True Blood: Season 3

There is an almost invisible line separating “camp” (which is stylish and fun) and “schlock” (which is boring and incompetent), and after a vastly improved second season, HBO’s supernatural series True Blood crossed that fine line in this turgid third go-round. Set in a world where hypersexualized vampires have “come out of the coffin” (thus inspiring several new forms of prejudice), the third season of True Blood throws werewolves, werepanthers, fairies and dogfighting shape-shifters into the supernatural mix, but to no avail. There is none of the satiric wit of the first two seasons, and utterly bereft of ideas, the creative team falls back on that laziest of vampire tropes—pointless gore! Worst of all, the dumb dialogue and chaotic, nonintersecting story lines rob the returning characters (including Anna Paquin as the mind reader Sookie) of the simple motivations that would have allowed us to care about them.