True Blood's Tru Blood Coming True

Yuck, gross, eww, or cool. Not sure where to go with this one. It was announced by Mr. Alan Ball himself at San Diego Comic-Con that Tru Blood, the (formerly) fictional blood cocktail from True Blood, will be hitting store shelves in September.

The concept is a bit off putting at first, even though DVR Life are HUGE (read: GIGANTIC) fans of True Blood, but we have to admit that the thought of blood orange soda does sound pretty tasty. Here's the official press release:

"ALL FLAVOR. NO BITE."

TRU BLOODTM DRINK FROM FICTIONAL WORLD OF

HBO® HIT SERIES TRUE BLOOD® ARRIVES IN STORES THIS SEPTEMBER

LOS ANGELES, July 27th, 2009 -- The once-fictional Tru Blood beverage from the HBO hit series True Blood has now emerged as a real Blood Orange carbonated drink that will be in stores this September. Officially licensed from HBO Licensing & Retail by Omni Consumer Products, the beverage boasts a crisp, slightly tart and lightly sweet tang, and the bottle has been crafted to replicate the appearance of the vampiric sustenance found on the series - blood type, logo and all.


"The success of True Blood has created a terrific opportunity to develop a great tasting, refreshing and enlivening drink," said Omni Consumer Products founder Pete Hottelet. "We're thrilled to represent the True Blood brand in this category."

"From its first season, fans have been enamored with the show and have expressed a keen interest in the Tru Blood beverage," added James Costos, vice president, Licensing & Retail at HBO. "We're extremely excited to be able to bring this original drink to life."

The Tru Blood drink was officially announced by Alan Ball, creator and executive producer of True Blood, at the San Diego Comic Con on July 25, where fans were able to sample the beverage and take a bottle home.

The True Blood series kicked off its 12-episode second season on June 14 and can be seen Sundays (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET/PT) through September 13th, exclusively on HBO. For more information on the Tru Blood beverage, visit TRUBEVERAGE.COM.

The Tru Blood drink can be pre-ordered at www.HBO.com/store

ABOUT THE HBO TRUE BLOOD SERIES:
Mixing romance, suspense, mystery and humor, the True Blood series takes place in the not-too-distant future, when vampires have come out of the coffin, thanks to the invention of mass-produced synthetic blood (Tru Blood) that means they no longer need humans as a nutritional source. The show follows the romance between waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), who can hear people's thoughts, and her soul mate, 173-year-old vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer). The series is based on the best-selling Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris.

ABOUT THE MANUFACTURER:

Omni Consumer Products is a product development company specializing in licensing and defictionalization. With an approach described by Scientific American as "Moebius-like-referential pop-culture-as-reality", Omni Consumer Products will continue to blur the line between fiction and reality with high-quality licensed entertainment products. For more information, visit http://www.omniconsumer.com.

Those links:
www.truebeverage.com
www.hbo.com/store
www.omniconsumer.com

Via Rob Owen at Post Gazette.

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In Treatment's Mia Wasikowska In Alice In Wonderland

While we here at DVR Life do like watching movies, we obviously have TV in our hearts. This is a television blog, obviously, but an exception can be made every once in a while, though, especially when a film project is related to television in some way and if ever there were to be an exception, here it is:



Mia Wasikowska starred as Sophie in season one of HBO's In Treatment. When season two premiered with a new lineup of patients, we wondered when we'd see her next. Pretty rad to see her turn up in what is pretty much guaranteed to be a hit.

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HBO's Big Summer

Folks at the HBO camp must be feeling pretty great. The network is riding high on some pretty big ratings this summer, the most impressive being the numbers for season two of vamp-opera True Blood which is reaching a reported average of 10.8 million viewers per episode.

This last week's first airing at 9pm Sunday drew 3.7 million watchers, which ballooned to 5.1 if you add in the second showing. Throw in DVR's and HBO On Demand and the network is coming up with that 10.8 number, which is a near 40% bump (38% to be exact) over the first season.

The network is also probably elated with the big numbers for it's newest scripted original show, Hung, which premiered to 2.8 million viewers. Throw in the second showing and all told the show was watched by 3.7 million. It managed to hold 76% of the True Blood lead-in and is reportedly the largest premiere for HBO since John From Cincinnati, which, while the show ended up bombing, premiered strong on the back of The Soprano's series finale.

Congrats, HBO, on a banner month.

Now let's get ready for the return of Entourage with it's sixth season premiering July 12th. This season will see some new additions to the cast and some guest stars. Joining the show full time will be Kate Mara of 24 and Brokeback Mountain as E's new assistant, The OC's Autumn Reeser as a junior agent at Ari's agency, and Gary Cole who's been in everything from The West Wing and Office Space to Kim Possible.

