The Summer of Couch Part I: True Blood

Note: This is part one in our ongoing series The Summer of Couch



Show: True Blood
Network: HBO
Still on Air: Yes
Seasons: Two (Second just premiered)
Episodes I got through: Three
Rating: 1/5

What I Loved: There are lots of naked ladies, some of them are attractive. A couple of the characters are mildly humorous, and occasionally say mildly humorous things. One of my favorite character actors, Chris Bauer (The Wire, The Lost Room) is in it, though from the episodes I watched he is sorely underutilized. No surprise there. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

What I Hated: Pretty much everything. Where to begin? First of all the premise ticks me off, but I've already covered my hatred for the chickification of vampires here and here. So going into it my expectations were rock bottom, so I figured: Hey, maybe I'll end up liking this despite myself. After all, I sort of liked Buffy, so it's not unprecedented for me to like vampires. Yeah, not so much. First of all, this show has possibly the worst writing I have ever witnessed. There are lines that are so cringe-inducing that I can't even describe them. I'm not convinced that the person who penned the shows dialogue has ever actually witnessed two human beings engaged in conversation. You'd think that such jilted and awkward writing would mesh well with a crew of such terrible actors (kind of like how Shia LeBeouf excels if all he has to say is "no, no, no, no"). But instead, the terrible acting compounds with the terrible writing to deliver one steaming pile of terrible. With a crap cherry on top. I kept waiting for the program to show me something, anything. After all, I'd heard so many "good" things about it I figured there had to be some redeeming parts somewhere. Nope.

The Verdict: I think my verdict is pretty clear by contrasting the lengths of the above paragraphs. I hate this show, I hope the creators die a horrible and painful death for even subjecting me to three episodes of it. Unfortunately, I'll probably be roped into watching more by my girlfriend. Damn you penis, I blame it on you.

Clip: Note: I couldn't find a scene that was remotely bearable and worthy of subjecting you to. The show has a pretty cool opening credits sequence I guess. Here's that: