Product Description
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True Blood is the sexy, y, wildly entertaining drama series
from O®- and Emmy®-winning Alan Ball (HBO’s Six Feet Under),
and based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris.
Mixing romance, suspense, mystery and humor, True Blood tells the
continuing tale of Sookie (Anna Paquin, Golden Globe-winner for
this role), a human waitress with telepathic gifts – and a so-far
irresistible attraction to 174-year-old vampire Bill Compton
(Stephen Moyer). Surrounded by familiar faces – including her
brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten), shape-shifting boss Sam Merlotte
(Sam Trammell), soul-searching pal Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley),
Tara’s cousin Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis); chief Andy
Bellefleur (Chris Bauer), vampire suitor Eric Northman (Alexander
Skarsgård) and teen vamp Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) – Sookie
faces some new otherworldly threats in this season – as if
vampires, werewolves, werepanthers and shapeshifters weren’t
enough!
.com
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Alan Ball's pop supernatural series True Blood expands its
to an epic scale with its fourth season, which spreads its vast
network of characters, human and otherwise, across the while
bringing aboard a host of new personalities, including a magic
store owner-cum-white witch (Fiona Shaw) with a dangerous secret.
Shaw's transformation from a mousy magic practitioner to vessel
for the soul of a long-dead Spanish sorceress is the most
intriguing storyline in the fourth season, which also concerns
the return of Sookie (Anna Paquin) from the Faerie Kingdom and
her subsequent romantic yearnings for Eric (Alexander Skarsgård),
which naturally upset her beau and newly minted vampire king of
Louisiana, Bill (Stephen Moyer). Though these two arcs alone
would be sufficient for most series, season four also manages to
fit in a fairly ridiculous bit of business involving Sookie's
brother, Jason (Ryan Kwanten), who becomes a sort of stud for a
commune of were-panther women seeking offspring, as well as the
e of Arlene's (Carrie Preston) baby, which begins to share
some personality traits with its her, deceased serial killer
Rene. It's a lot to pack into just 12 episodes, and as a result,
some storylines that deserve to be ed out, like the
relationship between fledgling vampire Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll)
and human Hoyt (Jim Parrack), are left on the back burner while
less effective but flashier ones, like Jason's bout with the
were-panthers, are granted a larger spotlight. The result is an
uneven season in comparison to its predecessors, but that
shouldn't bother die-hard True Blood fans, as the show's steady
diet of sex, death, and morbid humor is still operating on full
blast.
The five-disc Blu-ray edition of True Blood: The Complete Fourth
Season is ed out by a wealth of informative and
entertainment extras that provide a detailed look at the series'
execution from the perspective of creator-executive producer Alan
Ball, as well as key members of the cast and crew. Ball is front
and center on the majority of the supplemental features, from
commentary with Anna Paquin on "If You Love Me, Why Am I Dyin'?"
to the 28-minute Final Touches, a postproduction documentary
roundtable that explores the central themes and creative
requirements of the season. Moyer, Skarsgård, Woll, Shaw, and Sam
Trammell, who plays shapeshifter Sam, also contribute to five
additional commentary tracks, and a vast number of the show's
supporting cast reprise their characters in the Enhanced Viewing
mode, which offers both video and text commentary on individual
episodes. Much of this is quite amusing and well crafted, though
they can only be accessed through the Enhanced Viewing option and
not separate from their respective episodes. The little details
are also key to the True Blood Lines, a thumbnail encyclopedia of
the show's immense cast of characters, organized by their
particular species (human, vampire, etc.), that traces how each
are connected to the rest of the Bon Temps population. Each
episode also gets a brief summation from the show's writers and
producers in the Inside the Episode featurettes. A pair of
double-sided DVD copies and digital copies rounds out this
impressive set. --Paul Gaita