We only recently just saw a full trailer for the upcoming sixth season of the HBO series True Blood, and now the network has unveiled a large batch of high-resolution images previewing the drama to come.  In addition to giving us looks at fan favorites like Sookie (Anna Paquin), Eric (Alexander Skarsgard), Bill (Stephen Moyer), and of course Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten), these images also introduce us to a host of new characters played by the likes of Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner), Arliss Howard (Full Metal Jacket), and Jurnee Smollett-Bell (Friday Night Lights).

Hit the jump to peruse the gallery of images.  The series also stars Ryan Kwanten, Joe Manganiello, Rutina Wesley, Sam Trammell, Deborah Ann Woll, Carrie Preston, Todd Lowe, Nelsan Ellis, Michael McMillian, Lucy Griffiths, Lauren Bowles, Chris Bauer, Kelly Overton, Rob Kazinsky, and Amelia Rose Blaire.  Season six of True Blood premieres on HBO Sunday June 16th at 9pm/8c.

HBO has released a full 90-second trailer for the upcoming sixth season of True Blood, revealing a bounty of footage from the new episodes.  The soapy series has had quite a bit of trouble balancing its expanding ensemble in the past few seasons, and it appears that the show’s focus remains as large as ever in season six.  With this new trailer, we see a bit of how the show will deal with the events of last season’s finale, particularly with regards to Stephen Moyer’s Vampire Bill, as it appears that the season six premiere picks up immediately after the season five finale.  There also looks to be plenty of the show’s hallmark “love scenes” to go around.

Hit the jump to watch the new trailer.  Season six of True Blood premieres on HBO Sunday, June 16th at 9pm/8c.

Two new promos for HBO’s gory vampire drama True Blood focus on Sookie’s brother Jason and the werewolf Alcide, giving viewers a little hint of what might be coming up in the show’s sixth season.  Some fans were relieved that Alan Ball was relinquishing his showrunner duties this year (moving on to create the fantastic Banshee on Cinemax), but with the news that new showrunner Mark Hudis left shooting halfway through this new season and was replaced with series writer Brian Buckner, well, to quote one of my favorite films, “alarm bells are ringing, Willie!”  Still True Blood always has a way of pulling us back into its chaos, and I’m sure this season will be no exception.  Hit the jump for the new teaser videos.

The dramatic thriller Disconnect shows how ordinary people struggle to find personal connection in today’s world where modern technology is so readily available, and it can both unite and divide us.  While the stories of strangers, neighbors and colleagues collide, the technology that we so often rely upon proves that it can result in unforeseen consequences for those around us.  From first-time narrative feature director Henry-Alex Rubin, the film stars Jason Bateman, Hope Davis, Frank Grillo, Michael Nyqvist, Paula Patton, Andrea Riseborough, Alexander Skarsgard and Max Thieriot.

At the film’s press day, Collider spoke with actor Alexander Skarsgard at both a press conference and a 1-on-1 interview, in which he talked about what attracted him to Disconnect, how he got into the headspace for the character, the scene he was most concerned about shooting, his own experience in the Navy in Sweden, and how often he disconnects from technology himself.  He also talked about the kinds of roles he looks for, how he feels about being on the hit HBO series True Blood for six seasons now, and whether he’s officially signed on for Tarzan (which was recently halted by Warner Bros.), as the title character.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

The first teaser trailer for True Blood has hit the Internet.  While the show hasn’t recently been receiving the critical acclaim that had with its first couple of seasons, it’ll be interesting to see where the show goes now that Alan Ball is no longer the showrunner.  The midseason filming departure of Mark Hudis may not bode very well for the upcoming season, but the trailer itself does present an eerie and unsettling vibe from the fallout of the season five finale that could prove worth exploring.

The shorter episode order for this season could be HBO’s way of weening off of True Blood.  Series star Alexander Skarsgard has certainly used the show as a launching pad for his career in film, and Anna Paquin has been successfully navigating features since her Oscar-winning childhood debut.  True Blood may be able to squeeze out a seventh season, but I don’t personally see it moving beyond that.  With the premiere of the sixth season of the HBO show coming up on June 16th, expect more teasers and promos to be coming throughout the spring.  Hit the jump to check out the trailer.

The premiere dates for new seasons of a couple of popular TV series have been announced.  First up, HBO’s True Blood will kick off season six on Sunday, June 16th.  The new season is the show’s first without creator/ex-showunner Alan Ball at the helm, and is also the show’s first season to have just 10 episodes.  All previous seasons of the show have been made up of 12 episodes, but the order was shortened this year.  Co-executive producer Mark Hudis took over as the new showrunner at the beginning of season six, but in the middle of production he himself was replaced by writer/producer Brian Buckner.  Hit the jump for more, including the return date of AMC’s resurrected drama series The Killing.

A strange development from the set of HBO’s vampire drama True Blood: After creator Alan Ball departed at the end of last year’s chaotic season, Mark Hudis — originally one of the show’s co-executive producers — took his place … only to now himself be replaced by the show’s writer and producer Brian Buckner.  Buckner has been with the series since it began and seems a natural choice to take over from Hudis, who (according to the network) is leaving to focus on his overall deal with the network.

It’s not necessarily unusual for a showrunner to leave a long-established series behind, but neither is it necessarily a great sign.  With Alan Ball, many fans felt his direction with the show (which is based, with varying degrees of faithfulness, on a book series by Charlaine Harris) left something to be desired, and his departure was seen as, potentially, a good thing for the series (Ball left primarily to focus more on his excellent Cinemax series Banshee.  But Hudis departing before his first season as showrunner has even wrapped filming?  Curious.  Hit the jump for more on that, and what Hudis has said about the rest of the series. 

