I was pleasantly surprised by the series too. The last few episodes of season 3 faded a little for me though. The Sam and his family story arc and the obligatory mess with Tara seemed to get tedious. The Eric/Russell story arc more than made up for it though. And now it’s finished until next year. At least Fringe and Dexter start up this week.

I’ve also been pleasantly surprised by True Blood. Your review pretty much sums it up. I agree about some of the (presumably) human characters; most, if not all of them, are thoroughly annoying :) Hoyt and Lafayette are ok though. Lafayette is actually very well portrayed, some really great acting there! I really didn’t like Sam at first (I thought he was a werewolf) and Tara is just miserable all the time. She just keeps making bad choices over and over again. And Jason is just a huge flaming douche.
The vampires are indeed excellent. Very enjoyable portrayal of their society. I’m not sure about the staking though; I would’ve preferred dust (perhaps that’s Buffy’s influence speaking). I like how Stephen Moyer plays Bill. Bill is way too serious though but so funny with the “oh Ssookeeh!” and “Yes, I am Vampire…” XD

All in all I like this show. Too bad we’ll have to wait a while for season 4.

I happened to have read the books on which the show was based. The first season followed the book closely and it was fun seeing all the characters come to life in a very similar but also distinctly different manner. And I LOVE the opening credits – they are a masterpiece on their own. Season 2 went down the slippery slope and S3 was full of crap for me. It’s not that the books are great or very memorable (but they are MUCH more readable than Twilight), but they explain the characters motivations and reasoning better. And I just can’t see why the creators of the show decided to fix something that wasn’t broken. I wanted to slap half of the characters in S3 and KILL Tara. And Sam for that matter.

What I really liked about the book was the fact of legitimizing the vamps and its consequences and complications. Anti-vamp campaigns, bill for vampire/human marriage, inheritance issues and stuff like that.