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All tagged HBO
Now that we're fully into the fall television season, I thought I'd continue my tradition of sharing what I'm watching--and a few I'm not.
One of the great television travesties of the modern era is that HBO's foul-mouthed western, Deadwood, was canceled after a mere three seasons. The series was supposed to conclude with two movie-length episodes, but that never happened for reasons that remain unexplained.
BREAKING: This week’s True Blood didn’t suck (ha!) as much as the last few weeks’ episodes at least.
We finally got resolution to the smoke monster WTFery, we said goodbye to Noel and it looks like maybe the hate group story is winding down. We’ve finally got some good ol’ fashioned True Blood double-crossery happening and the vampire war with humans is heating up.
However, there are only a few episodes left and we’ve spent all season waiting for something—anything—to happen.
Obviously, the following “analysis” contains spoilers for Sunday’s episode of True Blood. If you haven’t seen it and want to remain free from spoilage, please don’t continue reading. Instead, I suggest checking out Rebeca’s review of Sarah Mayberry’s latest novel, which sounds really wonderful.
Gratuitous Eric profile screencap.
The premise of this week’s True Blood episode was basically this: High on ancient vampire blood, the vampires decide to go for complete and total world domination. Apparently, that is our big payoff for this torturously dull season. A vampire war on humans. *yawn*
Uh, okay…
Anyway, I had a very hard time even mustering the energy to snark-cap this episode—I kept spacing out while watching and having to rewind. Oh, and one of my dogs decided that he hates the show and demonstrated his displeasure by growling at the television. I am not even joking.
Obviously, the following “analysis” contains spoilers for Sunday’s episode of True Blood. If you haven’t seen it and want to remain free from spoilage, please don’t continue reading. Instead, I suggest checking out this list of sports-themed novels to get you in the Olympic spirit or Rebeca’s memorable reads from the first half of this year for some great reading recommendations.
Yeah, we’re confused too, Sam.
I have some things to say about this season of True Blood.
Many, many things.
There is absolutely no reason for my inclusion of this image in this post. But that sort of makes sense given the inexplicable WTFery of this season.
First off, why oh why have they completely removed both Bill and Eric from Sookie’s world by enveloping them in the Authority world? The whole appeal of the show was the various entanglements of these three and now it’s just Bill and Eric wrapped up with this political stuff and Sookie angsting. It’s like they’re trying to actually be a mystery/adventure type show rather than the soapiness that it did really, really well. Where’s the drama? Where’s the smut? Come on…
*YAWN*
On a related note, it’s becoming more and more apparent that Sookie’s character is not strong enough to stand on her own without the Bill-Eric drama. We see her occasionally going to work, stressing about how to get rid of her fairy powers, conversing with her brother about their parents, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera… And none of it matters because her character was essentially undeveloped for four seasons because it was all about her getting some hot vampire booty. Or whatever.
No, Sookie, we really don’t care. At all.I used to really enjoy Lafayette’s character. He had a dash of humanity that many of the other characters lack—you could almost imagine knowing Lafayette. And now he’s brooding and possessed by demons or whatever and it has done absolutely nothing to develop his character. He’s just there. It’s pointless and frustrating.
There are so many random, unexplained subplots introduced this season that it’s actually really hard to follow the show at this point—and True Blood is not at all complex. It’s just that each scene is so short that there’s not a lot to go on in terms of understanding how it all knits together. It seems like there’s less crossover between the characters, like they’re all in little plot bubbles. We’re seven episodes in and we still don’t see how everything that’s going on relates.
I’m not sure I can keep this up all season, you guys. I mean… this season of HBO’s True Blood is just nonsensical. At this point, the Orgy Season seems classy and well-written.
Anyway, this episode featured masked gunmen shooting at shifters, the continued search for Russell, Sookie yacking on Alcide instead of, you know… Basically, the whole episode felt like a prequel, a setup for… something. And yet, nothing continued to happen. Please, please, please, HBO: I committed to “analyzing” this season and you’ve got to give me something to work worth!
Obviously, the following “analysis” contains spoilers for Sunday’s episode of True Blood. If you haven’t seen it and want to remain free from spoilage, please don’t continue reading. Instead, I suggest checking out my review of Courtney Summers’ fabulous zombie novel, This is Not a Test. If you haven’t added that one to your to-read pile yet, I don’t even know what to say (and that’s a feat).
