To get you up to speed, it’s a series on HBO. Vampires are real and discriminated against. Near-blood is created so they can quench their thirst without the neck of a too-hot coed. It’s called True Blood. (See what they do there?)

Anna (“mind-the-gap”) Paquin is the lead, who falls in love with a vampire engeniously named Bill. He, of course, is one of the human-friendly vamps who refuses to kill. There’s also a shape-shifting guy. But before I get into that… how about the positive?

Being on HBO and an elaborate drama, there’s flagrant nudity. The action can be awesome and the character interaction interesting. The acting is adequate, usually. And… that’s it?

Yes. That’s it. It sucks for a few dozen reasons but here are a few.

The thinly veiled prejudice metaphor is muddled at best. Vamps are treated like second-class citizens and their blood is a drug? Why can Paquin’s character hear thoughts? If the vamps are “homosexuals” is the shape-shifter someone with a learning disability?

There’s barely any of the entertaining action. Each episode usually has a charged scene where one of the attractive characters loses all or an article of their clothes but the rest is yawn.

As far as critics liking it, maybe they’re just watching it as a remake of Six Feet Under (a great show by the same creater). Or their not watching it. The writing is mediocre, the characters are absurd and most of the drama comes from watching the cast improvise a storyline.

Take, for instance, the premiere. It’s a solid example of how lame meets duh in a back-woods Louisiana-ish setting. (I’ll try not to ruin details for you fans out there.)

Shape-shifter has flashbacks to stealing some artifact from a cougar he got on back in the day. There’s a sex scene that involves biting and slightly more nudity than blood. Someone’s found in a car heartless (literally), sparking more flashbacks. A new vamp bitches about the taste of True Blood.

Really. Who. Cares.

Photo courtesy MoTechPosters