At 5 p.m. last Tuesday, the line for the True Blood panel at PaleyFest snaked around the Cinerama Dome toward the Arclight entrance. Many of the predominantly female fans of the HBO series had been camped out since early afternoon, traveling from as far as Texas and New York. more ›

HBO's new series True Blood is based on the series of books by Charlaine Harris, about a world where vampires have emerged from the shadows to claim equal rights in human society, prompted by the invention of a synthetic blood drink that removes their need to hunt humans. In this world, vampires are exciting and intriguing, dangerous but sexy, and their blood has enjoyable drug-like effects on humans, so we now have people who actively try to seduce vampires, and even people who attack them to drain their blood and sell it. The story is set in a small imaginary town in Louisiana called Bon Temps (as in Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez), and features a bleached-blond Anna Paquin as Sookie, a young waitress with the inexplicable ability to read minds, who falls in love with Stephen Moyer's chivalrous, brooding vampire named Bill. Yes, Bill. It beats Sookie... more ›