The last twelve months have been great for TV, with some decidedly memorable moments.  We’re still firmly entrenched in this Second Golden Age of Television … if you discount 90% of what’s out there (looking at you, reality television!).  There were some great hits, some surprising flops and a few heartening comebacks.  After the jump you’ll find some of my picks for the best, worst, most confusing and also the most underrated of the year (spoiler-free!).  It’s not meant to be exhaustive or definitive, but contains a few memories and considerations from 2012.  And though I do watch an ungodly amount of TV, there’s plenty I’m not caught up on, so let me know what I’ve missed. Hit the jump to check it out.

A year?  We have to wait a year to find out the result of that-thing-that-happened?  What am I supposed to do until then?  If you have been following these reviews this season you’ll know my stance on the show, particularly last year’s unfortunate offerings.  I wanted to give True Blood up for dead, but then it drew me – and all of us – back into its sticky sweet gooey web of vamp mush and here we all are, once again at the end of another season.  But this time the feelings are sure to be different.  Best True Blood finale ever?  Best True Blood episode ever?  Or did JD slip me some V.  Hit the jump for more on why all roads must lead back to fucking Sookie.

An episode like “Sunset” leaves me with a chuckle, a sigh and several shakes of my head.  But ultimately, as we close in on the end of the season, I think overall it can be deemed successful.  True Blood is never going to go down in the canon of great television, but it has an ever-growing audience of devoted (if wary) fans who get sucked back every year because the series is pure, addictive summer candy.  It’s silly but it has heart, it’s illogical but full of laughs (some intended, some not), and one thing that has already elevated it from prior seasons (particular last year’s mess) is that with one episode left, it looks like not everything is going to end neatly tied up, with major season-long villains killed off conveniently at the last minute, or alliances made clear.  The battle is only beginning, and for once I’m sad to see things come to a close.  For more on this penultimate episode and why you should never bullshit a bullshitter, hit the jump.

Slow clap for True Blood, which after a few very rocky episodes has righted the ship.  One of the best things about “Gone, Gone Gone” was how some of the boring stories are finally, indeed, gone!  At least for now.  Away into the wind is the Ifrit, I guess – who cares?  No Alcide this week either, which, though his story regarding werewolf politics was mildly interesting, was not something I even noticed or missed until compiling my notes for review.  Sam and Luna even mercifully limited themselves to a cameo in which they were both naked (Sam got a little more time earlier on clothed as well, but still) or in mouse form.  The cutting down and combining of plots was a great relief to the episode, which may be one of the best of the season.  We also said Happy Trails to a character who got quite a fitting ending.  For more on that and why Tara said she don’t know nothing about birthin’ no vampire babies, hit the jump.

My relationship with True Blood sometimes feels a lot like Sam and Luna’s, at least in this episode.  “You are so fucking annoying!  I love you!” Sam snarls at her to which she replies through gritted teeth “love you, too.”  Every year I swear True Blood off, and every year I come crawling back because it looks like it might finally have redeemed itself and recaptured the magic of its first season.  This current, wildly uneven season has proven that there’s always going to be enough there to keep most viewers coming back, and a lot of it was on show in “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”  There was humor, drama, and some meta acknowledgement of that fact that this is all completely ridiculous.  Most importantly though, we closed at least one storyline while a few others finally started coming together.  Keep your heads down, tits up, and hit the jump for more on “a really stupid plan that’ll probably get you killed” (i.e. “must be Sunday!”)

While at the HBO portion of the TCA Press Tour, President of Programming Michael Lombardo and co-President Richard Plepler took some time to talk about new and returning programming.  During the interview, they spoke about how long Game of Thrones and True Blood could run for, the status of the Entourage movie, their movie deal with Larry David and the affect that could have on future seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, their thoughts on the first season of The Newsroom, the possibility of a fourth season for Treme, and what viewers can expect from the Woody Harrelson/Matthew McConaughey series True Detective.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

Let’s talk about Bill.  Bill was a centerpiece hero character in the first season or two of the show because he was Sookie’s one true love and all of that, and more importantly, got her all involved in the creature world.  What we came to find later was that Bill was actually sent as a spy, but then claimed he fell in love with Sookie on the side.  He left Lorena’s grasp, took up with Sookie, left Sookie, took up with Eric (not like that), and is now more or less leaving Eric to take up with Salome.  He’s a follower without much spine.  But the root of it all is, Bill as a character has almost no continuity.  His person is always changing because there’s no real sense of who he is or should be.  It looks like it will be covered up with the phrase “I’m evolving,” but Bill will be lead whichever way the wind blows.  When the Sanguists are defeated – and they surely will be, eventually – Bill will try to get back in Eric and Sookie’s good graces and convince them he was just playing along the whole time, or that he was brain washed, or that he was bullied (“I will not be bullied!” he said to Salome, just before she bullied him into doing what she wanted). Hit the jump for more on Bill and the rest of the Bon Temps gang.

Last week I mentioned how True Blood is a show that can convince you, as Holly confirms to Arlene, that a smoke monster could well be the cause of your house fire and not the demon baby “like we thought.”  But this week, after praising the turn True Blood made in the first half of the season towards fun – if still completely illogical – happenings, we came to the sentence “my wife will drink the blood I collect from your brain.”  And that is when I wrote “game over” and put my pen down.  The frantically paced fallacies overwhelmed some of the better stories, yes, but the real problem is that there are simply too many stories.  True Blood refuses to kill anybody off, yet feels compelled to give everyone their own individual and separate journey.  A few minutes here, a few minutes there, and it all adds up to a mess.  Hit the jump for the specifics of the night and to find out why Terry is in no mood for irony.