True Blood - Season 4

True Blood is remarkably consistent in its inconsistency. The show has a wide, constantly changing cast of characters. Some are bad, some are pretty good. Each season has twelve episodes. Some are bad, some are pretty good. There's always a new batch of subplots each year. Some are bad, some are pretty good. It always seems to border right on the edge between enjoyably campy and too stupid to be worth my time, but never quite tips over on to the wrong side. If it maintains this level, I could easily stick with it until whenever it ends. I've long made peace with the fact that it will never actually be good show. Its sense of humor and let's-try-everything fantasy horror setting are enough. And at least this year they seemed to make an attempt to kill a couple terrible lingering storylines and trim down the cast just a bit, even if it took too long in some places.

So, let's see what happened this season. Vampires are still vampires, and they apparently fear necromancers because they have the ability to control the living dead, which is the basis for the main conflict. We learn a bit more about shifters and werewolves, and the relationship between the two groups. The werepanthers are still around, and luckily disappear after a little while, though unfortunately I'm not sure they're really gone. We also learn were-creatures are created by genetics, like shifters, and it's not something that can be passed like vampirism. We learn more about human magic, principally through the witch that becomes the season's villain, but also through a couple characters we already knew, and we also see the real nature of Lafayette's abilities (I still liked him more when he was normal). We also get some more of that fairy stuff, which is still weird and kind of disjointed from the rest of the show.

The feeling I got, based on the moments after the season's climax partway through the finale, was that season five will revolve around an internal conflict within the vampire power structure, and probably some stuff with the fairies so that whole thing doesn't feel like a waste of time. Which, okay. The show is actually really interesting when it explores the history and larger society of vampires, which makes it disappointing that that stuff is actually explored so rarely. I'm much more interested in the change in the interactions between Bill and Eric after the former becomes the king of Louisiana than I am in which one is currently banging Sookie, but the show's priorities and mine are different. The supernatural stuff in general is just more fun to watch, and it only seems to get crapped up when people are having sex or falling in love. I ended up liking Andy's storyline about his V addiction quite a bit, but it's one of the only cases where the show has been able to make a story that could happen on a show about real life (with a drug besides vampire blood, obviously) interesting. I dont' want to spend time complaining though. True Blood is what True Blood always has been. Very stupid, occasionally frustrating, usually an entertaining way to spend an hour on Sunday.

True Blood - Season 3

Another year, and True Blood continues to be the most up and down show on television. I really can't think of one that's more inconsistent in quality from moment to moment. It can be hilarious, enjoyably cheesy, effectively creepy, and horribly violent all in one scene. And then it can waste your time for five minutes with another bunch of half-baked southern stereotypes or some moping from one of the more annoying characters. There's just no telling at any moment if the next subplot is gonna be a fun time or another complete chore to sit through. I like the show a lot, because when it's good it's really a ton of fun, but it will never be great with its current success rate when it comes to characters and story ideas. I'd say something about the success of the main storyline in relation to the other seasons, but it's again so anticlimactic that it hardly even registers as rising action within the context of the ton of other things going on.

The scope of the show grows again this year. After dealing with a Maenad last year, we're back to vampires for this season's big villain. But it doesn't feel limited because this one employs werewolves to do his dirty work, adding another dimension to the series (even if it isn't one I was dying to see), and he and his husband also happen to be two of the best characters on the show. We learn more about the actual power structure of vampire society, which is sort of interesting, but the focus is still mostly on the ones we already know. Sookie's again caught up in the troubles of the undead. Jason wants to be a cop but is torn from his duty by a wretched storyline involving advanced super-hicks who also happen to be supernaturally inclined. And who isn't? Lafayette finds himself caught up in that too. By the end of the series, there won't be a single normal human left. Tara can't get over Eggs even though she knew him for like two weeks (this show takes place over an absurdly short period of time), and Sam finds his real family, who happen to be trash incarnate. And supernatural. If you can't tell, there's a ton of crap going on all the time, and I haven't even mentioned some of the more obscure characters. I'm looking forward to seeing more next summer, and hoping against hope they finally learn how to write an entire episode that doesn't make me roll my eyes.

