Spoiler for the end of True Blood season 6 in here somewhere (let's put something right here).
Suppose that will help with my female audience.
With the end of the sixth season of True Blood, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the season and the series as a whole. I should start out by restating I have not read any of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, so this post will avoid my trend of "but in the book..."QQing.
The True Blood series went to the George R.R. Martin school of escalation. In the beginning you take a story that is mostly grounded in some form of reality - with some *slight* twists - and over the course of many seasons or books or what have you, the amount of "magic" that exists in the world escalates. In Game of Thrones (book one of ASoIaF), we barely get a taste of white walkers, the dire wolves are just pups, and dragons don't appear until the very end of the book/season. As the story moves forward we get the addition of dragons, warging, giants, white walkers, red priests, etc. So, how did True Blood follow this path?
Season One: Yes, there are vampires, and yes Sookie is a telepath, but the story is really about Rene. Push comes to shove, season one is a human season.
Season Two: Eric and Godric, the anti-vampire church, Bill and Sookie - Season two really focuses in on the vampire aspect of the True Blood universe.
Season Three: Werewolves.
Season Four: Witches.
Season Five: Back to vampires, but now we have a developed vampire Authority.
Season Six: Vampire God. Faerie Vampire. Fae.
Which leads the show to where it's heading: Season seven - the aftermath of the release of hepatitis V. Did this setup not look like True Blood jumping on the zombie bandwagon?
Pitcher: We want zombies in next season.
Executive: I don't know. There's a lot shows with zombies in them these days.
Pitcher: Wait. I got it. Vampire zombies.
Executive: Shit, now we're talking. Go on.
The problem with this escalation - if it's not done carefully it can come across as over-the-top. GRRM was very careful not to slap the reader in the face with the fantastic elements of his universe. He made the story about his characters. The "magic" becomes a tool to further those characters' stories. True Blood I think has a tendency to cross that line into the camp-zone with all the sub-plots. There can no longer be simple human sub-plots in the True Blood universe. No, there needs to be witches, fire/smoke demons, shifters, voodoo masters, were-leopards, gods, clairvoyance, fae, mediums, ghosts, etc. etc. etc. All of this is on top of the extreme personality humans in the anti-vampire church/government.
What True Blood does though, is keep at least one story-line interesting. Ok, so Sam's girlfriend dies, and here's another chick, and now she's pregnant, and there's werewolves out to get them, but not this one werewolf, and who cares anymore? But, systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored, persecution and murder of vampires in small-town Louisiana; that's interesting. There's always that one element within the overarching season that keeps me coming back. I'll expect the vampire-zombie apocalypse to be no different.
You're spot on with the zombie vampire thing. I think it's just bad story telling. When Nora got injected with Hep V, Eric had to carry her away from vamp camp, how are these vampires walking like there isn't a problem? I also hated that they gave Sam ANOTHER girlfriend so quickly. All of his girlfriends have died. Let the dude be single for awhile.
ReplyDeleteI love True Blood, but I'm constantly so disappointed in what it's become.
These shows thrive on characters not being single. I'm pretty sure if Sookie dated Arlene, she would have been with the entire cast.
DeleteI liked the show much more back towards the beginning when things were simpler. Maybe one of these days it goes back to that formula. Strip away some of the ridiculous aspects of it and make it about the characters again, not just about what other weird crap we can throw in there.
Can always hope.
And for anyone else reading these comments, Brittani here does much more scene analysis than I do, so if you're into that, you can check it out over at Rambling Film (http://ramblingfilm.blogspot.com).
DeleteI love the Marvel Zombies ! I haven't been able to stand True Blood for the past two seasons. Though I have to keep watching this train wreck. I do like the books though.. they are really good!
ReplyDeleteI certainly get that train wreck vibe for the show. I keep watching for the bits that are good, but there's so much nonsense thrown in these days... It's like the band you loved growing up releasing a new album and it's at the point where you buy it knowing there'll only be a track or two you really like.
DeleteCan't comment on the books. Have way too much on my to read list to add those in.
The way they've been throwing in ridiculous fantasy stuff in True Blood is ridiculous. None of those new villains was even threatening. In Game of Thrones things were pretty much set up and they don't just throw in whatever silly idea they have, here with vampire gods, fairies, ghosts etc. they just use it to mask the fact the actual human stories turned into a soap opera.
ReplyDeleteThere are actual human stories?
DeleteThis is another one of those shows that I feel I'm just watching because of the amount of time I've already invested (Dexter is in that boat too).