Re-watching True Blood season 1

[shapinglight]

I had every intention of finishing my Babylon 5 re-watch before moving on to something else, but I'm afraid the lure of True Blood was just too much, and since there isn't a new episode this week, I've started re-watching season 1.

Spoilers for that behind cut, and there'll more than likely be spoilers for seasons 2 & 3 too.



I've watched the first two episodes of season 1, and several things have struck me quite forcibly. One is, how short Stephen Moyer seems to be. He's not much taller than Anna Paquin, who - I assume - is quite teeny. Weird, because I always thought he was fairly tall, except compared to Alexander Skarsgard, obviously. Also, his accent - which is probably still not that great even after three seasons on the show (shipperx? Anyone?) - but which I assume has settled into a sort of generic 'Deep South' - is very wobbly indeed. As for Bill as a character, Moyer's trying much more to be Mr Sexy Mysteriously Attractive Vampire than I remembered. I'd remembered him as being always a bit stuffy and old-fashioned - a stick-in-the-mud - but he's not really like that so far. In other words, he doesn't seem quite Bill yet.

I'd forgotten about Tara's crush on Jason, which surprises me, because it seemed quite important at the time. I'd also forgotten about her Speeches of Painful Honesty, first to the woman in the hardware store and then to the customers at Merlotte's, and about the great banter to and fro between her and Lafayette. Which is sad, as that's probably because there's been so little of it lately. Not that it's not plain to see Tara is a very troubled person even in these early eps. The scene at the party in ep 2 is very telling - not for the way she gets rid of the arsehole trying to pick her up, but for the way she stays alone, removed from everyone, all evening, and for the way she looks frightened when she realises Lafayette is gone. Which kind of suggests, now I think of it, that the guy Lafayette was dancing with wasn't 'the straightest guy at the party' after all. :)

Jason's sexual escapades are a lot funnier to me this time. I've become very fond of the character, despite the way he carries on, and his pleasure in his own prowess ("I work out like a m**therf**ker and watch a lot of porn and stuff", to quote Jason in season 2) instead of making me think, "What a dick!" makes me go aww! and want to pat his silly, empty little head -rather the way his various girlfriends feel about him, I suspect. Quite interesting that the 'bimbo' in this show - the Harmony character, if you like- is a bloke. Can't remember seeing that in any other show.

When I first watched this, I didn't care for Sookie much. Even now, she has Mary Sue-like qualities that can grate at times (she's 'special', her blood doesn't taste like other people's blood etc), but I've come to like her a lot since then, and retrospectively I like her in these early episodes, and I even like her borderline soppy scenes with Bill, with the minor key violin music.

So yes, enjoying the re-watch enormously so far, but it might be scuppered by M announcing she wants to watch it, in which case I shall have to start again. No hardship, though, because this show is just great. It's really well made and acted and it really is lots and lots of fun. I love it.

Mind you, I wouldn't have wanted to watch it with my mother.

Comments

[pfeifferpack.livejournal.com]

YAY, I passed on the happy!

*hugs*
Kathleen