Over the first three seasons of “True Blood,” HBO has given us a world populated with sexy vampires, sexy werewolves, sexy shape-shifters, sexy telepaths, and sexy mythological demigods. So what new characters can we expect in Season 4? *crosses fingers* C’monnnnn SEXY ZOMBIES!

• Marnie is a Z-list palm reader who’s painfully aware of what a joke she is — that is, until she comes to be possessed by the spirit of a real witch.
• Andy’s sister, Portia, is as easy on the eyes as she is sharp in the courtroom. And, since I hear possible portrayers have to be cool with nude scenes, we’re gonna get an eyeful.
• Queen Mab is an elegant beauty who presides over a fantasy land that sounds a lot like the fairy domain into which Sookie (Anna Paquin) keeps being pulled.
• Suzanne McKittrick is a Real Housewives type who throws a hootenanny to bond with “her kind.”
• Naomi is an Asian-American cage fighter who, outside of the ring…er, cage…is hot-’n’-heavy with one of her female competitors. [via Tardface]

Awwww, no sexy mummies? I guess we’ll have to settle for mythological creatures like witches, fairies, and lesbian Asian cage fighters.

In January, I warned you of the possibility that MTV would remake George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. As a TV series for teenagers. Well, that didn’t happen — yet — but MTV has gone ahead with another zombie series. From The Hollywood Reporter:

The documentary-style “Death Valley” has an ensemble cast that includes Caity Lotz (“Mad Men”) [Don's California jailbait in Season 4 - Ed.] and Tania Raymonde (“Lost”) [gorgeous-ass Alex Rousseau] and follows the Undead Task Force, which battles zombies, vampires and werewolves that have overrun the San Fernando Valley.

Oh, good. There are vampires and werewolves, too. I hope some of them can find the time to fall in love with humans.

“‘Death Valley’ is the perfect combination of horror and comedy, two genres we know our audience responds to,” senior vp production Tony DiBari said. “That blend, combined with a fast pace and gritty ‘follow doc’ visual style, will take viewers on a wild ride where they are never sure what’s around the next corner.”

Though MTV’s audience skews female, executives said research has shown that horror is a good fit for the network… “When done right, it’s the kind of genre that both boys and girls come together to watch,” [executive vp scripted development David] Janollari said.

In case you skimmed those paragraphs, here’s the summation: “A documentary-style show in which a pair of hot girls fight zombies, vampires and werewolves that will be a blend of comedy and horror and appeal to both boys and girls.” Sounds pretty good, but can we rasta-fy the main character by another 10% or so?

If something is so predictably lame and cliched that it can be used as a punchline, Hollywood will greenlight it. Case in point: NBC has bought a spec script for “Zombies Vs. Vampires,” something that I once joked about writing before realizing it was already a B-movie.

Zombies vs. Vampires is described as a “fun buddy cop procedural.” It is set in a world where zombies are a part of society, controllable with medication. The show’s two leads (one secretly a vampire) are cops assigned to a squad specifically formed to deal with “zombie crime”. [Deadline]

Well, the vampire cop seems pretty unnecessary, but I guess I’ve heard of worse ideas. Like, say, the original Vampires Vs Zombies (later retitled Carmilla, the Lesbian Vampire). Check out the inset poster. Here’s the blurb, in case you don’t have your glasses:

“A fast and convoluted splatter horror action vampire lesbian story.” –Barry Meyer, filmmonthly.com

Yep, “convoluted” was the BEST review quote they could find. But I’m sure NBC will do it right in their iteration. Maybe the vampire cop can be an old-timer about to retire, and his partner can be a fresh-faced rookie werewolf cop! They just might solve the big zombie murder case — if only they can get along!

CBS: where vampires have reflections

The CW has acquired the rights to and will re-air “Moonlight,” a vampire series that CBS canceled after one season in 2008. Wait, 2008? I thought that show aired in the ’80s. And I don’t remember Bruce Willis being a vampire. Whatever, maybe E! can explain it:

The CW confirms that they’ll be airing CBS’ short-lived fangalicious series Moonlight this summer after The Vampire Diaries finishes its first season…

So why is the CW airing Moonlight now? I’m told that the decision was made in part to keep [star Alex] O’Loughlin’s fan base chugging along, in the hopes they’ll follow him to the new Hawaii Five-O this fall. (The CW and CBS are all one family, you know.) Plus, maybe you’ve heard, people kinda like vampires these days? So the ratings shouldn’t be too shabby either, and will keep the TV audience busy.

That should give you an idea of how old CBS’s audience is: it had a vampire series with low ratings. That’s unthinkable to me. I could put vampire fangs on my dog and 13 million teenage girls would become fans of it on Facebook, and yet none of those girls have ever heard of CBS. “Oh, you mean Grandma’s channel?”

Wait a minute. Back it up. I think I just had an idea.

Next stop: teenage girls!

The People’s Choice Awards were held last night, and as you can tell from last night’s What’s On Tonight, I either wasn’t aware of them or didn’t care to mention their existence. (Hint: it was both.) Anyway, Queen Latifah hosted for the fourth consecutive year, and absolutely nothing surprising about what the populace likes was revealed. Which is to say: vampire crap won lots of awards.

“Twilight” won four trophies, including favourite movie, franchise and on-screen team for the dreamy trio of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, who also picked up the breakout male actor award.

