Sunday, October 11, 2009

In Treatment and True Blood from Guardian UK

....Sorry British broadcasters, it's an HBO love-in this week, especially now that True Blood has made the leap from the outer limits of FX, where the first season aired in July to a terrestrial debut on C4. I ignored it in the summer partly because I was on holiday the week it kicked off but also because I think vampires suck. But I kept an eye on it… and of course it doesn't suck at all.

In a one-croc town somewhere in the deep south wherein bloodsuckers roam free-ish, surviving mostly on synthetic blood but sometimes the real thing, after dark, obviously, and on the fringes of society (where having sex with a vampire is apparently something "everybody should do once"). Here, among the southern squelch and steam, kooky 'n' cute waitress Sookie Stackhouse (li'l Anna Paquin, all growed-up) meets sexily undead Bill Compton, aka Stephen Moyer, who always looked like he could go the distance from Brentwood, Essex to Brentwood, LA (anybody remember Men Only or NY-LON a handful of years ago? No, fair enough) so it's good to see he's finally found a role he can get his tee… No, OK, I won't, I promise. In fact I believe it may be a sacking offence.

Anyway, this show not only has the coolest HBO title sequence since the Alabama 3's "Woke up this morning/ Got yourself a gun…" (Jace Everett singing "Before the night is through, I wanna do bad things with you…") but the discovery that Moyer and Paquin are not only a couple in real life but actually engaged and therefore soon to be married (in which case – yippee! – till death they do part), may explain why their chemistry is hotter than a bowl of something Cajun with chillis, cooked by Jamie in a bit of a strop – while the dialogue is dark, the sex properly steamy and that whole trendy vampire shtick as gruesome and twisted and funny as you'd expect from Alan Ball. Who gave us Six Feet Under, for which are truly grateful, Amen. Now, let's see those plates licked clean – yup, blood and guts and gore, and spilt milk, and greens, and all…

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