that.
In season 1, I loved how the show functioned as a social critique. It was a metaphor for the intolerance that continues to exist in our society, with vampires standing in for the oppressed minority, and more specifically for the gay rights movement. The season's villain turned out not to be a vampire, but a vampire-basher. However, the show has largely abandoned this critique, as it has become clearer and clearer that in the world of True Blood, vampires are in fact murderous, dangerous creatures. Those who initially seemed different, such as Jessica and Mr. William Compton, have revealed themselves to be murderers whose demise would almost certainly save human lives. Even the spokeswoman for the movement, Nan Flanagan, has turned out to be a hypocrite who DOES feed on human blood. Not that this is necessarily their fault; after all, the food chain is the food chain. But the notion that vampires can peacefully coexist with humans and pose no threat to them has certainly proven to be a falsehood. As it turns out, we should have been rooting for the Fellowship of the Sun all along.
More troubling than the show’s abandonment of its original thematic intent, is how diffuse the drama has become. The world of True Blood has expanded exponentially, and its writers apparently feel obligated to give equal import and screen time to all its myriad subplots and characters. While some shows pull off such expansions magnificently, with True Blood the result has been that none of the plots seem to build any momentum. How can I sink my teeth into any individual plot line when it’s only given 2 or 3 scenes per episode? In The Wire, for instance, the show’s expansion worked because its various strands of plot were intricately connected and impacted one another. In True Blood, too many of the subplots feel completely isolated from the whole, such as Lafayette’s new romance, Sam’s relationship with his biological family, Jason and his mysterious new love interest, Jessica and Hoyt’s on-again, off-again relationship, and even Tara’s strange odyssey with Franklin--a.k.a. Vampire Paul Raines from "24" (as I continue to think of him).
Another aspect of the show that has expanded exponentially: the stupidity of Sookie Stackhouse. It’s difficult to care about a character who has lost the ability to think. There is a reason that great shows tend to boast brilliant protagonists, or at least protagonists that possess a certain type of brilliance applicable to their milieu: Vic Mackey, Al Swearengen, Walter White, Don Draper, Tony Soprano, etc. Intelligent characters are far more complex and compelling.
So why am I continuing to watch? Because I've invested too much time and energy in the show to quit now, and because despite my issues with it, I still usually find it an entertaining hour of television. However, I may not post long responses every week.
Season one of True Blood certainly had all the elements of a great television show – fully-developed characters with their own quirks, a romance with a bite to it, and the very cool marketing campaign for vampires recently out of the coffin. It was also a separate entity from the books. This “diffuseness” of the drama in seasons two and three could be blamed as a show losing its own purpose and turning to its original source (the books) for comfort. Need a major villain? Throw in a maenad trying to summon her god. What can Jason do when Sookie’s too busy chasing one vampire or another to spend time with her brother? Enter Crystal and the werepanthers. And zero impact from Sookie’s fairy revelation. Let’s hope True Blood finds its way back to its roots, which were very “Bad Things” in the best sense.
ReplyDeleteAnd thus was the first comment written.