True Blood has already been renewed for a second season, by the by.

I have to say, not having seen the show but having read quite a few of the books, it's fascinating watching people's reactions and speculations.

wrt Sam's presence in episodes - for quite a while, imdb was showing that Sookie was only in 4 episodes out of 12 - I mean, I actually concluded that the show was going to diverge wildly from the text and make her a supporting character rather than the main role. So it could just be that he's not been updated yet. (Or not.)

Re Erin's whitefont:

I haven't read the early books in a while, but you're definitely correct that this diverges from the text. IIRC, we're only barely aware of the Fellowship of the Sun's existence at this point. They definitely weren't killing off leaders this early in the first book. However, they can just tack some other name on the character and still have him do Newlin's stuff. Much like Tara's really a much more peripheral character in the books, but she's taking the best friend role that was more Arlene's in the books.

I don't like Tara at all. I have no problem with fleshing out the character and introducing her early, but she just seems so much NOT like a person Sookie would hang with. And the actress plays her so OTT.

Epic, you're right, of course. It just seems a little weird to make such a point of it. Why? I mean, is it supposed to play in later to a O NOES! VAMPIRES R RLLY BAD! WOW! kinda of thing, playing into Sookie's naivte about them at the beginning. Cause I'm thinking that death will not be an accident. I can't play back the show; doesn't it say they were killed in a microburst or something? Or am I wrong, there?

A highway sign fell on them, I thought.

Dexter rates a special flip/fake magazine cover & content in EW this week, and yesterday or the day before, Showtime sent out the link to Dexter VIP subscribers (e.g., signed up on an email list) for the premiere episode.

Besides the season premiere, Hall's up for an Emmy, so I'm sure this is all part of that.

then Stephen Moyer gave one delivery where he just made it sound...like a proposition.

His pronunciation really needed "Five dollah" as a follow-up. I don't know how he got those sounds out of the name's spelling. Of course, I have no idea what he's trying to do accent-wise in general—if an Aussie of Ryan Kwanten's limited talents can manage a halfway decent Southern accent, I don't know why they settled on a male lead who sounds like he came from some fictional country out of a Marx Brothers movie.

I'm kind of torn... I do think they're largely getting the atmosphere of the South right, and I like most of the actors. But I was surprised they didn't just name the lead Mary-Suekie and CGI violet eyes onto Anna Paquin.

I can't quite tell if I dislike Tara in her own right or because she's hitting so many similar beats to Mahandra and falling so very short of the awesomeness and likeability Tracie Thoms brought to that role.

My suspension of disbelief is fading out with the "you are kept alive by magic" shit.

Choose a world to walk in, and stay there. The whole, "we don't want anyone to know our weaknesses" thing is negated by the fact that all these asses already know about the silver and hep D and the shit. Unless the magic life force also makes the internets unavailable.

The world they've chosen to walk in would have already exposed the physiology of vampires before they were granted voting rights.

Bad soap opera, no biscuit.

Liked Tara a lot more this ep. I am again tired of seeing the brother have sex, hot body aside.

More foreshadowing with the dogs. Sam growls in his sleep, and he greeted the other dog with "my brother". Interesting.

I am beginning to get a little annoyed by the overt sexuality of the show. first, it's the brother having sex all the time, then we see Sookie masturbating once (I knew it was a dream because she'd never go to Bill's house in her nightgown), and then about the masturbate on the steps in front of Bill's house in the middle of the damn day. just me, or anyone else?