_jems_ (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} _jems_) wrote,@ 2009-09-15 00:25:00 |
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| Current mood: | sleepy |
True Blood finale
In the past week, I've gotten up early twice in order to catch an episode that had aired the night before, before I had to head off to work: Thursday, to see Glee, and today, to see the True Blood finale. Honestly? I wish I'd stayed in bed. Not because I hated it or was outraged or felt betrayed or anything like that. It was just really really boring.
Okay, that's not entirely true, because it started out promising enough. It felt like it was building and building and building...until the midpoint of the episode, when all that ratcheted up tension of the first half slowly started leaking out, like a tire with a nail stuck in it, until all that was left at the end was a flattened tire and one very bored viewer.
Reading my flist today has been much more interesting! deathisyourart made a very good point here.
Also, it is interesting that the Queen implied that the only reason Bill was in love with Sookie was because he tasted her, and Eric is interested without ever having done the same.
This is very interesting to me, because it makes me a lot happier thinking that Eric sees something in Sookie beside her blood. In the books, the blood effect wears off, but we haven't seen that on the show so far, and I don't know what the canon is here. Plus, Bill hasn't exactly gone without long enough for us to find this out. Which means we don't actually know what his feelings are. Hell, he doesn't even know. And neither does Sookie (which is what I'm hoping her hesitation was all about. The moment of clarity that breaks through the fog of blood-induced lust).
And then
ww1614 linked to an article with Alan Ball, where he said this:Happy relationships are boring. We all want them in our own life. But I don’t want to watch them on TV.
The irony here is that he didn't say this about Bill/Sookie, and in fact seems quite blind to the fact that one of his darling relationships is exactly what he describes as boring TV. And even now, with this kidnapping thing, it isn't as if there's going to be an internal relationship conflict that disturbs their happiness, it's all external factors. In the books, there is a lot more conflict, a lot more of Sookie's hesitation, but instead of capitalizing on this to make the relationship more interesting, Alan Ball seems to be determined to clear away their obstacles, their internal conflicts, without anything of substance to replace them. I'd like to think that this is so he can kill off the relationship and no one will care, but I sincerely doubt it.
For the most part, I think Alan Ball has improved on the books tremenduously. But two things worry me about the show: Bill/Sookie and Sookie herself.
I can see the wisdom of creating an Eric/Sookie/Bill love triangle (there really isn't one in the books), as it will make for better TV than the straight-up consecutive romances of the books. In which case, Bill can't become quite as much of a non-entity as he is in the books past a certain point. He has to still be viable as a love interest in order for the triangle to work. But I can't quite figure out how much of his pro-Bill/Sookie stance and Eric/Sookie antipathy is real and how much is manufactured to level the playing field. Maybe he isn't planning on a triangle at all? (Now, if that meant forgetting about Bill entirely and focusing on Eric, I'd be all for it. But I have a feeling that's not the way Alan Ball would go.)
Sookie herself is an entirely different beast. The good thing about the show is that the bit characters in the books have the opportunity to shine in a way they never could in the Sookie-point-of-view format of the books. Lafayette, Jason, Terry, hell, even Tara, outshine their book counterparts. But Sookie loses something in translation. For me, most of it is down to me having nothing invested in the only thing she's been invested in so far: Bill. And unless you're sympathetic to her feelings, how can you even begin to bond with her? I think it would be best if the show followed book canon for a while and kept her single. Give her something other than her love life to worry about.
I'm a lot more apprehensive about season 3 now than I was at any point before the finale (because then I could still imagine that he was saving up for a kickass final episode), especially ending with that proposal, and the hints that Eric is the one who kidnapped Bill (I really hope he isn't. Not necessarily because it would put him in a bad light - I don't care so much about that - but because I feel like Bill has been white-washed enough, I want at least some of book canon to remain).
Wow, that got a lot longer than I intended. And a lot more rambly. And I'm not even sure I had a point with all of it. Oh well!