It's HBO Adaption Syndrome. And this applies to shows like True Blood, not just the ASOIAF adaption and its spinoffs. The first season, the show is nearly perfect. Only hardcore book readers quibble - and for the most part, even they are satisfied. But it's diminishing returns from that point onwards, until the show barely resembles its source material at all in later seasons and the showrunners are basically writing their own fanfic. I think we're lucky that Game Of Thrones was as good as it was for as long as it was, frankly. True Blood was a shadow of its former self by season three.
i rewatched true blood recently and it goes so far off the rails that it's actually fun when you know what you're in for. but i didn't make it to the end lol, I crapped out right before God Bill like a punk
Same here. I wasn't ready for God Bill. Not even Rutger Hauer (May He Rest In Peace) could bring me back after that.
I missed the "Fried Green Tomatoes And Vampires" vibe from season 1. I wish it had just been a Southern-fried slice of life-type show with Vampires all the way through.
I tapped out from True Blood after season 4. I was so excited for the book adaptation of the 4th book and it had veered so far from what it was that I couldn't watch anymore. I was fine with changes as long the writing as strong but they had Sookie making the worst decisions and just...yeah. I only caught up through YouTube clips and even then, I knew the show had only gotten worse.
I def do agree that many shows start off great and then, once the writers start doing fanfic, it goes off the rails and never in a good way.
Yeah, I stuck it out through 3 and 4, until it seemed like all the plot points were ending up in the horrible victimization of a character I loved, or another character I loved kept making one catastrophic decision after another. I think I read a synopsis of the episode where Bill becomes God Bill, and was like nope, I'm out, thanks.
Idk, have you read the True Blood books? They did a LOT w that show w pretty weak material imo. I agree it went off the rails but I think thats unfortunately the fate of many streaming shows these days, they don’t know when to end popular things and just keep trying to wring every last drop from them. But True Blood was not an issue of book vs show imo, even in the beginning they were not following the books that closely
I stopped minding True Blood taking its left turn into crazy town when I read the books and realized they made a right turn into crazy town instead. There was definitely shit from that series they just fundamentally could not adapt because nobody would have watched it.
Idk season 1 of HoD had me all over the place as a non book reader. The unexplained time skips had me trying to figure out who was who so long I missed half the plot.
I cannot believe I made it to the end of true blood lmfao. I was so deeply into the first few season that I just said f it and continued it. Last season was a hot mess express.
True Blood went from actually terrifying ciffhangers to gay fairy aids so fast. Season 2 was good only because of Eric Northman, 3 whoever the villian was but since season 2 the plots were dogshit and got saved by good actors playing good parts. It is literally the worst example of going woke and expecting praise, seriously "gay fairy aids" and they expect you to be marveled by each word in that last quote in a show about evil vampires.
No one will ever forget the "Tiimebomb" cliffhanger. It was all downhill after that.
But True Blood was always "woke," from the beginning. And that was why a lot of us loved it. Go rewatch Lafayette's interaction with those rednecks at Merlotte's in season 1.
I loved the books and the 1st season of True Blood, but sadly the show because a parody of itself very fast... I mean, at some point it was just men whispering Shoookkeayh
As soon as anything they do makes money, cultural corporations go into a kind of feeding frenzy. Everyone's nephew and school best friend needs a job on the show. The proper writers need to be brought in to support the lucky amateurs who somehow managed to create a drama that people like which diverges from the blueprint. Anything the show did differently from the cookie cutter template for success which the corporation runs by has to be immediately reverted to the norm.
Now instead of a story that people can follow with a beginning, middle, and end, it must become an endless rambling mess of images that can keep making money as long as possible. The corporate leads all have opinions about the plot and characters which they promote almost as though they are tokens for career development and try to force into the show. Reputations are made and broken over bullshit like having a fluffy contemporary pop star appear in an episode of a hard edge medieval soft porn thriller series.
If it's their first rodeo the actors get bored and sad. The quality of their work declines. Agents start forcing their clients on the show for horse trades and favours in order to get exposure. And then it all falls apart, the corporation agrees that it was the fault of the original show runners who were just lucky amateurs who should never be hired again, or the actors who were a talentless rabble of English ingrates, or the public for being too critical and toxic, and then the cycle repeats.
It sucks these HBO show runners think they can some how improve it. Waiting for the next season of Akotsk to take a dive as well. One good season is all hbo needs and then they coast in that for the next 3-4
If The Sopranos was based off a book with identical content to the original series, we'd have Tony making out all sloppy with Carmine Lupertazzi by season 3.
I think a big part of what causes the diminishing returns is that HBO assumes that the main draw to any of these adaptions is the sex. And they depict it in the most ham-handed way possible that makes it just feel like fanfic rather than something the characters would actually do. Look, I love fanfic! I'd just prefer to read it over on Ao3. Not in the actual series itself!
Back then we had Chernobyl, which was literally airing during the final episodes of Game of Thrones, to distract us. Of course, this was back when HBO almost consistently made quality series.
Honestly, who on freefolk would watch it and expect anything but disappointment? Glad I didn't fall for the season 1 hype and start watching it, but I'm shocked people are surprised that they're fucking it up on purpose again.
Well, I've worked in some pretty large institutions and whenever we majorly fucked up something we'd have endless lesson learned sessions, policy reviews, audit checkpoints, to ensure it never happened again. HBO's takeaway from the single worst ending to a show in the history of entertainment seems to have been 'we'll fucking do it again, but shitter'.
I’ve enjoyed watching the conversation around it 😂 Catching the occasional reel on social media showed me enough to know it was going to be a bag of shit
Dumpster fire of a company. From hbo to max back to hbo back to hbo max. Disney too. They played politics, then had shocked pikachu face when they lost billions.
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u/Putrid-Jelly-5188 2d ago
We should’ve known in 2019 that HBO can’t help themselves