HBO has tapped its “Six Feet Under” creator Alan Ball to take Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire novels and adapt them for the leading cable network as an anthological TV series.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I became deeply committed to HBO’s “Carnivale” and the network yanked out my innocent and enthusiastic heart and left it pumping aimlessly in their grimy little hands by cancelling the show at the height of its most creative period.

Do I want to make that kind of emotional and clock-time committment to another great project that, once I get hooked like a crack addict, only leaves me panting on the floor a wretched wreck of my previous self?

HBO, however, is not the only guilty party. Showtime did the same thing with “Dead Like Me,” and of course we all know what FOX did with “Firefly” and CBS’ “Threshold.” This May we will find out if NBC does the same to us with “Surface?” They’re all sadistic bastards. A pox on all their houses!