Question of the day: what is the deal with True Blood?

Okay, I'm a day late and a dollar short. Literally. Or make that a year late, because our only TV is Netflix, which means we get TV shows a year later than everyone else unless I make my mom record them for me. We just finished the second season of Mad Men, we're about to watch last year's season of Dexter, and last night we started True Blood.

I guess my question, having just watched episode #1, is this: How do people like it? Does it evolve and improve? I'm sure it must when Eric comes on. But I bet he doesn't have that much screen time. Or does he?

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the Sookie series, and I so want to like the show, and so does Mr. Crane, and we're sticking with it, but neither of us are so sure. It's possible we are terribly spoiled by shows like, oh, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER.

Which brings me to my next item: last year there was this link on Marta Acosta's Vampire Wire to an interview where Alan Ball seemed to boast that he never watched Buffy. (Uh! I couldn't find it! But here's a link to an interview with another mention of comment.)

To Mark and me, Alan Ball deciding not to taint himself by watching Buffy is like a writer saying she wants to write a great classic novel, but not wanting to taint herself by reading Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Jane Austen, Graham Greene, etc. In fact, that's barely a metaphor--it's exactly what Joss Whedon is to TV. (Mr. Crane feels even more strongly about this.)

Does Sookie evolve into somebody to somewhat admire?

Part of me liked Ball's choice to make Sookie a goofy wacky girl, but it robs the show of a shining moral center, like Buffy. In fact, in the books, Sookie is a shining moral center of sorts. I know Sookie can't be Buffy, but does Sookie evolve into somebody to somewhat admire?

Do adaptations have less excuse for not finding character sweet spots right away?

A lot of series that go on to greatness start annoyingly at first. A good example here is Star Trek: The Next Generation. I wanted to throw the toaster at the TV whenever Data would come on the screen with his lack of understanding of idioms, and Number One with his whole schtick, but that series became its own glorious animal once these characters got their right footing. Ball, however, is adapting a high-quality, character-rich series, so why did this pilot feel flat? Pat of me cuts Alan Ball less slack, because he started with ready made characters. Is that unfair?

Anticipation

One of my prime measures of the goodness of TV, movies or books is fun stuff to look forward to--a character to understand, a struggle I'm invested in resolved, a mystery solved, somebody realizing something fun, a couple united. Are people feeling it?

OMG, how tedious of me posting on this!! But now I have the benefit of everybody's experience.

A few random notes:

• Okay, finally I see why everyone is so annoyed by Tara.
• It is sort of weird to know what is going to happen. When the dog came around, I really wanted to tell Mark, Hey, guess what, that's really the bar owner, Sam! But I had to keep my lips zipped.
• I see Alan Ball saw fit to keep Bill every bit the lame hero as he is in the series. Oh, of ALL the things to be true to, why that one?
• The moments I liked Bill were when he was being really old fashioned.
• Again, I was pleasantly surprised that Sookie came off as a bit of a wacky girl. I thought that was a great choice. From the pictures of the show, I totally thought she'd just be the neighborhood bombshell telepath.

Please advise!!

True Blood cast photos

Okay, I'm still worried that the series, based on Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels, will be more silly & goofy than exciting and romantic.  That is, more Gilligan's Island than Buffy.

Please, no!  But anyways, being in a time wasterly mood, I found these cast pictures interesting. Here up top you see Tara and Sam Merlotte.  They seem like good picks. 

And below Sam and Tara we have Eric. I'm not so sure. He seems like a pretty good pick, but not perfect. It would be hard to approximate the Platonic Ideal of Eric that I have in my mind, though. And by that, I definitely don't mean platonic as in Three's Company. Anyway, this guy, I don't know. But maybe he has great screen presence! 

And below, Jason and Sookie.  Bill in the sports coat.  See more here.

True Blood pilot pre-review location, and I tell an arcane insect fact

True Blood Pre-pilot review!

Oh, I am such a lame poster!  But for those of my buddies who are excited about True Blood series, Voxy over at Suburban Trash has mysteriously been able to view the pilot, and has a very thoughtful review here.

And she has pictures!  Very intesting--and a fine blog, too. 

Late breaking update: Okay, Marta Acosta at Vampire Wire weighs in on this troubling tidbit: Alan Ball has never been a big fan of vampire mythology, hasn't seen an episode of Buffy, and has never read Anne Rice.  Whaaa?  Read about it here. 

Wasp in my kitchen

A wasp was in my kitchen tonight as I was trying to make dinner and really unnerving me. Further, I have actually never been stung by a bee or wasp, so I could be horribly allergic! Anyway, after watching it warily for 10 minutes, because I don't like to kill them but I have to be in a certain mood to catch and evict them, a duty usually reserved for DH, who was not present, I thought, I wish it would just magically disappear.  

And then it went on a window behind a blind and it disappeared!!  

But then I looked out the window and saw other wasps flying around outside the window, and also, a baby wasp was on the window, and I realized, shit, wasps can get in and out of the kitchen and there is a nest outside of it.  And then I ate dinner.  If it continues to escalate, I know that it will be very easy to fix this wasp's nest hole-in-window frame problem.  In fact, the only tool I will need is a telephone.  One of the great beauties of renting vs. owning. 

Bee and wasp fact taken from a dubious but delightful source

I'm actually not sure if the following is true, because it's taken from the body of amateur entomological literature created in the early 1900's which I was sort of fascinated with at one time. Basically, it was guys who would spend all this time watching the behavior of ants and bees and bugs and write these highly entertaining essays on insect toils and habits and lives and sometimes draw serious philosophical conclusions.  

Actually, it's really delightful stuff, specifically authors like playwright Maurice Maeterlinck, (Life of the Bee is his best work, but Life of the White Ant is kind of interesting, where he makes the case of the superiority of termites to humans) and The Insect World of J. Henri Fabre is one of my personal favorites. 

Anyways, in The Life of the Bee, Maeterlinck talks about how he and his buddy would have these long arguments on whether bees or flies were superior beings.  Maeterlinck's friend, solidly in the fly corner, would point to how, if you trap a fly in an open bottle that is laying on its side, the fly can fly right out, because it follows air currents, but the bee will always try to fly upwards toward the light and never get out.  Maeterlinck took the position that this merely proves that the bee is a more pure and spiritual being. 

So when a bee or wasp is trapped in my place, I always think about that.