TV and Tunes

Just got around to watching the premiere of HBO's "True Blood," a new series by Alan Ball, creator of "Six Feet Under." The show is based on an alternative reality (we hope) where vampires have come "out of the coffin" and live openly among humans, feeding themselves on a synthetic blood substitute instead of us ... which is nice of them.

It's a really interesting premise and provides a revolutionary way to discuss preconceptions, prejudices, stereotypes and humanity's dark and light side. Anna Paquin stars as your run of the mill beautiful Louisiana waitress who leads an apparently unexciting life and also has the ability to read minds. (What, you can't?)

Everything's boring and peaceful until she meets her first vampire (Peter Moyer) and her brother accidentally kills a woman after watching Vam-porn. I think I read about that in the New York Post yesterday. Anyway, the show is thoughtful and exciting and I'll definitely be tuned in for the rest of the series.

I'm not sure how I feel about Paquin (and in turn the audience) being able to hear every character's thoughts. On one hand, it's a creative way to explore human prejudices and exposes an otherwise unavailable dimension to some of these characters. On the other hand, now there are no secrets and we will always know what's up someone's sleeve. I guess I'm okay with it, so long as they stay consistent and Paquin always behaves like she knows peoples' thoughts and it doesn't just crop up when it's convenient to the writers.

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Speaking of spooky debuts ... J.J. Abrams' new show "Fringe" aired Tuesday and only nine million or so people tuned it. Ouch. Those are not good numbers for a prime time show on a big network. The Wash Post's Lisa de Moraes takes an amusing look at it here.

The show itself is entertaining, but I didn't get the same feeling of immediate addiction like I did with "Lost" or "House." I like the premise, but the execution seemed a little lacking. The dialogue felt a little thin, the cool fringe-science procedures were glossed over without any detail and I hated the relationship between lead Anna Torv and her FBI partner. I'm also getting a little tired of the immense conspiracies with bottomless pits of money and resources to battle our intrepid heroes.

To its credit, it held my interest for an hour-thirty, but I'm wondering if it will hold me through the season finale. Of course, if more people don't start watching, the latter challenge may become considerably easier.

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Picked up the new Joshua Radin album today. A friend of mine introduced me to his music a few years ago and I later profiled him for "Press Pass." I like his sound, but after 10 tracks of near-whispered vocals and softly strummed chords, I was hoping for more variety on his second album. Fortunately he delivered. Radin turns up the volume of his vocals on this release, Simple Times, and mixes in some poppier arrangements to his coffee-shop singer-songwriter routine. Definitely worth picking up.