Sonya very helpfully reminded me that we finished watching Season One of True Blood. What I am about to write may not make me popular (well, it might not if anyone actually read this), but I haven't exactly boarded the True Blood Fan Train and hugged the engineer. While the main story thread is intriguing and nicely developed, and the actors' performances are great, the show itself hasn't grabbed hold of me. I find that it suffers from the trap of several cable dramas in hitting the audience over the head with, "Look what we can do because we're on cable!" Sure, it makes the shows immensely popular with teenaged boys, but it's so deliberate that I find it distracting. In watching a commentary for an episode of Six Feet Under (see below), the show's creator makes mention of HBO saying, "Can you make this more f***ed up?" If that's not an indication of where they're coming from, I don't know what is. In theory, these cable shows are supposedly able to make the shows without the networks interfering and censoring so much, but obviously it's just a different sort of pressure at work. Just tell a story worth telling and I'll be happy. I don't particularly care if I see any other True Blood seasons.
I also finished watching Six Feet Under, season one, after the show was recommended by lots of people. Much more enjoyable than the aforementioned show, if you ask me, and even though I periodically find myself asking, "Seriously? Who does that?" the characters with all of their flaws are quite engaging and the storytelling's good. (And those fake dead bodies are top-notch! Ha!) Frances Conroy as Ruth (the mother) is fascinating. What a great actor!
1 comment:
And I love the humour they dig up (pun intended) on death and all its consequences.
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