True Blood

OK, I just watched episode 1 of this new HBO series, created by Alan Ball ("American Beauty," "Six Feet Under"), and there is simply no question in my mind that it's going to be one of the hottest things on TV.

The setting is backwoods Louisiana. Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin, from "The Piano") is a waitress in a local eatery during the day and at the local bar at night. She's pretty normal, except that she can read minds. And the crowd at the eatery and at the bar are pretty normal, too, by backwoods Louisiana standards.

Except that the hook of this series is that vampires "came out of the coffin" on national TV a couple of years earlier. They now live openly in society, because the Japanese have invented a synthetic blood that is sold in convenience stores everywhere as "True Blood." The vampires themselves are considered kinda exotic, and there are "fang bangers" of both sexes who long to have sex with them.

One moves to town. Sookie saves his life. Sparks fly. The stage is set for a really fun, well-written series. There is not a clunker in the cast, or an off moment in the writing. One to look forward to.