The undead HBO fable “True Blood” and the soapy supernatural CW series “The Vampire Diaries” were respectively selected as favourite TV obsession and favourite new TV drama.

The full list of winners is here, and aside from the vampire stuff, it’s a fairly even mix of things that make me feel ill and worried about society (Favorite Comedy Movie: The Proposal) and things that give me the faintest glimmer of hope (Favorite TV Drama: “House” over “CSI” and “NCIS”). So the end result is a faint feeling of nausea tempered by apathy. Which makes this a pretty average day.

As much as I’d like to say that the zombie phenomenon is played out, I can’t help but admire the occasional slice of badassery it stirs in the human imagination, such as Shaun of the Dead, “The Walking Dead,” World War Z, or this illustration of Velma and Scooby Doo surviving in the zombie apocalypse.

I don’t want to geek out too much here, but I kind of love everything about this picture: how nerdy Velma is the only survivor, how Scooby’s been made over to look like a vicious Doberman mix, the re-christening of the “Mystery Machine,” the chain-link fencing over the windows… but one thing troubles me. The cross and stakes seem to suggest that maybe this was made to make Velma… AW CRAP. This isn’t a zombie apocalypse at all! It’s a vampire apocalypse! What I thought was badass was actually gay and lame! YA USED ME, INTERNET!

Sorry about that, folks. The only way that this can be salvaged is if we make it an apocalypse with vampires AND zombies. Which reminds me: I’m writing a movie script called Vampires vs. Zombies, so anyone else who tries to make that film can expect to get sued. (If it has “versus” in the title, it’s GOTTA be good! Like Alien vs. Predator, or Monsters vs Aliens, or Roe v. Wade.)

I’m not enamored with “True Blood,” but I respect its appeal: Sunday night’s Season 2 premiere opened with an extended scene in some kind of a basement torture chamber and later featured a topless Anna Paquin getting her own blood spit into her mouth.  (Uh, you had to be there?)

That’s apparently enough for people to look past the hilariously bad accents and stilted dialogue, because America watched the sh-t out of “True Blood.”  From The Live Feed:

HBO’s second season premiere of “True Blood” earned a series record-setting 3.7 million viewers, making it was the most-watched program on the network since “The Sopranos” finale two years ago.

Despite facing the last game of the NBA Finals, the Sunday telecast was up 157% compared to the first season premiere and 51% from the first season finale. If you fold in the show’s 11 p.m. encore, “True Blood” was seen by 5.1 million viewers.

Like I said, I’m not going to get mad about people getting off to gothic torture porn or whatever it is this show does well, but… REALLY?  F-ckin’ really, America?  The biggest HBO show since “The Sopranos” finale?  You know what else aired on HBO since then?  The final season of “The Wire,”  Generation Kill (which was so good it gave me flashbacks), and “Eastbound and Down.”  And it’s not like “The Wire” and “Eastbound” didn’t have tits.  Oh, they had tits all right.  And Generation Kill and “The Wire” both had awesomely realistic violence.  But they had zero vampires.  Sorry, David Simon.  Spend a little less time creating compelling stories and realistic dialogue, and start giving us some f-cking vampires already.

Vampires suck.

Two weeks ago, the CW picked up “The Vampire Diaries” for next fall.  It’s about a handsome brooding vampire in high school who falls in love with a regular girl, based on the popular books by a female author.  Hmmm, why does that sound familiar?

Anyway, the CW just released this extended preview, and let me switch over to all-caps to say HOLY HELL THIS LOOKS TERRIBLE.  The first half of this clip is just shots of girls swooning over Vlad the Brooder, then the last two minutes are about what happens when Vlad’s evil brother shows up.  Look out, he can turn into a crow!  He can turn into fog!  Wait, what?  He can turn into fog?  Goddammit, vampires used to be pretty cool monsters.  They turned into bats and couldn’t go outside in daylight.  Now they’re transfer students who skateboard and play guitar and get tattoos.  STOP VIOLATING THE PARAMETERS OF FICTIONAL MONSTERS.

Don’t you love how Twilight and “True Blood” are all the rage because teenage girls and retards get off on handsome romantic brooding vampires who love a human girl instead of tearing her throat open and drinking her blood like vampires are supposed to do?  Well, the CW is going to do the same thing, except this time there are TWO vampires!  And they love the same girl!  And they’re brothers!  OMG OMG FRATERNAL VAMPIRE LOVE TRIANGLE!!!! **fans self**

“Vampire Diaries” is the first CW series to land a pickup for fall.  Based on the Alloy young adult novels about a young woman courted by two vampire brothers, one good and one evil. The brothers are at war over her soul as well as the souls of her friends, family members, and town.

“It taps into what women have been fascinated with for years,” CW President of Entertainment Dawn Ostroff said in March. ” ‘Dark Shadows,’ ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ and ‘Twilight.’ ” It’s a great story about a young woman who is in a love triangle between two brothers. It’s all about her life. We like that it’s romantic and dangerous all at the same time.” [Show Tracker]

Jesus H., how many iterations of the same story are we going to have to suffer through?  When did all vampires become total pussies?  Why can’t they just nail the hot teenage they ass they fall in love with, and then bite the teenage ass so the teenage ass becomes immortal teenage ass?  Vampires were way better when they were eccentric old counts who lived in scary castles.  Preferably portrayed by Gary Oldman.