At Last – True Blood, Uncut and in HD!

Sky has announced the latest season of True Blood will premiere in HD on SoHo 10 days after its SD run ends on Prime.

“Catch the brand new season of True Blood, fresh from its HBO airing, uncut and in high definition,” reads the press release.

Peculiarly, however, the first-run episodes will air as a box set weekend on October 6 and 7.

SoHo’s decision to bundle the 12-part season off-peak this way isn’t surprising given many fans already will have watched it on Prime.

The scheduling reflects how much of True Blood’s value has been tarnished by Sky not running it in HD first on SoHo or even within days of its Prime broadcast.

The fifth-season finale went to air on Sunday in the US, on the eve of which USA Today’s Robert Bianco wrote: “Squandering a terrific start, this once-entertaining, now wildly aggravating series went into a mid-stretch tailspin from which it never recovered.

“While Sunday’s finale may turn out to be an improvement, it can’t possibly be good enough to redeem a disastrous season.”

Echoed New York magazine: “This season of TB has been bonkers, even by the show’s own bizarre standards.”

But Rolling Stone thought it “the best cliffhanger yet” – as did viewers, with creator Alan Ball’s final episode as showrunner scoring a ratings high for the season: 6.3 million viewers tuned in for its two airings.

SoHo’s other October highlights include:

❑ The season-three premiere of Boardwalk Empire (8.30 Monday, from October 22), which picks up more than a year after the events of the season-two finale: Nucky faces new competition from bootlegger Gyp Rosetti (new cast member Bobby Cannavale) and Al Capone becomes a major player in Chicago (seasons one and two will re-run as box set weekends on October 13/14 and October 20/21);

❑ The season-seven premiere of Dexter (8.30 Wednesday, from October 17), which opens with Deb trying to reconcile the unfathomable idea that her beloved, mild-mannered brother is Miami’s most notorious serial killer — whose next target is a brutal Ukrainian mobster (Ray Stevenson);

❑ Another chance to see Californication from the beginning (8.30 Thursday, from October 18);

❑ The final seasons of Rescue Me (7.30 Thursday, from October 25), which will have its NZ TV premiere on SoHo, and Alan Ball’s first HBO hit, Six Feet Under (7.30 Friday, from October 26).