Television: True Blood

DESPITE THE rich scope of vampire mythology in literature and culture, few TV series have ever veered from the Dracula cliche.

Most, despite the runaway success of more quirky shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, were hit-and-miss.

Think Forever Knight, based on an 800-year-old vampire detective that was more CSI than supernatural or Kindred: The Embraced, clearly aimed at role-playing geeks. Then there was the spectacular failure of Blade when they tried to make it into a series and replaced Wesley Snipes with American rapper Sticky Fingaz. It was canned after one season.

So my hopes weren't high as I approached the new US TV series True Blood, which starts here this week, adapted from the best-selling Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris.

On the surface, it didn't promise much beyond tired old cliches the main character is Sookie, a mind-reading white-trash waitress from deepest darkest Louisiana who falls in love with a vampire.

To make matters worse, I found out that the lead actress was none other than our own Anna Paquin. She may have won a Golden Globe this year for her role in True Blood, but my first and most lasting impression of her is as a whining nine-year-old in The Piano.

Call me unimaginative, but I just couldn't picture her out of braids and in what promises to be the sauciest vampire show on TV so far. But happily, Paquin proves her mettle from the first episode, with a Southern accent so thick you couldn't cut it with a stake.

Read on from the Sunday Star Times in New Zealand http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/entertainment/2259340/Television-True-Blood