Two 16-year-olds were talking about how much they were enjoying the third season of “True Blood.” I’d heard about HBO’s hit show. But what’s so special about vampires? As if we don’t have enough scary stuff going on in the world: wars, floods, famine, the economy, oil spills, Bristol Palin dancing and hurricanes. We need vampires to scare us?

I have nothing against vampires, zombies, werewolves and shape-shifters, (I do, however, have a serious beef with wood sprites), but the success of the unreadable and unwatchable “Twilight” books and movies made the prospect of sitting through a TV show based on another series of bloodsucker books very low on my list.