What Makes True Blood Tick?

What is it about the supernatural that attracts people? Is it the fantasy world they are looking at? Is it the mysterious people they encounter? Is it the forbidden that makes people want more?  Every person has their own reason for watching, reading and experiencing the supernatural and True Blood is just another supernatural show that attracts people to the mysteries of Bon Temps, Louisiana. 

True Blood has been on for 6 seasons and counting (recently picked up for a 7^th season to air in the near future; season 6 is currently airing).  The show follows Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress at Merlotte’s in Bon Temps, Louisiana.  In this world, vampires exist and are well known throughout the world.  They are fighting for peace and acceptance through the legal system, wanting the same rights and privileges the humans do.  This is obviously met with a lot of hostility.  Sookie has always been an advocate for giving vampires rights which only intensifies when Bill Compton walks into Merlotte’s one night.  She is immediately attracted and glowing when she talks to him, thinks of him and is near him.  She doesn’t know what to do  One reason why she is attracted to him is because he is the first being she has met that she cannot hear what they are saying. Sookie has the ability to read minds. A series of events happens that ends with Sookie drinking Bill’s blood in order to heal herself after she is almost beaten to death.  From then Sookie and Bill begin a relationship and the backlash in Bon Temps is similar to the whites dating blacks.  More supernatural people and things begin to show their face in Bon Temps such as other vampires, shape shifters, witches and warlocks and werewolves.  These supernatural beings and things begin to test all relationships in and around Bon Temps and nothing is ever the same. 

I have just finished watching Season 3 and I am anxiously waiting for the library to send me my notice that Season 4 is ready to be picked up. I want to keep watching – see what happens with Sookie, Bill, Eric, Jason, Tara and Sam.  It’s addicting, intoxicating, thrilling and magical.  It takes the good parts of the books and reinvents them for the small screen. Some die hard book fans are not happy about the differences but any book that turns into a movie or television show will always flounder in comparison to the original. 

I watch a lot of supernatural shows, movies and read many supernatural books.  What keeps me coming back for more is that most of them are unpredictable (the good ones anyway).  With supernatural, fantasy and science fiction anything goes; you never know what you are going to come across. That is what makes True Blood so exciting.  While watching the show you think it will go one way then at the last second it completely goes another way that blows your mind.  What I have always said is books, movies, television and other forms of media are for entertainment purposes – they release us from our daily lives of drudging to work, home and sleep to a place where none of that matters.  A place where they can be anyone they want for hours at a time. 

But what many science fiction and fantasy scholars have said is true – sci-fi and fantasy may seem like a faraway place but in a television show like True Blood, the issues of our society (mainstreaming, acceptance, bigotry) are prevalent.  Using the genre and stage of sci-fi makes it easier for producers and creators to get their views of the world across without sounding like a politician. 

So even though people are attracted to shows and movies and books like True Blood because of its distance from the reality they live in, it isn’t that far away when you look at the deeper meaning to so many issues and themes.  It is interesting that the things we want to get away from when subjecting ourselves to a form of entertainment we don’t get away from at all.  The brilliant minds of these projects  use the genre because it is easier and less abrasive than coming right out and saying what they feel.

With that being said, True Blood is a show that does take it to the edge. It is provocative, intriguing, fun and exciting.  It doesn’t matter what political or social issues they plan to tackle next. What matters to me is what is happening and going to happen to my favorite characters who I have grown to love.