Things I have been watching : True Blood.

American Beauty writer and creator of Six Feet Under returns to our TV screens (once again with HBO) with True Blood, which of all things is a series about vampires. Not one many saw coming from Mr Ball.

It’s based on the series of novels by Charlaine Harris, and revolves around the life of the bizarrely named Sookie Stackhouse. Sookie is a waitress on a restaurant/bar in the deep south town Bon Temps, Louisiana, she lives with her grandmother after the death of her parents and dutifully comes to the aid of her firebrand best friend Tara as well as helping to keep her irresponsible brother out of as much trouble as possible.

There however two important things about Sookie and her world. Vampires have recently declared their existence to the world (after ‘True Blood’ synthetic goes on sale, hence the show’s name) and she can read people’s minds. Into her world comes Bill Compton, a 173 year vampire who is intent on ‘mainstreaming’ and high romance and trouble soon follow as a series of murders hits town across a sweltering summer.

The series pretty much takes the same sex, drugs and death cocktail of Six Feet Under and throws vampires into the mix. It is something of a mash up of Buffy and the Fishers. Twilight for HBO basically. But with Alan Ball calling the shots and guiding the project it does what does very smartly indeed and retains a dark strain humour running throughout.

Anna Paquin’s Sookie is someone you both root for and want to yell at for being so pig headed and well, shrewish quite often. Stephen Moyer’s Bill is the classic brooding Darcy type vampire with a tortured past who just wants to be loved but he does a good job of injecting a bit of humour into the role and is excellent when asked to show Bill as the man cut adrift from his own time.

Elsewhere there is a strong crew of backup characters,Rutina Wesley‘s Tara struggles with her drunken mother and the damage done to her as child and lashes out at everyone in sight,Sam Trammell‘s Sam is the safe, sensible manager of the bar (though he has his own secrets), Nelsan Ellis‘ Lafayette is outrageous as the town’s own drug dealer, pornographer, escort and short order cook. And of course Sookie’s brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten)who is kind at heart, dumb as a post and always after the ladies.

Underneath this is a role call of town locals, bar regulars and wearied Sheriffs and deputies. All excellently played with a special mention for Iraq war vet Kevin.

It has to be said like many shows at is at it’s best when it’s creator is directly involved. The first episodes out of the block are written and directed by Ball himself and show both imagination and flair in script and on screen. These episodes have a very filmic look (normally a TV series has such tight timescales and budgets there is little scope for much extravagance in camera use) and an early transition as Sookie wakes is eye catchingly done. And they enjoy routinely subverting audience expectations, note the very opening sequence for an example.

That’s not to say the show is poor when Ball steps back, it’s still good stuff, it’s just noticeable how much of a difference his presence makes. Once the meat and bones of the piece is set up we basically have the romance of Bill and Sookie under-layed by a murder mystery and a good few tangents as follow the likes of Jason getting himself into trouble.

And it is true that the murder angle does help keep the show rolling on and is always there to jerk things up a bit when it starts getting bogged down in the lore of the world or side stories of the various town folk.

As it’s not as good as Six Feet Under I feel (but that was a grower, so maybe this is too) but it is solid stuff and entertaining stuff (and being HBO often really quite blue). I think at present none of the characters have quite risen beyond their archetypes to feel like real people but there are signs if people being fleshed and is probably somewhat down to the number of characters involved. (Six Feet Under very much concentrated on it’s central four and then really fleshed out everyone else once we knew them).

Plus the need to lay groundwork for the second series whilst pitching up a couple of interesting things did seem to require at least one character to make a choice that seems, well out of character and this came in the second half of the finale where the town’s killer is revealed somewhat out of the blue. Although once known Ball, back on directing duties, sees to it that is beautifully played in performance and in camera.

I know this now probably sounds a bit negative but I am looking forward to seeing more and there is plenty of potential in both the characters and the fictional world created (the Vampire rights movement for example plays out here mostly in the background but you suspect parts of it will come to the fore eventually).

But you do wonder if a certain Mr Whedon ever thinks he should pitch to HBO.