Written for Handbook of the Vampire by Lauren Rosewarne, the Chapter Page can be found here.
There is no doubt that True Blood (I have linked to my Season 7 review, which in turn links reviews for the other 6 seasons) was a TV phenomenon. A series that started strong, and whilst it lost its way for a couple of seasons, it built back strong (only for the very coda of the series to fall flat, for me at least – and one part of this chapter is called An Unsatisfying Ending). As such I think that the series deserved a chapter within the Handbook.
Roseworne looks very much at the series’ critical reception, how the series came to be, its place as a prestige series for HBO all the way to Alan Ball leaving the series as showrunner and a perceived decline – to be honest I thought season 5 (his last season as Showrunner) began to pick up where it had lost momentum in season 4 (and 3 to a degree) and Season 6 and 7 stepped the game up from 4 and 5 (bar the ending of 7) – but that’s just me. Specifically mentioned is Sookie being revealed to be of fay blood as a jumping the shark moment, but the series just followed the direction of the books.
There isn’t much in the way of analysis of the show itself – gendered analysis is touched on – and so it doesn’t touch as much on the outsider aspect, perhaps quoting Ball talking to the analogy of vampires to the lgbtq+ community but not exploring the ideas within the series to any depth. This was not a miss, as such, the chapter explored its intended topic but shows a gap where another chapter might look into that in more depth. Nevertheless, for a media student that presents an interesting case study.
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