True Blood: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray

Telepathic waitress Sookie (Anna Paquin) attempts to solve a recent murder and sort out several issues with her vampire boyfriend, Bill (Stephen Moyer), including how to deal with his annoying teenage houseguest,

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Telepathic waitress Sookie (Anna Paquin) attempts to solve a recent murder and sort out several issues with her vampire boyfriend, Bill (Stephen Moyer), including how to deal with his annoying teenage houseguest, Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll). Season two of this critically acclaimed vampire series features new characters, including Iraq war veteran Terry (Todd Lowe) and mysterious social worker Maryann (Michelle Forbes).

Deep fried in the sticky swamps of a Bon Temps bayou, True Blood: The Complete Second Season arrives with a grainy, visceral, and altogether striking 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that faithfully renders every frame of Alan Ball's gritty supernatural soap opera. Vibrant pools of red spill off the screen, lush greens bake in the Louisiana sun, black levels are stark and inky, and skintones are either wonderfully lifelike or deathly pale. Contrast remains bold and beautiful regardless of how bleak or savory director of photography Matthew Jensen's ever-changing palette becomes -- be it languishing in the dank dungeons of Fangtasia, sweating on the grounds of reverend Newlin's compound, or nuzzling up to Maryann's old-world pagan wiles -- and delineation, though rather impenetrable, faithfully preserves the series' aesthetics. In fact, nearly every complaint finicky viewers could lodge against the presentation is attributable to Ball and his directors' intentions. (Yes, even the source noise, rough-hewn grain, crushed shadows, and soft shots that frequent each episode.) That being said, fans will rarely be forced to settle. Fine detail ranges from solid to stunning, closeups boast exceedingly crisp facial textures, object definition is remarkably sharp (without the help of any glaring edge enhancement), and both depth and dimensionality are thoroughly impressive. But wait, there's more! Ringing, aliasing, smearing, artifacting, and other pesky anomalies never invade the proceedings, and brief, intermittent, arguably negligible banding is the only thing that holds the transfer back from true-to-source perfection. Like the series' first season release, True Blood's second high definition romp looks fantastic. Devotees, videophiles, and newcomers will be most pleased.

What do The Sopranos, Band of Brothers, Generation Kill, Rome, John Adams and True Blood: The Complete First Season have in common? Simple: exceptional lossless audio. Thankfully, the sonic masterminds at HBO further their track record of excellence with True Blood: The Complete Second Season, a TV junkie and audiophile's dream-come-true that pairs the series' serrated visuals with a powerful, surprisingly playful, ultimately engrossing DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track. Dialogue is crystal clear and nicely prioritized regardless of locale, and voices take on an entirely different personality depending on whether they're whispered in a cozy poolhouse, barked in a cramped freezer, shouted at Merlotte's on a busy Friday night, or crooned over the rabble of Maryann's... shall we say evening soirs. Moreover, the series' already nuanced soundscape is polished and refined, transforming every strange-n-seedy environment into a realistic one. From episode to episode, acoustics are eerie and convincing, directionality brandishes deadly precision, vampires pounce from speaker to speaker with ease, and the soundfield is impeccably immersive. The LFE channel leaves its mark as well. Whether roaring from an enraged creature's throat, booming from the barrel of a shotgun, or quaking in the thoom of a suicide bomber's wares, hefty low-end tones disrupt the peace and add welcome weight to the experience. Did I mention rear speaker activity is aggressive, dynamics are noteworthy, and every note of Nathan Barr's twangy score is pitch-perfect? Well done, HBO. Well done.

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