The irony is that “True Blood” might become an R-rated hit if it didn’t try so hard to be one.The series is based on the Southern Vampire Novels of Charlaine Harris, a self-described Arkansas wife and mother who loves to read and watch her sports-playing kids from uncomfortable bleachers. The first season, based on her wonderfully titled “Dead Until Dark,” follows the gory goings-on in the tiny, mossy town of Bon Temps, La. in the near future, when vampires, pumped full of synthetic blood, have “come out of the coffin” to demand their civil rights.

This has not gone down easy with the less-than-good people of Bon Temps. One resident who does not share their fears and prejudices, however, is Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin)— a waitress at the roadside joint Merlotte’s. For one thing, Sookie is a plucky type with a kind heart. For another, she has an unusual gift that may be more terrifying than any vampiric powers: She can hear people’s thoughts.

So when 173-year-old Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer, pictured above courtesy of HBO) sets himself down one night in Merlotte’s — looking for a glass of vamp juice or maybe just a bit of human company — it’s no surprise that Sookie, another outsider, should be drawn to the drop-dead gorgeous stranger. And it’s equally inevitable that he and his fugitive kind should be implicated in the murder of no-account “fang-banger” Maudette Pickens, whose recent lovers included Sookie’s hot-headed brother, Jason (Ryan Kwanten).

Harris’ vamp books — which blend mystery, romance and humor — are like sunlight streaming through lace kitchen curtains or a slice of warm apple tart: They’re sensuous but homey.

What is piquant on paper can be overwhelming on screen. A TV producer wouldn’t have to do much more than present Harris’ world to have a savory show. What Ball has done, however, is ratchet up the sex and violence — to say nothing of the Southern stereotypes — to the point where the filigree eccentricity of Harris’ storytelling is muddled.

What saves the show for me is the relationship between Sookie and Bill, which goes against the series’ slam-bam grain. Sookie is the type of young woman who has already endured much heartache and yet can still find a goodness in this world. Paquin plays her with a saucy innocence that reminds you of Holly Hunter — and further reminds you that she won an Oscar playing Hunter’s daughter in “The Piano.”

Her sympathetic turn is matched by Moyer’s Bill Compton. For all his hooded brooding, blood-lust and brute strength, Bill is a lonely, vulnerable creature, haunted by the loss of his wife and children and his own life in the Civil War era. His courtliness toward Sookie — “May I call on you sometime?” he asks — is a remnant of that loss. He is touched by her incorruptibility, her very aliveness. Their slow dancing — amid the series’ dirty dancing — is charming and poignant.

Though most of the actors are playing variations on the Southern clichés familiar to anyone who has ever seen a Hollywood movie about the South, one supporting performance does stand out — Lois Smith as Sookie’s grandmother Adele. Far from being frightened by Bill, Adele is immediately charmed by his old-fashioned manners and thinks he’d make a good guest speaker for the local historical society. (Clever that.) For me, Smith will always be the timid teenager beguiled by James Dean in “East of Eden.”

If only Ball would take his foot off the pedal and trust such characters. Oddly enough, HBO pokes fun of its R-rated image in “True Blood.” Early on, one of Sookie’s trashy waitress-colleagues tells her child over the phone that if her babysitting boyfriend du jour says the kid can’t watch a violent program on HBO, then he can’t watch the show.

HBO should heed its own mockery.

On Sept. 7, HBO premieres “True Blood,” a sultry vamp series from the folks who gave us “Six Feet Under” by way of Charlaine Harris’ sassy Sookie Stackhouse novels. I’ll post a full review Sept. 5. But I couldn’t resist commenting now on a striking parallel between Meyer’s PG books and the R-rated HBO series, which partly answers the question Freud posed — What do women want?
The setting for “True Blood” is one of those Southern towns beloved by Hollywood where people spend an awful lot of time having sweaty, kinky, steamy sex. All except Sookie, a local waitress played with saucy innocence by Oscar winner Anna Paquin. For one thing, Sookie is the kind of young woman who lives with her grandmother (Lois Smith) and would never take Jesus’ name in vain.

For another, she has a special quality that could be considered an impediment to an intimate relationship: She hears peoples’ thoughts.

So Sookie remains an untouched blossom in this overrun, savage garden. Then along comes Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) — out of the coffin, thanks to new vampire-rights legislation — and, well, Sookie is ready to be plucked.

Just as high school student Bella is drawn to the coolly beautiful Edward in Meyer’s novels, Sookie is immediately attracted to the gorgeously tortured Bill (seen below, courtesy of HBO), and vice versa. We’ve been down this path many times before: Vulnerable bad boy meets spunky good girl. It’s catnip to fiction.

