Up & Coming Weekly

Vampire X-treme True Blood is the anti-Twilight TV Forget about The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. HBO’s True Blood is the vampire series that really matters this sum- mer. It’s the anti-Twilight, eschewing chaste undead romance in favor of depraved sex, bloody violence and pitch- black humor. Once you’ve seen hellishly appealing lead vampire Stephen Moyer, you realize that Twilight’s Robert Pattinson is little more than face powder and hair product. As season three opens (Sunday, 9 p.m., HBO), Moyers’ Bill has been kidnapped. Girlfriend Sookie (Anna Paquin) pursues him while the rest of the cast work through their own problems in a small southern town where vampires live out in the open. A vampire king scolds his underlings for allowing “moral anarchy” to run rampant, while the vampire queen asks, “Isn’t moral anarchy sort of the point?” It is, and I expect a heaping helping in this summer’s episodes. Bethenny Getting Married? Thursday, 10 pm (Bravo) Bethenny Frankel is arguably the most obnoxious member of The Real Housewives of New York City, and that qualifies her for a spinoff reality series. She’s a crude businesswoman obsessed with her body and its functions. “Do I have snot up my nose?” she asks with typical eloquence. “Is my underwear up my ass?” The series follows Bethenny as she deals with pregnancy and an upcoming wedding. She airs her self-pity in a filmed therapy session (so much for doctor- patient confidentiality), argues with her fiancé and makes multiple references to her “giant vagina.” I can see why viewers might tune in once out of curiosity, but what would make us want to watch a second episode? Whether or not Bethenny gets snot up her nose is not my idea of a cliffhanger. Tony Awards Sunday, 8 pm (CBS) I didn’t go to New York City for any of this year’s theater season, but you can bet I’ll watch the Tonys. I mean, look at the presenters with Broadway ties: Cate Blanchett, Laura Linney, Scarlett Johansson, Denzel Washington. Look at the mouth-watering nominees, including Alfred Molina, Christopher Walken and Rosemary Harris. Look at the musicals available for excerpts, with songs by Elvis Presley (Million Dollar Quartet), Green Day (American Idiot) and Fela Kuti (Fela!). Why am I writing this blurb when I could be booking my plane ticket to New York City? Design Star Sunday, 10 pm (HGTV) Twelve interior designers compete in challenges, facing eliminations and blah blah blah. The format is similar to many such reality competitions, but I like Design Star’s low-key tone. The contestants are all accomplished pros with real talent and mature personalities. The producers haven’t dropped in any psychos in a desperate attempt to keep things interesting. Interest arises naturally from the designers’ creative approach to their tasks. Design Star does feature one woman you love to hate, but she’s not the usual Cruella de Vil. She’s just very good at what she does and a bit arrogant as a result. It’s not often you find a reality-show villain with such exquisite taste. Neighbors from Hell Monday, 10 pm (TBS) Every once in awhile, even a jaded critic is shocked by what they put on TV. Neighbors from Hell is a new animated comedy about a family of demonic tortur- ers who travel from hell to Earth to live among people. It’s a hateful spectacle, with shrieking characters and sickening images substituting for wit and human- ity. The “jokes” concern women having sex with dogs, kids shooting heroin, and African Americans being run out of town. One ethnic character is referred to as a “little brown ape.” It’d be one thing if Neighbors from Hell were on premium cable, but this jaded critic is amazed that it’s intended as mainstream entertainment on basic cable. I can’t imagine who the audience is, other than maybe the Devil. 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