True Blood, most popular series since "The Sopranos" & "Sex and the City"

Catching the wave of a public fascination with vampires, HBO's "True Blood" has steadily increased in stature to become the cable network's most popular series since "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City." Based on the series of Sookie Stackhouse novels written by Charlaine Harris and starring Winnipeg-born Anna Paquin in the lead character's role, "True Blood" has grown its Sunday night viewership by 66 per cent since its debut in September. The first season finale airs this Sunday, with a second season already in production. "True Blood" casually imagines a world where vampires, telepathic women and "shape shifters" - people who can assume the shapes of animals - are a part of everyday life in a small Louisiana town. A steamy romance between Paquin's waitress and Bill the brooding vampire, portrayed by Stephen Moyer, stands at the show's centre. The HBO series also benefits from proximity to this week's much-anticipated release of the "Twilight" movie, another spooky drama about a girl and the vampire who loves her. Another parallel: "Twilight" is also based on a literary series. Alan Ball, who produced HBO's "Six Feet Under," came to the network with the idea of adapting Harris' novels into escapist entertainment. "After 'Six Feet Under,' where as an artist and a person I got to explore my whole relationship with grief for about five years, I just felt, OK, I don't really need to spend any more time staring into the abyss," Ball said. Ball's pitch was basically all it took to sell HBO's executives on the idea, said Michael Lombardo, HBO's chief of West Coast operations. Ball kept the foreboding darkness expected in vampire stories, spiced up the sex and violence, mixed in humour and explored the theme of outsiders in society, he said. The novels are centred on Stackhouse, so Ball said he had to develop some of the characters around her to avoid overworking Paquin. Harris is unlikely to mind any artistic licences; all seven of her Stackhous...