Okay, I’m asking for you to be completely brutal here, but also to be fair; please don’t vote if you haven’t watched at least a couple of episodes of the show. If you had walked up to me on the street three weeks ago and asked the same question of me – having never seen the show, only knowing the premise – I would have likely answered “yeah, probably”.
I have mixed emotions about the whole Supernatural Romance genre that is suddenly booming. It’s difficult for my immediate response to not be one of bitterness – as in, “where the hell were you people when Buffy and Angel were getting canceled?” And then of course, there’s the phenomenon that was (and still is) such a huge success it could be fairly said to have birthed, or at the very least legitimized, the genre itself: Twilight. I really hope that an army of 15-year-old girls won’t come and firebomb my house, but I am with Stephen King on this one: it’s a cookie-cutter bodice ripper toned down for the tween set, except Fabio has fangs. Please, I’m begging you, don’t tell this chick -they’ll be dredging my disfigured corpse out of the Thames within a fortnight.
Beyond my love for Buffy and my disdain for Twilight, I really don’t know all that much about the Supernatural Romance thang. I was astonished to learn that Amazon.com has an entire section devoted to the genre, and I promoted it when they had a sale. At the end of the day, as far as I’m concerned, any kind of fiction that makes people happy is totally cool with me, the more variety the better, whether it caters to my personal tastes or not. I doubt that there’s anyone reading this blog who hasn’t taken crap simply for liking comics and/or science fiction, which is total bullshit, especially now that the winds of pop culture have shifted and we’re watching a parade of himbos and airheads lining up for their chance to tell Entertainment Weekly “all my life, my greatest ambition has been to play Aqualad”.
But I digress.
Over at Groovy Superhero, I had been keeping a self-updating list of the top five science fiction TV episodes purchased from iTunes. I noticed that for about two weeks, the entire list was made up of episodes from a single series – this was completely unprecedented, and what’s more I had never even heard of this show, “True Blood”. Call me out of touch if you want, but as far as I’m concerned any conceivable reason to pay for HBO disappeared with the premiere episode of Sopranos season two. And you know, if you like Rome, or Curb Your Enthusiasm or whatever, you can get them on Netflix soon after they air – you don’t need to get married to a premium channel for like 10 weeks of entertainment per year. Oh, and if you like Entourage, you’re wasting your life; it’s likely you’re a danger to yourself and others. Seek help before it’s too late.
Anyway, True Blood never stopped dominating the top five (it’s still on top as I write this); I had to change my system to listing top five sci-fi television seasons sold at iTunes, because frankly a top five consisting of one show is kind of boring. But of course this phenomenon had me intrigued, so I checked out the description of the season one set at Netflix and when I found out it was a vampire romance series my initial response was neutral/curious. When I found out it starred Anna Pacquin and was an HBO series (I know, I just spent a paragraph insulting them – but HBO still means “likely to have more sexy occult violence than How I Met Your Mother”), I knew that I had to watch it.
Next: My take on the series. Plus: Your vote calls it – am I a total douche?
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4 thoughts on “Fangs Out:Does Enjoying “True Blood” Make Me a Total Douche? (Part 1)”
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True Blood is a great show. It's well written and engaging. There is nothing wrong with liking this particular facet of the supernatural romance genre because, simply put, this is more than just a supernatural romance.
Twilight relied heavily on the fact that people read the book. If I hadn't read the book, I wouldn't have a clue what was going on in that movie. That was weak. True Blood doesn't rely on anyone reading the books and it is nice to see things developing.
It's time for people to stop wondering what other people think about them and start doing what makes one happy. I enjoy lots of stuff the "mainstream crowd" deems stupid or unsuitable and I don't care. If I listened to the mainstream, I'd be listening to boy bands, watching ABC Family, and stuck with Superman as the only real comic book I can rely on.
Eww.
Ok. True Blood. Let's face it, has the most convoluted story that has a fantasy element. And I've seen the movie Xanadon't. It is basically a soap opera with southern-gothic styling vampires, with some random social messaging, and twin peaks elements (which was a parody on soap operas).
As for being a douche as the show *might* be regarding as a pure romance story. Naw, it's not close.
As for whether it's a good show, that's subjective. My view is no, and I gave the first season a chance. It just meanders, with no care in the world for their characters. If the writers and actors can't be bothered, I certainly can't.
As for entourage. Hated it, until I realized it's a running commentary on the vapidity of fame, and the characters are supposed to be shallow, much like on Seinfeld. Which then makes it hilarious. It's funnier too when you actually know someone like Drama.
Cheers
Paranormal Romance has been growing for years. TWILIGHT's success is simply in marketing it to "young adult" rather than 20-somethings.
Your Buffy comment seems to mix cart and horse. I believe that the force driving paranormal romance is that FANS of Buffy (who in many cases are female writers/editors) are responsible for the explosion of the genre. They can't get more Buffy, so they're writing their own.
Mind you, the basis of current paranormal romance genres is stuff like Anita Blake and Vicki Nelson, with female leading protagonist (rather than male as in Forever Night, Lestat, etc.) that predates Buffy. But I think the end of Buffy helped create a whole lot of young female writers who knew what they wanted to create… and fans who were looking for it.
You should give Hellsing a try, the manga focus's heavily on action and characters rather than romance. The writers actually did research on vampires and their abilities.