True blood stakes new ground in TV series programming

Abstract

Now in its third season, the television series, TRUE BLOOD, has broken new ground in the creation and presentation of multiple characters and multiple stories briskly intercut within each episode and between shows. This pattern of narrative presentation requires a quite modern ability to follow the stories and characters that goes well beyond the patterns of more traditional television series dramas (such as CSI and LAW AND ORDER). The extensive fracturing of narrative continuity combined with the popularity of the series indicates a new jump in the ability of audiences to cope with such extensive disjunction, and even audiences’ desire for such a presentational pattern.By close analytic comparison, the author demonstrates this new pattern in comparison with other popular, multi-season dramatic narrative shows. Further,a content analysis reveals the ability of this pattern to interweave fantasy and whimsy within a high degree of presentational realism with very limited special effects (F/X) that, for example, extends fantasy totally within the context of traditional realistic depictions.