It's just not very interesting.

How can that be? Vampire stories for centuries have captivated the darkest parts of our soul with tragic tales of immortals forced to feed on the blood of regular humans.

But HBO's newest drama premieres tonight at 10, and it's full of style and not much more - a one-hour weekly lesson in prejudice and social division that's ill-fitting for what is really nothing more than a horror geek show.

The pay-cable network's newest entry from "Six Feet Under" creator Alan Ball certainly wants to entice gothic fans. It's layered with steaming sexuality and blood-soaked killings, set in Bon Temps, a small town deep in the Louisiana woods that seems fitting for dark shadows and sweat-inducing fear.

The town's sweet bar waitress, Sookie (Oscar-winner Anna Paquin), is a naive young woman who also happens to read people's minds. She meets a vampire named Bill (Stephen Moyer), who has moved into the town's old Compton House, and is intrigued in his mysterious ways, mostly because he's the first person (or "dead" person) she can't read.

In the show's mythology, vampires are living among us and are now "out of the coffin." That's after the Japanese have invented a synthetic blood called "True Blood" they can drink without having to tear open some poor soul's neck. That mixing of the living and dead has formed a wall of prejudice between the humans and vampires, resulting in the blood-suckers demanding equal rights.

The allegory for homosexual rights/racial equality is not lost on a show that heaps on the symbolism by the truckload, even though the notion of vampires struggling for acceptance in a human world seems silly.

What the series really lacks are strong relationships. Sookie's interest in Bill varies from episode to episode, and none of the other characters - including the bar owner, Sookie's brother, or her best friend - are as interesting as they ought to be. In fact, the cold, dead guy in this show is more compelling than anyone with a beating heart.

What we're left with is a drama that's not particularly thrilling, and a thriller that's not very dramatic. Instead, "True Blood" is anemic at best.