‘Blood’, Money and Death

There simply isn't enough vampire sex in the world. Vampire fiction, movies and television shows have a weird tendency to portray these creatures that exude sexual mystique in disappointingly chaste ways. So good for Alan Ball for making "True Blood," his first series since "Six Feet Under," big on the vampire sex.

"Blood," adapted from a series of novels by Charlaine Harris, invites us into a world where vampires walk among us, and try to stake…er…claim their place in society. Vampires "come out of the coffin" thanks to the invention of a synthetic beverage called TruBlood, which is like Ensure for bloodsuckers--all the nutrition, none of the corpses. Unfortunately, this is backwoods Louisiana, a place where the line "We don't take too kindly to your kind around here" seems to just roll off the tongue, so for a vampire, assimilating is no small feat.

Anna Paquin plays Sookie Stackhouse, a hot waitress at a local bar and grill, who is giddy when she sees a vampire come in for a drink. He's Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), a vampire not like the others. He has a gentle, kind way about him, and the upside for Sookie--who also happens to reads minds--is that she can't hear his thoughts. Her head is usually a cacophony of people's inner-monologued obscenities, but with Bill she finds peace. When the show focuses on Sookie and Bill, it's an engrossing love story of two people inexplicably drawn to each other, despite their differences.

But the show has to be broader than two characters, and when it delves into the lives of its ancillary characters, it gets downright silly. Sookie's gigolo brother, Jason (Ryan Kwanten) is both repelled and intrigued by vampires, leading him to take vampire's blood (it's a recreational drug), which gives him a painful erection. That's the kind of humor the show includes, along with, the love story, a series of unexplained vampire murders, and the social allegory (vampires = gays.) By the third episode, it has morphed from guilty pleasure to pure guilt. "True Blood" does a whole lot of things, but the love story--the part closest to Harris's original vision--is the only one that works. Plenty of vampire sex though, I can't stress that enough.

The CW has its shtick down now: it skews young and female--and those young females want a show that's fun and aspirational. Their new comedy "Privileged" certainly hits all those marks, though it manages to be weirdly derivative in getting there. Joanna Garcia plays Megan Smith, an aspiring writer in New York who wants to do serious journalism but is stuck at a shallow tabloid (see: "The Devil Wears Prada"). When she's fired, she gets a tip about a job in Palm Beach, Fla., tutoring Rose and Sage (Lucy Hale and Ashley Newbrough), two spoiled teen-terrors (see: "The Nanny Diaries"). Oh, and taking the job complicates things because Megan is from Palm Beach and trying to dodge her estranged sister, Lily (Kristina Apgar). And the mansion is filled with quirky, colorful help. (see: "Gilmore Girls"). Surprisingly, "Privileged" somehow works. Garcia is genuinely charming, and the dialogue gives her plenty to work with. When her editor looks askew at her hair, dyed fire-truck red, she offers a hilarious, self-deprecating explanation: "I figured, everybody loves Lucille Ball, but nobody ever does anything about it, right?"

The trick will be getting the tone just right. The pilot whips you from broad comedy to Lifetime feature presentation in the span of five minutes. But it plays both well. And "Privileged" has a big advantage over "Prada" and "Diaries." You don't have to wait two hours to watch the protagonist grow a backbone. By the end of the pilot, Megan has stared down the sisters and their equally demanding grandmother, Laurel (Anne Archer). That prompts Sage to essentially say "game on," and off they'll go into another girl-friendly adventure. I won't be there to see it though. I'm already hooked on "Gossip Girl," after all, and a guy has to set limits.

It's both fair and unfair to compare the first episode of the new sci-fi thriller "Fringe" to the first episode of "Lost." The "Lost" pilot is among the best ever, in terms of technical achievement and overall wow factor. But J.J. Abrams, the creator of "Lost," is executive producing "Fringe," and running the show is Jeff Pinkner, a former "Lost" writer. The comparison is inevitable, and, so long as Fox insists on using Abrams's name to hook viewers, totally fair game. So let it be said: "Fringe" is no "Lost." It's as costly--the budget is reported at $10 million--and as technically proficient, but it's not as deep, not as rich, not as emotionally rewarding. Also, "Fringe" is a completely different kind of show (more like "The X-Files"), but there are flaws in its execution, and a comparison to "Lost" shows how they could have been avoided.

"Fringe" centers on FBI agent Olivia Dunham (gorgeous newcomer Anna Torv) and her partner John Scott (Mark Valley), with whom she's carrying on a secret intra-office affair. They're called out to investigate a disturbing case: a passenger flight that lands with all of its passengers and crew dead, transformed into squishy, gelatinous globs. While on the hunt, Agent Scott winds up with the same condition. His skin is transparent and he's fading fast. In order to save the man she loves, Dunham has to enlist the help of a "fringe scientist" Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble). But Bishop is in a mental institution, and only his son Peter (Joshua Jackson) can get him out, and keep dad's crazies reined-in long enough to help Dunham figure out how to save her partner. The emotional layers are laid out hastily, but they still resonate. Dunham is trying to save the man she feels most connected to, while Bishop and his son are trying to repair their broken connection.

I won't reveal what happens with the case, but suffice it to say, there's a twist. But in getting there, "Fringe" lays out a larger mythology. There's apparently a "pattern" of events, like the plane full of gummy passengers--weird occurrences that are all linked somehow. There's a shadowy corporation called Massive Dynamics conducting experiments on humans, and its integrally involved in The Pattern.

In stitching in these elements, the show is trying to walk a line between the episodic and the serial. Each episode can contain a story that will be concluded in the hour, but will have a deep mythology that plays out over the lifetime of the series. "Fringe," then, is supposed to be a different animal from "Lost." You're supposed to be able to saunter in and out of it without consequence. But by including so many details about the overarching mystery, the show practically begs for a commitment, as if to say, "I want us to get married tomorrow, but…y'know…no pressure." "Lost" was more subtle; in the pilot there were intriguing elements that informed the viewer that this was no average island (the monster, the polar bear) but you weren't pummeled by them. "Fringe" pummels.

Here's the lesson of "Lost": a show can have as much character development, as much emotional payoff, as many supposedly episodic stories as it wants to. Once it introduces a larger, mysterious story, viewers will become more fascinated by the macro, not the micro. "Fringe" is a really fun show, great action and effects, and a genuine sense of humor. But don't be fooled: unless you're prepared to hunker down with it and get dribs and drabs of a mythology with which you'll grow increasingly fascinated, stick with an earthier procedural.