Variety is reporting that HBO’s popular undead gothic series True Blood will return for a twelve episode third season on June 13. The return of the series shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, as the series drew more than 12 million viewers per episode last season. The season two finale alone drew a record 5.1 million viewers, making it the cabler’s most watched contemporary show.
Fans should be prepared to expect some new faces around Bon Temps, as Alfre Woodard and Kevin Alejandro (Southland) have both signed on for the season. Michelle Forbes, who played Maryann Forrester, Bon Temp’s seductive and deadly maenad, will not be returning for another season (which isn’t too surprising if you paid attention during season two’s finale).
Based on the hit series of novels from Charlaine Harris, True Blood stars Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer and Sam Trammell.
When you say the word “history” out loud, it’s usually met with a chorus of groans. “I hated history in school! All those dates and crap! So boring.” It’s depressing.
History, if taught right, is a story. (That’s why it has “story” embedded into it. No joke.) It’s not names, dates, and places. It’s blood and sex, with a dash of art and higher aspirations. It’s the stuff you pay to watch in theaters or on HBO but with the kicker that it actually happened.
I couldn’t be happier that television has decided to take that idea and run crazy with it. The new trend on cable is taking finding some notorious era of history, populated with sex and swearing, and spin a few seasons out of it. HBO kicked off the trend with Rome and Deadwood (and promptly broke our hearts in the process), and now Showtime and Starz have taken up the gauntlet.
Showtime has been happily running around Renaissance England with The Tudors, which is about to wrap up in its fourth season now that Henry VIII is coming to the end of his wives. While it’s played a little fast and loose with history, it’s been a sumptuous watch, and fans won’t have to look far for a replacement.
The subject of vampires seems to be all the rage these days. Between the overwhelming success of Twilight and even the sweeping of yesterday’s People’s Choice Awards in the favor of all things vampire, they are a pretty sure thing these days. Hoping to continue in that success would be the folks involved in Daybreakers, which hits theaters today.
We recently got a chance to sit down with veteran actor Sam Neill (Jurrasic Park, Merlin) about his role and the film in general. While most people would consider this film a horror, Neill’s take is a bit different.
According to Neill, the film is “best described as a futuristic sci-fi thriller about an upside down vampire world. A lot of the vampire stuff that we’ve seen lately, their always the moody, pale-faced outsiders. In this film, everyone is a vampire, and the humans are a diminishing species, and more of a resource.
Of course, in a vampire world, you need lots of blood to keep everybody alive [laughs]. And since there are fewer and fewer humans available for hunting and bloodfarming, it becomes a bit uncomfortable for them.”
The Flickcast: You were pretty excited when this project was first offered to you. What was the appeal here?
Sam Neill: Well, I’ve played a lot of different characters but to play someone who is so evil and demented is not something you get asked to do a lot. I’ve had a blast, and I haven’t really enjoyed myself on a film in quite some time.
The People’s Choice Awards, which were broadcast last night from Los Angeles’s Nokia Theater, are an awards show where, you guessed it the people pick the winners. This year, which was no real surprise, the people picked vampires.
The Twilight Saga, True Blood and The Vampire Diaries all got trophies Wednesday at the 36th annual event. Twilight won four trophies, including favorite movie, franchise and onscreen team for the trio of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, who also picked up the breakout male actor award.
Winners in the movie categories included Sandra Bullock as favorite movie actress, Hugh Jackman as favorite action star, The Proposal as favorite comedy movie and Up for favorite family movie. Sacha Baron Cohen, appearing as himself and not as his alter egos Borat or Bruno, presented Johnny Depp with a special award as favorite movie actor of the decade.
HBO’s True Blood and the CW’s supernatural series The Vampire Diaries were selected as favorite TV obsession and favorite new TV drama, respectively. Other winners in categories such as movies, TV and music included Inglourious Basterds as favorite independent movie and Lady Gaga as favorite pop and breakout music artist.
With Christmas over and the new year in full swing, Chris and Matt are back with a brand new episode of The Flickcast. This week, your favorite team is joined by Cortney Zamm to discuss all sorts of topics including new and returning TV shows such as Chuck, 24, Human Target, Caprica, Lost and True Blood. Also, the threesome talks Avatar, Sandra Bullock, “feel good” movies, Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Thor casting.
In addition, Chris, Matt and Cortney make some new picks for the new year including one of Cortney’s favorite books Silent Bob Speaks, Matt’s new favorite “blacksploitation” film Black Dynamite and one of Chris’ top ten films of 2009, District 9.
As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.
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While most of the “best of 2009″ lists are petering off in the new year, there are still a few statistics still rolling in. One being the most-illegally-downloaded TV program of the year, which also happens to be one of the least popular. NBC’s Heroes has been on the bubble since last year, which is why the network only ordered half of a season for this year, and will be spreading the episodes out until Spring sweeps.