But if contemporary vampirism still makes the bad boy alluringly dangerous, it also serves as a kind of purity ring. Both Edward and Bill resist having sex with their beloveds for fear it will bring out the beast within. (The notion of the man, rather than the woman, putting the breaks on sex has been a recurring theme this summer. In “The Incredible Hulk,” hunky Bruce Banner stops short of making love to a disappointed Betty lest he unleash his green alter ego.)

In our post-feminist, post-AIDS world — in which females are under pressure at increasingly younger ages to engage in sexual activity — vampirism has become a metaphor for old-fashioned courtship and romance. Gail Collins discussed this in a recent New York Times’ column on the Meyer’s phenomenon, and while I’m more of a Maureen (Dowd) than a Gail, I do think Collins is on to something.

Bill was turned into a vampire around the time of the Civil War, having suffered great deprivation and loss. So he savors the sensuous, is chivalrous to Sookie and her grandmother and forbearing of her knuckle-headed brother (Ryan Kwanten).

Undead, he appreciates life — and one life in particular, that of the woman he loves.  He’s willing, then,  to walk the fine line between ardor and honor. And isn’t that what a woman wants in a man romantically?

Call it the Mr. Darcy effect. (Meyer is said to be a big Jane Austen fan.) A girl likes a guy who’s a bit ruffled but is still able to wear a ruffled shirt.

Bill, a courtly, raffish Southerner, is a dash of Rhett laced with a bit of Ashley.

And since he is virtually deathless, tomorrow always is another day.

If you do know what I’m talking about, I’ll help you pass the time by sharing my favorite passage from the song:

They call me the Hiphopopotamus
Flows that glow like phosphorous
Poppin’ off the top of this esophagus
Rockin’ this metropolis
I’m not a large water-dwelling mammal
Where did you get that preposterous hypothesis?
Did Steve tell you that, perchance?
Steve.

I like this part, too:

Other rappers dis me
Say my rhymes are sissy.

Why? Why? Why?
What?
Why exactly?
What? Why?
Be more constructive with your feedback, please. Why?
Why?

Sorry, got sidetracked from the actual NEWS, which is that HBO’s hilarious and criminally underrated Flight of the Conchords is coming back next year.

From Bret and Jemaine’s myspace blog:

All of you: Flight of the Conchords, will there be a season two?
Us: How did you find us here?

All of you: If there is a second season at all, when will it air?
Us: Please, how did you find us here? How did you rally together like this?

All of you: Answer the question.
Us: Yes we are working on season two of the show, it looks like it will air in January of next year.

Fans of HBO’s usual slate of summer staples will have to wait until the fall for new episodes. As a result of the writers’ strike, the fifth season of Entourage, along with original episodes of Big Love, Flight of the Conchords, and its new vampire series, True Blood, will not premiere until the fall.

The summer will bring us the seven-episode miniseries Generation Kill from David Simon and Ed Burns, of the late, lamented The Wire.

We’ll also get two late-night Friday series, The Life and Times of Tim and Summer Heights High.

The former is 10 episodes of an “animated series about an average guy whose instincts repeatedly lead him down the wrong path.” The latter is an eight-episode Australian hit about high-school life:

focusing on three characters: Mr. G, a self-important, high-strung drama teacher; Jamie, a haughty, private-school female exchange student spending the year at Summer Heights High; and Jonah, a delinquent, break-dancing obsessed student struggling to stay in school. Series creator and writer Chris Lilley plays all three lead roles.

Photos and images courtesy of HBO.

First, the rock star of the bunch, “True Blood,� on HBO from Alan Ball, creator of “Six Feet Under� and director of American Beauty. Anna Paquin, the Oscar-winner (she was 11 when she won) and portrayer of Rogue in the “X-Men� movies, has been cast as Sookie Stackhouse in the series, which is based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris.

In the books, vampires can buy Japanese-made synthetic blood and a group then integrates into a small town in Louisiana.

• Next, we have Life on Mars. David E. Kelley’s adaptation of the BBC’s drama will be directed by Dwight Little, who’s done lots of TV, including episodes of 24, Millennium, Vanished, Day Break and The X-Files.

• Lastly, “Pushing Daisies.�

Tony winner Kristin Chenoweth and former “Boston Publicâ€? principal Chi McBride, Lee Pace and Anna Friel will star in the pilot. McBride’s character goes into business with the main character, “a man who falls in love with a deceased woman after he figures out how to bring the dead back to life.” The show’s created by Bryan Fuller, who brought us the quirky “Dead Like Meâ€? and “Wonderfallsâ€?