Ellen Gray: 'True Blood': Life after death for HBO

TRUE BLOOD. 9 p.m. Sunday, HBO.

IN A FUNK since "The Sopranos" cut to black, HBO's been searching for new blood for some time.

But is it "True Blood"?

Adapted by "Six Feet Under" creator Alan Ball from a series of novels by Charlaine Harris, "True Blood" stars an all-grown-up Anna Paquin ("The Piano") as Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress in a Louisiana bar whose telepathy is such a headache that when she meets a guy whose mind she can't read, his being not exactly alive doesn't turn her off a bit.

I've read only one of Harris' books - "Dead Until Dark," on which the first 12 episodes of "True Blood" are based - and, well, great literature it's not.

But as critical as I've been in the past of some of Ball's pretensions, he's done an entertaining job of turning Harris' stories about life in a small Southern town after vampires "come out of the coffin" into something adults who wouldn't dream of reading her books might be caught dead watching.

Assuming that they can handle the not-inconsiderable sex and violence.

It doesn't hurt at all that Paquin, who went blond for "Blood," is flat-out charming as Sookie, a twentysomething innocent who at times seems to be channeling Sandra Dee in "Tammy and the Vampire."

Little wonder that Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), who's returned to his home in Bon Temps, La., more than 150 years after he left it, looks as if he'd like to eat her with a spoon.

Too bad I can't say the same for Bill himself.

David Boreanaz, who jump-started a career - and won himself a spinoff - as the brooding vampire-with-a-conscience, Angel, of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," must've had a tanning bed in his crypt, because, next to him, Moyer looks pale enough to actually be dead.

And not in a good way.

But if the romance between Sookie and Bill doesn't generate much heat, there's plenty to be had between Sookie's brother Jason ("Summerland" 's Ryan Kwanten) and just about every woman in Bon Temps under 60.

The over-60 population's well-represented by Sookie and Jason's grandmother, Adele (Lois Smith), whose enthusiasm for Bill and his Civil War memories hints at the source of her granddaughter's blend of naivete and common sense.

Personally, I'd think common sense might lead anyone, from Southern grandmothers to television executives, to avoid bloodsucking creatures altogether, and with "True Blood," I'd say HBO's courting what may be its most dangerous audience yet.

Yes, I'm talking, if a bit nervously, about fans of the undead who, once they get their fangs into a show - any show - about their favorite subject, just won't let go.

Not that anything bad's happened to CBS since it canceled "Moonlight" last spring.

Not yet, anyway.

Sue Naegle, HBO's new entertainment president, thinks she's up to the challenges of dealing with "crazy fans" - her words, not mine! - people I might call scary if I were brave enough.

"I wouldn't want them on my doorstep, but I can appreciate that passion," she said in July, when I asked about the dangers inherent in putting on a series that's bound to attract a devoted core audience and that nevertheless will sooner or later have to be canceled.

Comparing vampire fans to the devotees of "Jericho" (where the dead at least stayed that way), she said, "You know, I hope that this show gets that kind of rise out of people as long as they don't, you know, send a bunch of coffins to my office. . . . Bring it on."

Things lighten up a bit for HBO at 10 p.m. Sunday, when "Entourage" returns for a fifth season of men behaving boyishly.

But with the most boyish of all, movie star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), headed for a cold splash of reality in the wake of a disastrously bad picture, and his best friend/manager Eric (Kevin Connolly) finally getting serious about his own career, how long can the good times roll?

Long enough, let's hope, for Vince to turn things around.

Shannen Doherty might not have put in an appearance till the last half-hour, but the hype for the CW's "90210" - which, despite one early scene, struck me as kind of retro for a 21st-century teen soap - seems to have paid off.

Tuesday's two-hour premiere averaged more than 4.9 million viewers, enough of them in demographic sweet spots - including women (and all adults) 18-34 and 18-49 - to make it the network's biggest scripted hit ever in several key demographics, according to the preliminary Nielsens.

Still, in yet another reminder that the line between broadcast and basic cable is blurring, Monday's premiere of TNT's "Raising the Bar" reportedly averaged 7.7 million viewers, setting a new record for ad-supported cable networks, on the same night that the CW seemed pleased to attract 3.4 million to the Season 2 launch of "Gossip Girl." *

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