Regardless of how much contempt, loathing and hatred is showered upon Twilight - no one can deny that while it has been roundly critically bent over a table that it made money. And so, it came to be - vampires were the new fad!

So - someone thought it was a good idea to make a Twilight imitation with the original title, Vampire Diaries - so you know it has vampires in it! This shows première is mind crushingly banal, it makes the last season of Smallville seem like Shakespeare by comparison. For no reason, we have our main vampire character enrol in high school. He establishes he's over 100 years old! Oh, there's something about one the girls being something important or something stupid like that and while vampires here don't sparkle... they're entirely immune to sunlight, apparently. Hence their ability to stalk girls at high school.

The female protagonist is some vanilla blandness that had her parents die - presumably of boredom. What is there to say of her? Oh, she has a brother who is apparently doing the drugs - coz he's sad. It's just so hard to care about this, it's generic good looking high school drama WITH VAMPIRES. Honestly, regardless of what you had to say about Buffy - at least it had characters that weren't such cardboard cut outs. It's ironic that one of that the brother is on the drugs because the acting in this show isn't bad - it simply isn't there.

If there wasn't much to say about Defying Gravity - there's nothing to say about this. It's just so insipid and derivative. Sure, Defying Gravity stole a pre-existing concept down to the ship design but at least they tossed in mystery. This is just Twilight: The Series.

Bottom line: Try and forget that shows like this even exist - they will only diminish your will to live and increase your hatred of humanity.

So, as if Demons wasn’t enough for you to contend with – the BBC has also managed to turn the pilot of “Being Human” into a full blown series. It’s the simple tale of three supernatural beings – a new werewolf, an old vampire and a ghost – living in a house together.

One of the obvious irritations of the show is something that seems to be increasingly popular – Vampires waltzing around in daylight. At least they aren’t sparkling but it’s just rather tedious to have their weaknesses eroded… At least in Blade, the guy had some SPF50 on to stand in the sun. Here, they don’t seem bothered at all… and they suffer from “Buffy syndrome”. Which is to say, that they bite some and have maybe a mouthful of blood… then the person dies. Granted biting into the jugular is going to lead to you dying pretty quickly by bleeding out but as with Buffy, it’s rather ridiculous that it seems to be INSTADEATH!

Anyway, the basic dynamic is – the girl ghost hangs around the house, while the guys go to hospital. For some reason, our old vampire chap is “off the wagon” and so doesn’t need to get his teaspoon of blood via murder. It’s not really explained how he manages to survive/be immortal WITHOUT blood. He just does.

The werewolf guy has the angst shtick. Which is a bit of a change from the broody vampire – not that he doesn’t have issues but it’s fair to say, the werewolf issue trumps that. How is it trumped? Because he gets to moan about how once a month he become a ravening beast. Yeah, they seem to like the monster root… because, the people are shown to be the exceptions to the rule. Anyway, he likes to be a whiney little bitch about his problem a lot.

And finally ghost girl… yeah, it’s fair to say that most of these characters are pretty much summed up by their monster characteristic because even after a few episodes they’re pretty flat. She’s got the beyond cliché UNFINISHED BUSINESS… and only other supernatural beings can see her. She pines for her fiancé who is now hooked up with someone else.

Somewhere in the background, there’s an evil vampire plot but don’t get too excited. Things are moving along slowly... so, it's likely the run will end before anything much happens. About all you can say for it is... it's a relatively novel concept as far as things go. Shame about the execution.

Good TV shows are fleeting things... to be treasured while they last... even seemingly untouchable shows like Lost, Prison Break and Heroes can quickly succumb to the high bar their own first seasons sets.

The easiest way to explain True Blood without giving too much away is...

It's a world much like our own... the only difference being - vampires are real and have revealed themselves to the world at large after the advent of a synthetic blood product called "Trublood", which allows them to be sustained without feeding on humans. As one might guess, this leads to a number of tensions - which form the backdrop for the story.

Much of the story focuses around Anna Pacquin's character - Sookie - a psychic girl, waiting tables in the deep South and the events surrounding her friends and family... To say more would be saying too much...

The show effortlessly balances drama and humour, with liberal helpings of suspense (the kind of fairly regular cliffhangers Heroes had in it's first season) and sex and violence and all that jazz. The vampire aspect is pervasive but not overwhelming... in fact, there's something of a magical realism here... this IS a world where things considered supernatural dwell but - much like Heroes - it's never to play second fiddle to the subject of interest... although, often the two are interwoven wonderfully.

The show masters magical realism in a way that few others can dream of... and in many respects, you can see this as being a suitable rebuttal to the notion of the ass kicking girl fantasy - namely Xena and Buffy and the imitators as numerous as they were unmemorable - where one felt that the comedy and slapstick of everything was upped to a point where it was clear that it was all rather tongue in cheek.

True Blood is... rather more mature - which isn't to say it lacks humour, far from it... but it's a rather more serious animal. Not that Buffy didn't love to indulge in endless vampire wangst but with True Blood it feels like something more than fodder for fangirls. There is a depth to the characters that means, they're not just "troubled vampire" or "psychic southerner"... and really, that's what puts this show a country mile above anything else to do with vampires.