It was true last season when I said it. After the Season 2 premiere, the declaration still rings true: TRUE BLOOD is the best show on television. I’m not here to gush over the recent return to television, as engaging as it was, rather to address a comment Herc at AICN made, a comment that echoes sentiments I’ve seen in comment sections across the tubes.
Specifically, in his admittedly favorable preview of the S2 premiere, Herc expressed, “Bon Temps keeps reminding me of Sunnydale, and how much more fun Sunnydale was; “Buffy’s” plotting and dialogue were sharper and more graceful.”
Firstly, each a proxy for their respective show, Bon Temps is not Sunnydale and any contrast of the two is little more than rigor mortise clutching for a TV show that will never return. Aside from a female protagonist and vampire pro/antagonists, the two shows have nothing in common. The comparison cannot extend beyond foundation. It’s like saying New York City is much more fun than London, yet the only real tendon connecting the two are asphalt and sky scrappers. Each have distinct, mutually exclusive idiosyncrasies, to pretend they’re of the same ancestry and agenda is fruitless.
Pollination aside, I still don’t get how Herc can say Sunnydale is “much more fun” or that Buffy’s cobblestones are “sharper and more graceful”. Combined those comments imply that Alan Ball’s agenda is to be both boring and dull. Where Whedon’s was a world of teen aged apocryphal (mis)adventures and dealing with hormones, Ball’s is a world of dark acclimation to a new norm, levity being a natural byproduct of dealing with the unknown. BUFFY sought fun, TRUE BLOOD safety nets into fun for balance.
(Spoilers for both shows abound)
