Well I just finished watching True Blood from start to finish, all 7 seasons over the last month or so. I have to say, for all those folks out there that thought the last few seasons were a waste of time, watch it from start to finish over the course of a month or so where you can binge watch it some nights and an episode here and there when life it just too busy. It told a story as a whole.
Hmm, that's interesting. I stopped watching it around season 4 or 5 I think (it was the season where they started bringing in the fairies) and I was watching it as each new episode came out, so maybe I was missing what you are talking about with it because I remember feeling that they didn't know what they were doing with the show or where the story was going (despite the fact that I know it was based on a large series of books.)
I actually read the first one when the show came out. I actually liked the show a lot better than the books, so I never read more than one or two. Interestingly the same thing happened with Dexter. I read the first book after I fell in love with the show, and never really liked the books.
On the other hand I read Game of Thrones for the first time like 20 years ago, when it first came out and the second book was just being released. The show and the books work really well together in my opinion. There are things I like better in the books, and things I like better in the show, but I love them both.
I wonder if it has to do in part with how the book are written. As I recall both the True Blood and Dexter books they were written solely from the POV of the main character, and because of that the other characters felt flat in comparison to the show where the actors made all the characters feel so much more alive and interesting.
In a Song of Ice and Fire, each chapter is written from a different characters POV. Most characters you never get a POV for, but because you are seeing the story from so many different perspectives you don't feel like the non-POV characters are flat. For instance you get most of Robb Starks story from his mother's POV, which does mean that he is much more interesting on the show, but he never felt like a 'shallow' character in the book. (Actually I like how his story plays out in the books better than on the show, even though I so love the actor who played him).
Who wouldn't put a woman with that type of figure in a low cut dress? 
