Of the raft of fairly mediocre shows to hit the US this fall, True Blood glowers proudly in the darkness. HBO's racey new series stars Anna Paquin (Rogue from the X-Men movies) as a telepathic waitress in a small town in the Deep South who meets Bill, a dark and brooding vampire who has returned to the town of his birth to live in peace (or at least that's his plan). It's a romance show at heart, but a dark and bloody one with a gratuitous amount of swearing and violence. It's any of HBO's other shows (Six Feet Under, Oz) on vampire-fuelled steroids.

Hang on, I hear you cry, a male vampire and a female human... Isn't that exactly like Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Well, you could make comparisons to Buffy and Angel's on-off (but mostly off) vampire / human relationship, but this is a far cry from the sugar-coated romance of other fantasy shows. This is dark stuff more with more similiarities to hororr flicks like 30 Days of Night and Salem's Lot than it has to kiddy-centric mainstream TV shows (which is probably why no one will ever get to appreciate True Blood).

While only three episodes have aired in the US, the show is already picking up speed with an interesting take on the vampire mythology. Named True Blood after a Japanese scientist invented a synthetic blood which allowed vampires to come out 'of the coffin' to integrate themselves into society. But, humans being humans, there's a lot of resistance to their arrival, and that's no more evident than in the small town of Bon Temps, where belief in God is second only to religious intolerance.

The show has already been green lit for a second season and with such an interesting premise, strong characters, and a delicious relationship forming between the two main characters, it's hard not to see why. It's not for kids, though.

Check it out here.