True Blood

Series six, episode one
It still boasts some pretty cool opening titles. But aside from that, the ‘True Blood’ of the first few seasons might as well be a different show. Not for nothing has creator Alan Ball jumped ship, leaving the listing vessel in the hands of sitcom specialist Brian Buckner. More of the usual hokum as this sixth season begins. You might remember that Bill died at the end of season five.

But what do you know? He’s back, reborn in a more powerful incarnation than ever. Still, even if this new, bad-ass Bill kills everyone, we daresay it will be possible to revive them by making their corpses ingest some dragon blood or snort some minotaur spunk. Or something. All we know is, there’ll be a way.

Truly an object lesson in the consequences of removing all sense of jeopardy from a story in the interests of cynically stringing it out: events in ‘True Blood’ have become all but meaningless.