Can Charlaine Harris’ Midnight, Texas be NBC’s True Blood?

Fans were hoping that NBC’s new supernatural show Midnight, Texas would be a new True Blood. But could NBC really pull that off?

Charlaine Harris new supernatural drama Midnight, Texas is premiering on NBC on Monday. But according to early reviews, fans shouldn’t hold their breath for another True Blood.

I loved True Blood (#TeamEric, by the way). I stuck by that show until the end, even when it started to lose itself in those final seasons. It was campy and sexy and fun. And the earlier seasons actually had a point with their metaphors for the LGBTQ community.

Sure, there are a lot of supernatural shows out there already. But when I heard there was another show based on a Harris series, I couldn’t help but get excited.

Midnight, Texas is about a medium named Manfred, who moves to the town Midnight. Midnight just happens to be a safe haven for supernatural beings, who form their own community when outsiders start coming in. There are vampires, witches, angels, were-tigers, ghosts, and more. Oh my! Plus, there’s a human assassin named Olivia thrown in there for good measure. The show will center around a mysterious murder.

Unfortunately, the reviews for Midnight, Texas aren’t promising. TV Line gave the show a very worrisome D rating. They said there was way too much going on and the cast was huge and yet the show still felt bland. Plus, they were laughing during the show, and not at the jokes. And the show, according to the review, is full of plot holes. Like, would a town full of supernatural beings really go unnoticed? That doesn’t sound good.

Then there’s the tone of the show. “It’s too self-serious to be genuinely funny, and too goofy to be taken seriously,” the review reads. And the effects aren’t that believable.

CinemaBlend, meanwhile, also pointed to the pacing of the show.

"“There were moments during the pilot (especially at the beginning) that it moved so fast I barely able to keep up with it,” they wrote. “But, at other times, the action seemed to move so slow that I was bored to the point of almost falling asleep.”"

They acknowledged that things got better during the second episode, but it was still a problem.

Many of the reviews also pointed to the weak characters. There was so many of them and they’re pretty underdeveloped, so it’s hard to get invested or really root for any of them.

While they only gave Midnight, Texas two out of five stars, CinemaBlend was a little more forgiving of the show, though, praising the premise and the idea of having a bunch of supernatural creatures actually getting along and living in harmony.

Bit at the end of the day, Midnight, Texas sounds like a watered-down, messier version of True Blood. There’s a reason that True Blood was on HBO: the over-the-top sex and violence is what the show was known for. Plus, True Blood also had great character development, giving us characters to root for, and an addictive plot that always had me coming back for more. And they just might not be able to pull off an NBC version of that kind of show.

Midnight, Texas already has an uphill battle. The show was announced over a year ago and was supposed to be a mid-season entry, but the premiere was pushed back to the middle of the summer. So it’s already worrisome that it was pushed to such a low-viewership time. And the reviews aren’t helping to ease my fears.

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Still there have been other supernatural shows that have done well (see The Vampire Diaries) and True Blood ruled, so I’m not giving up hope yet. While these reviews aren’t giving me much confidence, I’ll hold my final decision until the premiere on Monday at 10 on NBC.