TV's brightest for 2008 - Philadelphia Inquirer

By Jonathan Storm -Inquirer Television Critic

6. Dead and undead. Vampires pass away more frequently than you think. While forlorn fans were still lamenting the demise of CBS's Moonlight, HBO was working feverishly to resurrect the genre.

Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer, and the fascinating actors who surround them, help make True Blood one of the premium network's best series in a werewolf's age. And the show is helping to revive HBO's fortunes, which have been sagging in the shadow of Showtime's more-than-10-percent growth the last two years.

After a slow start, True Blood viewership has grown consistently, topping six million a week and putting these vampire chronicles on the way to becoming HBO's third-most-popular show ever, after The Sopranos and Sex and the City.