And speaking of The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin, creator of WW, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, Sports Night, etc, will make a guest appearance as himself. Other notables playing themselves this season will include Lil' Wayne, Zac Efron and a whole bunch of sports stars.

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Showtime Unceremoniously Cancels Brotherhood

Well, they left us hanging since last December, so I suppose it comes as no big surprise, but Showtime has canceled Brotherhood after only three seasons. The series, in our opinion, was criminally under rated by viewers and critics, rivaling even HBO's The Wire as one of the most under appreciated premium cable shows of all time.

At least The Wire was given a final season by HBO and people started noticing it just in time to finally heap some much deserved praise upon the series before it's death. In canceling Brotherhood, Showtime did little more than offer up a press release six months after the series finale that wasn't even about the show being canceled - it's about the season three DVD release officially being titled Brotherhood: The Final Season.

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New Dexter Season Four Poster

Amazing poster advertising season 4 of Showtime's Dexter appeared around the web today. Apparently some people think it's fake, though I'm not sure why. Seems legit to me. I'm not cool enough to get official press information from Showtime, so I can only guess.

The poster, real or not, is quite brilliant. Obviously the artwork is about Dexter's upcoming fatherhood, which I'm sure will play a big part in the show's fourth season, along with the Trinity Killer.





Season four of Dexter is set to premiere September 27th, which I believe is still a Sunday, the same timeslot the show has occupied since it's pilot. Could you imagine how good the world would be if Sunday nights consisted of HBO's True Blood at 9pm and Showtime's Dexter at 10pm. That's probably too much amazing commercial free goodness to handle, so they keep Sookie in the summer and Dex in the fall. It's for our own safety, I'm sure.

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Hung Vs. Matt & Kim

HBO has given us a sneak peak at the opening credits for it's newest original series, Hung. Everything starts off normal enough with a river and city view, everyday life amidst downtown architecture. Right around 17 seconds the lead actor, Thomas Jane, begins taking off his tie and throws it to the ground, his jacket hits pavement just ten seconds later and...wait a minute. Haven't I seen this already?

Why yes, we have: it's the premise of a Matt & Kim video.

I don't know much about the musical duo, other than that catchy tune featured in Bacardi commericals and this:





Granted Hung's trailer is scripted and filmed legally, but hey...you know...You guys couldn't have come up with something better?

I am not one for opening credits. I prefer shows go without them but we're talking HBO here - probably the one network with opening credits that don't suck. True Blood's bluesy, dirty, gritty intro, The Sopranos Garden State tour, Entourage's blaring Janes Addiction fist pumper "Oh Yeah!, Oh Yeah!" - all perfect ways to start a show...but stealing your intro from a hipster pop duo? At least they had the balls and creativity to do it for real.

P.S. Each time I type Thomas Jane, I think of The Mentalist main character Patrick Jane. Not sure why I just typed that, though.

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Preview: HBO's The Pacific

Here now, the first official trailer for the upcoming HBO miniseries The Pacific. The series, produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, is a follow up to the much beloved, very successful, Band Of Brothers.

Reportedly, the budget of 200 Million dollars makes this the largest and most expensive TV production of all time. Watching the preview it's not hard to see why. With the DVD and syndication success of Band Of Brothers, I'm sure they have no fear when it comes to making the investment back.

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It's Been A Great Couple Weeks

The last two weeks or so have been pretty fantastic for TV junkies. My teen years throughout the 90's were heavily laden with rerun-filled bore fests. Stuck in summer school all day and TV programming I'd already seen at night - it was pretty hellish. Thanks to cable programming, summers are actually pretty amazing these days.

The season was kicked off by USA with the Burn Notice come back and birth of Royal Pains. Burn Notice started the season off with a lot of bangs, as usual. Now that Michael has shook off those that burned him, he's facing increasing pressure from the cops.

The addition of a tough female cop following him around should make for some great story lines. Busting into his storage space with a water saw was genius, though I wonder if something like that would have been so quiet. I also like Fiona's new-found aggression towards she and Michael's relationship.

Royal Pains burst from the gates with a hilarious pilot. I found a few laugh out loud moments and came to understand and, more importantly, enjoy, the characters. Episode 2 seemed to slow down a bit but still managed to keep most of it's charm. I'm intrigued by the relationships between the doc and his young friend as well as the doc and his brother.

I thought it was a bit odd that the brother made for a stronger character since he's only a supporting character. Usually USA keeps the quirkier ones up front. I'm kinda glad they shifted gears a bit. Some say the brotherly relationship seems a bit contrived but I disagree. The writers seem to know just what the right amount of quirk, jealousy and brotherly love seems to be.

Though they're more late Spring/early Summer series, In Plain Sight and Law & Order: Criminal Intent have been heating up the screens, too.

