True Blood’s reboot has been canceled due to cost-cutting at Warner Bros. Discovery, but this news is secretly good for the original HBO show.
The news that True Blood’s reboot has been canceled is actually good for the original HBO show. It can be tempting to assume that every franchise reboot is a good thing. Although a lot of revivals fail to recapture the tone, spirit, and unique style of their predecessors, the idea of bringing back a beloved cult television show – especially one with a divisive finale – often leads to assumptions that a reboot will miraculously retcon everything that was wrong with the original series.
Since True Blood got a lot wrong in its final seasons, the news that there was a reboot on the way caused much excitement back in late 2020. Coming from showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, this new take on True Blood was set to bring the world of Sookie Stackhouse back to TV screens. However, as Warner Bros. Discovery’s cost-cutting measures continue to cancel swathes of major projects, the proposed True Blood reboot is the latest in a long string of shows to receive the axe. Perhaps surprisingly, there is no reason to be upset with this True Blood update.
True Blood’s Reboot Couldn’t Have Fixed The Original Show
True Blood’s proposed reboot was not going to feature any of the original cast, so there was never any chance of the new series fixing the much-maligned finale of the original HBO show. Like rival franchise Twilight, which changed book details here and there to enhance its storyline, the final True Blood seasons totally abandoned their book inspiration. This meant that series star Sookie’s story was irrevocably changed, and the heroine ended up with an unseen, unnamed love interest in the dispiriting finale. While the reboot seemed like a chance to fix this, the original cast’s absence ensure that would never have happened.
To fix the end of HBO’s True Blood, the reboot would have needed to bring back the show’s original stars. Not only were there no plans to do this, but the untimely passing of Nelsan Ellis meant that the reboot would have been unable to bring back Lafayette. A fan-favorite, Lafayette was one of the only True Blood characters in every episode of the show, and his absence alone would have meant the revival could never replicate the campy, sexy, borderline ludicrous tone of the original series. With no plans to bring the familiar cast back, it seems that True Blood’s reboot would have followed the path of another failed HBO show.
HBO’s Gossip Girl Proves True Blood’s Reboot Would Have Failed
HBO’s Gossip Girl reboot was another big-budget, high-profile attempt to revive a once-controversial late-2000s phenomenon. Gossip Girl on HBO flopped with critics, and ended up getting canceled after only two seasons, since the series could not replicate the unique zeitgeist-capturing appeal of the original. Gossip Girl, like True Blood, succeeded at a time when it took a lot less to push the boundaries of television, and the Gossip Girl reboot having misjudged original cast cameos proved how easily a TV reboot can get caught between meaningless nostalgia and being completely detached from the franchise’s past.
As such, it is a good thing that True Blood’s reboot was canceled before the show’s legacy was tarnished further. The desire to fix past sins is a strong temptation, and can sometimes work, as seen with Dexter. More often, however, attempting to breathe new life into a franchise is more trouble than it is worth. In the case of True Blood, a reboot would have drained even more life out of the original TV show.