True Blood - Season 2

True Blood's second season in just over a year was a definite improvement over the first, although the show is still more enjoyable schlock than actual quality entertainment. The main reason for the improvement is the feeling that stuff actually happened this time. Sure, the first season had the thread of a serial killer lurking around town and killing people who got too close to vampires, but it was a subplot in the background until the very end while everyone else just went around screwing each other. Season two has an actual main plot, maybe not the most rapidly paced one ever, but it's there. It's actually funny when I see comments about the show not treading water, because I feel like it does as much as a drama with an actual serialized story can. I liked this batch of episodes a fair amount, but it would have been better if it was more like eight episodes instead of twelve.

The main points covered this time are Jason joining a cultish anti-vampire church, a supernatural being introduced last season turning Bon Temps into a haven of debauchery for evil purposes, and a brewing war between said church and the vampire leadership in the region that just sort of gets abandoned in the last few episodes so there can be a proper, unencumbered climax. The show is still pretty sensationalist and ham-fisted, but its main problem is that a lot of the cast kinda sucks. I mean, let's be honest. Sookie and Bill suck. Tara sucks. Sam kinda sucks. Gran sucked when she was alive. Tara's mom sucks. Eggs sucks big time. By sucks, I both mean the person can't act and the character is irritating. On the other hand, the show has enough enjoyable cast members that I don't regret watching it. Jessica and Hoyt are okay. Jason and Lafayette rule. Andy and Eric are good. We already know season three's coming, and I look forward to whatever wacky crap comes next.

Six Feet Under - Season 5

The tagline on the DVD cover says "Everything. Everyone. Everywhere. Ends." And that's about as accurate a statement you could make on the basic message and tone of this fantastic show's last season. Being a show so focused on death, it's never been particularly happy, but before it always had a more lighthearted undertone. That's not completely gone either, as there's still a few dream sequences that fit the show's unique sense of humor. Still, especially with the last third of the season, the finality and inevitability of death are really hammered home. The sense of loss isn't limited to mortality either, as things mostly don't go so well for some of the characters as they realize life might not bring exactly what they wanted.

Two scenes in particular really got to me, one of which had me crying more than any other show or movie that I can remember, and the final scene of the series, which does exactly what it should have done from the beginning in a very beautiful way. I know I've said it before, but the incongruity of this show's creator also running True Blood was as strong as it's ever been. Six Feet Under wasn't always perfect, but it's a supremely effective work that everyone should watch.

Six Feet Under - Season 4

It's still the same show it was three years earlier for the most part, but there's something different about it somehow. It just feels more bleak and depressing. More outlandish stuff is starting to happen to the characters, and one is even told that only bad things will happen to them from then on in a dream near the end of the season. Obviously a show that revolves this heavily around death as a matter of course in the characters' lives is going to be pretty dark, but it does seem different to me. It comes off less realistic and more like a television show. It's just not quite what I loved about the show when I first started watching it. It's not like I'm enjoying it significantly less, I just needed something to talk about twelve episodes later. Remember when I said I liked Claire? Yeah, well I definitely like her less after this season. I have high expectations for the fifth and final season because with its need to seemingly top itself each year and what happened in the crazy finale, it's probably going to be something else.

Six Feet Under - Season 3

I'm not sure I really have a ton to say at this point. Six Feet Under remains a great show in its third year, with each character continuing along their journey through life. Ruth's story is probably the oddest, as she has an usual romance with a character played by Rainn Wilson, in a role not completely unlike Dwight Schrute from The Office. Claire's is the most secretly tragic. I didn't think I was going to like her character going in, because she seemed like a typical anti-social teen, but she's really won me over. Dave's relationship with Keith is sort of in a holding pattern the entire time, and we're never sure which way it's really going to go. Nate's life with his new baby mama was uniquely interesting for a while before turning into one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever seen on television. I'm not trying to spoil anything too much but things don't tend to go overly well for people on this show. They continue to feature a death at the beginning of every episode, although they played around with it a lot more this time, with lots of fakeouts and twists on the formula that keeps that part from ever feeling like a routine. I continue to be astounded at how good seemingly every HBO show was during this time.