Many shows sometimes get bogged down in their sophomore years with excessive and pointless guest stars (I love you like my own child, but I'm thinking of you here 30 Rock) but IPL has managed to welcome the stars without that baggage. This week's episode feature Laura Prepon as Mary's sister (though Mary doesn't know, shhh...). Her appearance really made me miss ABC's October Road and the sight of Prepon and Mary McCormack together on screen was one of the highlights of the season thus far.

I thought seeing McCormack paired up with former West Wing alum Joshua Malina would be the highlight of the season and then they had to one up that with Richard Schiff's guest role. At first I chalked this up to the fact that the three had previously all worked together on WW but seeing McCormack with Prepon this evening really clued me in: she's just an amazing actress that really seems to shine when's there's a guest star around. But wait...she's actually pretty rad when there's no guest around, too. So final analysis: Mary McCormack kinda rules.

As for L&O:CI, I'm really enjoying the addition of Jeff Goldblum. I thought he made a fantastic cop on NBC's short lived series Raines, which I enjoyed, and am glad to see him doing his thing for Mr. Wolf. I do miss Chris Noth, but am looking forward to seeing him on CBS' The Good Wife this fall. Mike Logan was a great character but I'm sure Noth was probably getting a little tired of him after nearly 20 years, even if there were some pretty big vacations from him (holla at ya Mr. Big!)

Last Monday saw the return of The Closer with another great episode. I really resisted this show for the first two seasons but have become extremely compelled since then. I thought perhaps the story line of the killer going to the wrong address was slightly contrived...Was it a Law & Order storyline a few years ago?

Getting the confession in the prison visiting room was enough of a twist to make up for that shortfall, though. As always, the amazing cast also managed to make up for that little writing problem, as well.

I had watched the Nurse Jackie pilot a week or so ahead of time, so I almost forgot it premiered last week. I was hypnotized by the brilliance of Edie Falco. I was worried I wouldn't be able to get past seeing her as Carmela Soprano, but that fear melted away quickly.

I'm rather conflicted on Jackie. She is precariously balanced on the line between good and bad and I'm still not sure how I feel about her. At times I wanna cheer her on, others I cringe. I enjoy her jaded outlook and her humor is A+. The dinner scene with her friend, coolly discussing which should save the choking diner at the next table was horrifying and laugh inducing at the same time.

This evenings premiere of True Blood season 2 was...Amazing. There's really not much more I could say. True Blood is a fascination of mine, landing squarely in my top ten shows currently airing.

I watched all of season one to prepare for this evenings return and was really keeping my fingers crossed that it wasn't Lafayette in the back of the detective's car. Glad my hopes weren't dashed. I was shocked at first to learn it was Eric keeping him captive, but soon realized that it's Eric. We really shouldn't have been surprised at all, should we? Will Lafayette rat out Jason for the vampire's kidnapping and subsequent death last season?

And speaking of Jason: Somehow my first go-round I missed how amazing Ryan Kwanten was. Also re-watching season one I caught many little things I had missed previously, like Sam barking in his sleep.

My only complaint with the season premiere was the on again/off again nature of Sookie and Bill's relationship rearing it's head again. That's is getting slightly old. Some TV bloggers out there have also commented on Jason joining a vampire hating church, which they assume will lead to his character becoming an antagonist for Sookie, to be a bit simplistic. I say we let Alan Ball do his thing and see where it all leads. The fact that Jason lied to Sookie about what kind of church camp he was attending lends some hope.

The Listener also appeared this week, though I had watched it a few months ago after it aired in Canada, so I don't have much to say other than it makes for some good time filler. My DVR is a bit backed up due to watching season 3 of Ghost Whisperer, so I still haven't caught up on the returns of Army Wives or Weeds - I'm saving them for Tuesday.

Coming up this week, look forward to the Tuesday premiere of Hawthorne (which is showing up on my DVR as HawthoRNe...kinda lame)...Here's hoping it doesn't go the way of TNT's last med drama - Heartland. I'm also planning to check out TNT's first reality show, Wedding Day. I'm no fan of reality TV but I'm hearing from other reality haters that it's not that bad, so here's hoping.

There's also the premiere of Merlin on NBC next Sunday. The show is a brit-original and season 2 of the series will be premiering in the UK the same day season 1 hits the states...That gives some hope that it'll be pretty good.

Finally, Saving Grace returns Tuesday and that's pretty damn exciting. This show seems to get better and better as the seasons go by.

I actually feel these last couple of weeks have been nearly as exciting as Fall premiere time. In a year or two Summer just may be the new Fall.

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New Entourage Poster

Looking forward to the new season, of course. Excited about a return to New York and hopefully there'll be some great stories about filming with Martin Scorsese.

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