If you haven’t seen the season premiere for True Blood and don’t want to know details about it, please stop reading now. There are SPOILERS ahead….
Producer Alan Ball is defending the fourth season premiere of True Blood.
Specifically, Ball is defending the decision to time jump the storyline forward a year.
We wanted to get all of our characters into somewhat of a new place. To give Jason (Ryan Kwanten) time to have actually become a sheriff’s deputy. To have Bill (Stephen Moyer) be the king. To have Arlene (Carrie Preston)’s baby be born,” he tells TV Line. “We were talking about Sookie being in Fairyland… and it seemed like a really organic way to kickstart the show so that it would be in a new place when she got back.”
Ball also defends the decision for Tara to come out of the closet during the time jump.
“Look at Tara’s history with men,” he suggested. “If anybody has a reason to try something new, I think she does. It didn’t seem like it was that outlandish given her history and who the character was.”
Ball added that Rutina Wesley was “totally willing” to explore a different side to her character.
“I count my blessings with this cast all of the time because everybody is pretty fearless,” he said. “Everybody is pretty game to do just about anything.”
I’ve never seen an episode of “True Blood” but I’m a big fan of shows that dare to defy expectations. It doesn’t always work but at least they had the balls to try and dare to do something different. After all, jumping ahead one year worked out well for BSG. Also, this might seem like a strange example but the third season premier of “Wings” jumped ahead ten months. That was a case where it wasn’t necessary to have that much of a time gap but I appreciate that they tried it.
I like the time jumb. I’ve haven’t read any of the books but heard that Sookie dumped Bill “for good”. Since Bill is my favorite character I don’t care what they do as long as Bill isn’t sent packing. I really enjoy True Blood’s exploration of different aspects of everyone’s character.