Six Feet Under - Season 2

I didn't love this season as much as the first one, because it felt more like it fell into the pit of melodramatic relationship issues which the first deftly avoided. It was still very well done, alternately heartbreaking and hilarious. The frequent ruminations on death are still intelligent and thought-provoking, and the dream sequences still perfectly capture what's going on in these characters' heads in an entertaining way. There's a lot of arguing and hugging and screwing and crying, and by this point I'm fully wrapped up in the lives of these people who don't exist.

Most shows try to keep a consistent timeline with real life, but the first two seasons here combine to cover a little over one year. It's a little confusing and actually leads to some inconsistencies with date of birth and age which along with a couple other oddities make me think the writers didn't pay as much attention as they should have, but it doesn't hurt the general quality of the show and it gives the feeling that we really know everything that's going on. I'm pretty sure future seasons jump forward in time more, but it's an interesting way to do it. I really love the whole cast, and with Claire going off to college and a pretty amazingly gripping cliffhanger in the finale, I'm hyped to jump right into the third season. Good show.

Six Feet Under - Season 1

It's hard to imagine how two shows so diametrically opposed in terms of subject matter and balance between actual writing quality and shock value entertainment such as Six Feet Under and True Blood could be created by the same guy. About the only thing they have in common is a fixation on death and gay rights, although Blood mostly uses the latter as a metaphor with vampires. I enjoy Blood, but Six Feet Under is a far superior series; extremely well-written and acted, combining a good drama about a family and their relationships with a great, dark sense of humor and a clever use of dreams and conversations with dead people to explore what the characters are thinking.

Each episode starts with someone dying. Sometimes it's humorous in a sick kind of way thanks to clever misdirection or a completely ludicrous set-up, and sometimes it's just sad. That body ends up in the Fisher brothers' funeral home, and things continue from there as they live their lives and maybe learn something from the victim. Peter Krause and Michael C. Hall from Dexter are great as the two leads, and the rest of the cast does a stellar job too. When this show was actually airing I didn't think I'd like it for whatever reason, maybe because I didn't think there was enough gun fights and car chases. But watching it now, it's just another example of how HBO in the first half of this decade was a golden age of good television. Really enjoyable, smart show.

True Blood - Season 1

True Blood is far from the smartest thing HBO's ever aired, but it's still a pretty enjoyable take on vampires. The show's main gimmick is that vampires have recently come out as America's newest hot button demographic demanding equal rights, and the tension between them and regular humans is a paper-thin metaphor for both racism and homophobia, both of which are exemplified normally by Lafayette, a cook/drug dealer who's my favorite character. The story takes place in the deep south of Louisiana. It's not the normal setting for vampires, and they have some fun with it, although at times it seems like they're just replacing standard Anne Rice tropes with stereotypes of Southern people. The series is based on a book series, and I don't know how faithful it is, but I get the feeling Alan Ball is just using the bare bones of them to say what he wants to about social issues while at the same time filming a bunch of crazy adult stuff.

There's a murder mystery that weaves its way through the entire first season, and for what it is it's fairly intriguing, but the majority of most episodes seems to be showing people get angry at each other, having sex, and occasionally getting covered by the blood of an exploding undead creature. I'm a little conflicted on the show, because I usually enjoy it while watching, but the general content is dumber than what I'd expect from something on HBO. It has its good moments, but it also has bad ones. I'm a little tired of the weird vampire fetish our culture seems to have, and their portrayal here bugs me a bit. They do that thing where they just bare their fangs and look half-menacing-half-moronic for no reason a lot, it looks terrible whenever they move super quickly, and I don't like how their fangs are the lateral incisors instead of the cuspids. The cuspids are a much better choice! Anyway, True Blood is completely watchable but not great.