Sexiest/Freakiest Drama True Blood HBO, Sundays, 9 p.m.

Stars: Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer

The premise: It's a doozy, based on the series of books known as the Southern Vampire Mysteries: With the invention of a synthetic blood drink, vampires have revealed themselves to the world — and (mostly) stopped biting people's necks. And in small-town Louisiana, Sookie Stackhouse (a bleach-blond Paquin), a waitress with telepathic powers, is falling for a particularly alluring bloodsucker named Bill (Moyer).

They say: "After five years of meditating on the existential presence of death in all our lives, I wanted to have fun," says executive producer Alan Ball (Six Feet Under). "The show is really about the terrors of intimacy."

We say: Combining cliffhangers, black humor and freaky vampire sex, this is the fall's weirdest and most compelling show.

Clip courtesy of HBO