(SPOILER WARNING: It's impossible to discuss Season Three of True Blood without divulging information from Season Two. So, if you haven't seen Season One, please read with caution.) As Season Two of True Blood came to a close, several things were happening. First and foremost, Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) proposed to Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), who was taken aback by this gesture. She went to the bathroom and when she came back Bill was gone apparently abducted. Meanwhile, it appeared that Eggs (Mehcad Brooks) was about to go on a violent rampage, so Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten) shot and killed him. When Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley) see that Eggs is dead, she is understandably disturbed (they had been in a relationship) and police detective Andy Bellefleur (Chris Bauer) took the blame for the shooting. Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) had finally gotten a lead on his biological parents and had set off to find them.

Season Three picks up right where Season Two ended. Sookie reports Bill's disappearance to the police, but there isn't much that they can do. It turns out that Bill has been kidnapped by a pack of werewolves who are taking him to see the Vampire King of Mississippi, Russell Edgington (Denis O'Hare), who has a business proposition for Bill. Sookie turns to Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard) for help in finding Bill, and once they get an idea of where Bill is, he sends Alcide Herveaux (Joe Manganiello), a werewolf, to help her. While this is happening, Sam finds his birth parents and learns that they aren't exactly the classiest people ever, but he also finds that he has a brother (Marshall Allman). Tara doesn't have long to grieve over Eggs, as she is kidnapped by a vampire. Jason attempts to get on with his life, but the guilt over killing Eggs eats away at him. He's able to find some peace when he helps to catch a criminal and decides that he wants to be a policeman. Jesscia (Deborah Ann Woll), a young vampire sired by Bill, hopes to copy her master and find love with a human. Meanwhile, several characters finds themselves caught up in political turmoil in the vampire world.

I don't know if I would say that I'm a fan of True Blood, but there were certainly things to like in the first two seasons, and as mentioned above, I was really looking forward to Season 3. So, what a disappointment for this to be such a relatively bad series of episodes I honestly don't know what the show's makers were thinking here. Season 2 offered some of the wildest storylines ever seen on television and, thankfully, they don't try to top this. Instead, they try to ramp up the drama and most everything goes wrong.

The first and by far the biggest problem is the Bill and Sookie are separated for far too long. Their forbidden romance was the element which made the show a hit in the first place and it certain builds tension to have them be apart for a while, but they honestly don't get many scenes together in Season 3 and the show really suffers for it. Because of this, the show must find new things on which to focus and it picks...politics? Much of Season 3 deals with Edgington's plans to seize power of the vampire districts in Louisiana and there's much talk of alliances, allegiances, and double-crossing and the whole thing is confusing and boring. Season 2 was a non-stop orgy and Season 3 plays like a game of vampire Stratego? Are you serious? Then we have the inclusion of the werewolves. Does every vampire story have to contains werewolves now? Is that a law?

Again, as Sookie and Bill are apart, the show has to go somewhere, so we get way too many characters having way too many stories. And those stories aren't always very appealing. Jason seems to get dumber every season and his action in Season 3 are often ludicrous, culminating with his involvement with a shanty-town. And why must Tara be kidnapped by a vampire? Hasn't her character suffered enough? The storyline with Sam's family has some twists, but it get repetitive. This is all punctuated by the fact that the season ends on a down note and all of the cliffhangers feel very forced and don't feel as if they flowed naturally out of the season's stories.

Despite the fact that True Blood is based on a series of novels (which I understand don't mirror the show), Season 3 has the feel of a series which hadn't planned on being around for three seasons and didn't know what to do with itself. There's nothing wrong with shaking things up a bit, but deliberately keeping Sookie and Bill apart seems to spit in the eyes of the fans. I often found myself bored with this season and hoped that something exciting would happen. There were some flashes of inspiration (Eric's backstory), but otherwise, it just kept creeping along on its odd path. I'll watch Season 4 when it comes out on Blu-ray, but I'm not counting the days this time.

True Blood: The Complete Third Season made me wonder what the whole neck scene was supposed to mean on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of HBO Home Entertainment. The five-disc set contains all 12 episodes from the show's third season. The show has been letterboxed at 1.78:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 30 Mbps. The image is very sharp and clear, showing only traces of grain at times and no defects from the source material. The picture is a tad dark at times, but the colors look good, most notably reds (of course). The level of detail is fairly good, as we can make out textures on objects. As far as the depth of the image goes, it was average. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and average of 4.0 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The stereo effects are good and do a fine job of alerting us to sound's happening off-screen to the left or right. The surround sound effects aren't necessarily abundant, but they are effective when present, especially during action scenes or crowd scenes. Similarly, subwoofer is used sparingly.

The True Blood: The Complete Third Season Blu-ray Disc set contains many choices when it comes to extras. A preview is offered for each episode. "Enhanced Viewing" offers "Character Perspectives" (which are available separately on Disc 5) in which the characters share their thoughts, "Flashback/Flash Forward" which examines how a certain scenes relates to the past and future of the story (although, "Flash Forward" sounds like spoilers to me), and Informative Facts. This option is available for every episode. "Post Mortems" are short (2 minutes) making-of segments or companion pieces which are offered for every episode. The remaining extras are broken down by Disc. Disc 1 offers an AUDIO COMMENTARY on "Beautifully Broken" by Alexander Skarsgard and Director Scott Winant. "Episode 2 Anatomy of a Scene" (11 minutes) takes us on-set for the scene in which Bill meets the King of Mississipppi. This includes comments from the directors (as it covers two episodes) and Alan Ball, as well as copious amounts of behind-the-scenes footage. Disc 2 has a COMMENTARY on "It Hurts Me Too" by Writer Alexander Woo and Director Michael Lehmann and one for "9 Crimes" by Kristin Bauer Van Straten and Director David Petrarca. Disc 3 brings us a COMMENTARY on "I Got a Right to Sing the Blues" by Alan Ball and Denis O'Hare as well as on "Hitting the Ground" by Anna Paquin, Joe Manganiello, and Writer Brian Buckner. Disc 5 has a COMMENTARY on "Evil is Going On" by Stephen Moyer and Director Anthony Hemingway. "Character Perspectives" are like brief confessionals from Jessica, Andy, Tommy and Alcide. These show the actors, in character, addressing the camera and discussing their motivations or events from the episode. We get one of these for each episode in which the character appears. We get the MUSIC VIDEO for the song "Oh Sookie" by Snoop Dogg.  "True Blood Lines" is an interactive feature which gives us short bios on each significant character and allows us to see into which category they fall (human, vampire, etc.) and which other characters are significant to them. DO NOT look at this before watching this season, as it contains spoilers.

Review by Mike Long.  Copyright 2011.