Alan Ball, the terrifically talented writer who penned those words, went on to create Six Feet Under  and now True Blood. He's still developing characters who see beauty in the mundane, realities beyond our own and (mostly) benevolent forces in the universe—but now they're bar maids, grill cooks and shape-shifters.

Ball's appreciation of truth, beauty and "soul communion" begins in the immediacy of experience. It's akin to "the Buddhist notion of the miraculous within the mundane," as he once told an interviewer. Insights like that pulled me down to the Paley Center for a panel discussion with Ball and True Blood's writing team. I wanted to hear insiders talk about the season's savviest political satire, plotted thick with subversive religious subtexts. And, yes, the Halloween spirit moved me too. If there's going to be holiday-themed vampire stories, I want something meatier and juicier than "Gee whiz, vamps are hot these days."

Dear Reader, I could not have imagined what happened next. (For a transcript, see Futon Critic.)

The evening's Q&A began with the trivial—i.e., "Would you cast Snoop Dog as a vampire?" (probably not)—and ended with the tangential (we learned that Godric's death scene was filmed in just two takes, but there was no mention of the decision to turn author Charlaine Harris' pedophiliac serial killer into a Christ-figure). Call me a geek but I wanted to hear something more than Ball's oft-repeated assertion that the vamps-as-gay proxy was "just some fun window dressing."

When asked why vamps were so popular, Ball duly noted they were "powerful symbols" and segued into the evening's one zinger: "We had a vamp in the White House for eight years who sucked us dry, and now the media and popular culture is just beginning to tell the story." But otherwise, it was fanzine 911: Next season Eric gets naked! Bill and Sookie stay connected! Evan Rachel Wood returns as the Queen of Louisiana! The story arc centers on identity—"Who am I, what am I, what do I want to be?"—or, as the writers put it: "helmets, racism and self-respecting hotties."

In other interviews Ball has talked about the need to face death—at 13, he was with his sister when she was killed in a car accident—in "a culture that goes out of its way to deny mortality." True Blood's opening credits eloquently visualize those fears as well as the antidotes (or distractions) offered through religion and sex. The show's second season offers plenty of both, with plotlines about Maryann, Godric and the Fellowship of the Sun as well as those steamy scenes of Eric naked.

Now here's that holiday story: Regina Marchi, author of Day of the Dead in the USA on food customs  that commemorate the really dead. (Sorry vamps.)

Diane Winston