With that in mind, it would be considered that fans wouldn’t be rushing to their torrent sites or DVD stores to catch up on the super-powered drama, seeing as how they didn’t give it enough of a chance when it was on the air in the past. According to The Hollywood Reporter, that’s just what they’re doing.
“This year, the buzz is that the show may be on the verge of cancellation thanks to dwindling ratings (it averages about 6 million viewers a week, down from nearly 14 million when the show first premiered in 2006).
2009 has been a great year for TV. Everyone’s favorite shows like The Office, Lost, Weeds, and True Blood continued with some killer seasons, new shows like Trauma, Castle, and Lie to Me caught audience’s interests. We’ve got a list for you of our favorite TV shows of this year, including some of the latest and greatest of 2009 as well as some old favorites.
Glee – Fox
Glee has stolen viewer’s hearts this season not just with its love triangles and intense drama, but also the song and dance that the students in William McKinley High School’s glee club perform. The mid-season finale just aired, and it surely made “gleeks” even more anxious for the rest of the season, which will air beginning April 13th.
Not only has Glee swept the nation’s TV sets, but also it’s iTunes playlists. The first soundtrack to the season has already gone gold, while the second soundtrack is climbing the charts in the top 5.
True Blood – HBO
Where the Twilight series fails to thrill audiences, True Blood succeeds. Just finishing its action packed and hair-raising second season,the show, based off Charlaine Harris’ vampire mystery series continues to confuse us, surprise us, and make our blood boil with such storylines as an anti-vampire cult, a love triangle, and flying Eric, all in this season alone!
Here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic, and not-so-classic, movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time this week as well.
Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows like Trick ‘r Treat (pictured above with Anna Paquin), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Chinatown, Bones Season 4 and the complete Stargate: Atlantis series.
Check them out.
Movies
Anvil: The Story of Anvil ~ Robb Reiner (DVD)
Assassination of a High School President ~ Kathryn Morris, Michael Rapaport, Bruce Willis (DVD and Blu-ray)
Chinatown ~ Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston (DVD)
You know the old joke about what kinds of music they play at a certain bar? It goes something like this: “We play both kinds of music . . . Country and Western.” See, that’s funny because those are the same thing . . . never mind. Still, the intent of the joke applies to the worlds of Sci-Fi and Fantasy.
As in, we like ‘em both here at The Flickcast. We also tend to watch a lot of TV. So, how do we combine those two things together and, more importantly, figure out which shows are worth watching and which aren’t? Fortunately, over at Sci-Fi Wire, they’ve done the hard work for us and compiled a list of every Sci-Fi and Fantasy show we could possibly watch this Summer.
Some of the shows they highlight in the article that we’re looking forward to are listed below. For the complete list, be sure to head over to Sci-Fi Wire.
We’re glad to see Alan Ball’s entertaining, interesting and sexy show get a second season on HBO. Its mix of vampires, Southern charm, murder, suspense, sex, action and did we also mention vampires, make it a compelling show to watch each week.
The new season of True Blood starts on June 14 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Season one drops on DVD and Blu-ray on May 19 and so does the soundtrack.
Variety is reporting that HBO’s popular undead gothic series True Blood will return for a twelve episode third season on June 13. The return of the series shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, as the series drew more than 12 million viewers per episode last season. The season two finale alone drew a record 5.1 million viewers, making it the cabler’s most watched contemporary show.
The subject of vampires seems to be all the rage these days. Between the overwhelming success of Twilight and even the sweeping of yesterday’s 
The People’s Choice Awards, which were broadcast last night from Los Angeles’s Nokia Theater, are an awards show where, you guessed it the people pick the winners. This year, which was no real surprise, the people picked vampires.
With Christmas over and the new year in full swing, Chris and Matt are back with a brand new episode of The Flickcast. This week, your favorite team is joined by Cortney Zamm to discuss all sorts of topics including new and returning TV shows such as Chuck, 24, Human Target, Caprica, Lost and True Blood. Also, the threesome talks Avatar, Sandra Bullock, “feel good” movies, Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Thor casting.
Glee has stolen viewer’s hearts this season not just with its love triangles and intense drama, but also the song and dance that the students in William McKinley High School’s glee club perform. The mid-season finale just aired, and it surely made “gleeks” even more anxious for the rest of the season, which will air beginning April 13th.
here the Twilight series fails to thrill audiences, True Blood succeeds. Just finishing its action packed and hair-raising second season, the show, based off Charlaine Harris’ vampire mystery series continues to confuse us, surprise us, and make our blood boil with such storylines as an anti-vampire cult, a love triangle, and flying Eric, all in this season alone!
You know the old joke about what kinds of music they play at a certain bar? It goes something like this: “We play both kinds of music . . . Country and Western.” See, that’s funny because those are the same thing . . . never mind. Still, the intent of the joke applies to the worlds of Sci-Fi and Fantasy.
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