Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer vamp it up with Ball. / HBO photo: Jamie Trueblood (surname not a typo)
Oh, you commenters! Always with your commenty comments! Wilson writes:
This isn’t about Mad Men (which was awesome) but James P’s other favorite show, “Tell Me You Love Me.” What happened there?
And Tom Shaw drops a broad hint:
On the bright side, some fall season shows start in less than 5 weeks; it would be handy if anyone had seen pilots/previews to know if they were any good.
Anyone like a TV blogger/critic, you mean? In my defense, so far I’ve seen only Fringe (which I’ve already previewed), a handful of mostly unremarkable CBS shows and TNT’s Bochco law drama Raising the Bar (nutshell: I object!).
But let me take care of both of you in one post. After the jump, the TMYLM news, and a few more thoughts about True Blood.
I was not exactly the only person in the world who liked Tell Me You Love Me (its ratings were teeny but almost exactly on par with the first season of Mad Men), but I think I was one of the few willing to publicly admit it on a TV critic’s blog, so I feel obligated to pass on the news. HBO has decided to axe the sexually raw relationship drama, nine months after having picked it up for a second season.
The vague reason given by creator Cynthia Mort is that “we were unable to find the direction of the show for the second season,” and while I have no idea if that’s the whole story—maybe there’s some housecleaning going on with the new leadership at HBO—I agree with Alan Sepinwall that it’s a reasonable claim. The three storylines from last season had reached, if not unambiguous endpoints, something like closure. There’s not much way to deal with that other than to recast a la the second season of In Treatment, and you gotta imagine you only want one re-cast, talky therapy drama on your network at a time.
I still think TMYLM was an underrated series, but—as with the similarly underrated The Comeback—sometimes one season is just about right.
Now a little elaboration on my cryptic dis of HBO’s upcoming vampire drama True Blood, from creator Alan Ball, the other day. I don’t want to “review” it too definitively yet—I’ll want to watch the two episodes again taking notes, and my gut impression could change on second viewing. But while it’s definitely a corrective for all the people who are tired of watching slow-paced dramas of people talking to their shrinks and what more blood and action from HBO—it could be a case of Be careful what you wish for.
Does anyone recall the pilot of Ball’s Six Feet Under? It contained much of the family dynamics that made the show great. But it also indulged some of Ball’s worst tendencies as a writer (which were evident in the overrated American Beauty): drawing characters broadly, telling rather than showing, using a sledgehammer to make satirical points. (Remember the unfortunate fake commercials for funeral products? Like that.) In interviews, Ball made the revealing comment that HBO’s main interference with SFU was to ask him to be more subtle—and what I’ve seen of True Blood so far could use more of that. The characters thus far are too superficial, the dialogue cliche and the shifts in tone (from dark comedy to unintentionally funny horror-drama) whiplashing.
As I said, I reserve the right to amend my opinion, and I still think the show has potential if someone (HBO or his fellow writers) reins in Ball’s tendencies. Some of the themes (social prejudice, the fine line between eroticism and violence) could pay off if handled less obviously. But for now, let me put it this way: however much you might have hated TMYLM, it was a show that could only have run on HBO. The most damning, and accurate, thing I can say about True Blood is: take away the graphic sex and language, and it could run on USA network.
And I’ll stop for now. But the main reason I posted this is: I know people have been watching the leaked pilot of True Blood on BitTorrent, so what did you pirates think of it? I promise not to alert the authorities!