Laura suggested I use this screencap to illustrate this season until it gets its act together. This is a suggestion I very much like.
HBO is so wacked out about the possibility of people watching their show with subscribing to an expensive cable package, that they have all kinds of “failsafes” on the HBOGo streaming app that often prevent legit subscribers like me from watching their shows.
This morning, I logged on to zip through yesterday’s craptastic episode of True Blood and snag some screencaps (because the ones that HBO releases are so nonsensical, I can’t even deal) and I repeatedly got the message that my session had timed out. I couldn’t watch more than a few seconds without getting this error message. So, anyway… you have the jerks at HBO to thank for this post sucking and not having any fabulous pictures.
And… By the way, here’s my little love note to HBO.
Dear HBO,
In case you didn’t realize, there are many, many ways to watch your programming without a subscription—don’t make it so hard for your paying customers. It kind of disincentivizes people from actually, you know, giving you money. I want to give you money—stop making me feel like you hate me and the rest of your paying customers by treating us like pirates.
xoxox,
Sarah
(Thanks to Laura for the brilliant name.)
This season is just so ridiculous and convoluted, I have no words to describe its suckitude. I mean, the Orgy Season was pretty bizarre, but at least the story was united under an umbrella of bizarre. This season, is just like a series of random vignettes that have no interconnection. I wonder if they’re working up to something, or if they’re really going for the soap opera-style of storytelling now? Other than the Pam-Eric scenes, the rest of this episode was just full of WTF—and not the awesome kind. I mean, was anyone even shirtless in this episode?!
Obviously, the following “analysis” contains spoilers for Sunday’s episode of True Blood. If you haven’t seen it and want to remain free from spoilage, please don’t continue reading. Instead, I suggest checking out Renegade’s intro to romance novels—she made my to-read pile a whole lot bigger.
This season of True Blood could not be more disappointing, am I right? Thus far, there has been very little shirtless Eric, no shirtless Alcide and too much Tara.
The only saving grace as been the Pam and Eric backstory, which I LOVE.
This week, in addition to old-timey Eric and Pam, we had Emo Jason, angsty Alcide, more Arlene WTFery and Hoyt dressed up a an outfit borrowed from 50 Shades of Grey. What could go wrong?
Oh, right, a lot.
Obviously, the following “analysis” contains spoilers for Sunday’s episode of True Blood. If you haven’t seen it and want to remain free from spoilage, please don’t continue reading. Instead, I suggest checking out this wonderful review of Flirting in Italian from our fabulous new contributor, Rebeca (whose name auto-corrects on my phone as “Renegade”).
Old-timey Eric. YES.
Oh, True Blood… Last night’s episode, Authority Always Wins, was quite possibly the worst ever.
And that’s saying something.
We had Annoying Tara as Annoying Vampire Tara. We had Bill being a drip—shocker, I know. Eric had maybe one good line—and was not shirtless at any point. The Arlene-Terry-Noel-Firestarter storyline is seemingly pointless. And I couldn’t care less about Sam and his shapeshifter girlfriend’s troubles. The continued saga between Hoyt and Jason. And Jessica and Rev. Newland fighting over Jason. I started counting the various subplots in this episode and lost track, but I’m guessing it was over ten. Let’s hope this isn’t a sign of what to expect from the rest of the season.
Obviously, the following “analysis” contains spoilers for Sunday’s episode of True Blood. If you haven’t seen it and want to remain free from spoilage, please don’t continue reading. Instead, I suggest checking out my review of C.K. Kelly Martin’s amazing new book for adults, Come See About Me.
“You’re in quite the pickle.” *snicker*
We’re mixing things up a bit and “analyzing” one of our favorite crappy television shows, True Blood. It’s book-related, right? I mean, who hasn’t accidentally read six Sookie Stackhouse books in a row before realizing that they’re truly terrible? Right? Right? Ahem.
Obviously, this “analysis” contains spoilers for the latest episode of True Blood, so if you haven’t watched and want to remain free from spoilage, I’d suggest you not read this post. Instead, I recommend you read this post about Laura’s husband wanting to read books about werewolves fighting vampires.
Bill’s sexile outside the shipping container was kind of priceless.
