'True Blood' goes dry for a spell

THE SHOW "True Blood"

WHEN | WHERE Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO

REASON TO WATCH The fourth season begins

CATCHING UP Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) is a fairy, and a semi-comatose Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) nearly drained her of blood after she saved him from the clutches of the evil Russell Edgington (Denis O'Hare), vampire king of Mississippi. Funny thing about fairy blood -- vamps can actually stay in the sun a couple of minutes after imbibing.

Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård) decides to slay Russell, who slaughtered his entire family hundreds of years earlier, so tricks him into drinking Sook's blood. Russ goes into the sun and fries after a few minutes. Meanwhile, Sookie has split up with Bill after that little aforementioned sucking incident; she later goes to the graveyard to visit her dear "gran's" grave, when suddenly she disappears -- drawn into the fairy realm.

WHAT SUNDAY'S ABOUT HBO already has released (on the Web) the first eight minutes of the fourth season, so it's not giving too much away to say that Sookie finds herself in some Elysian spot where everyone is happy, healthy and high on something called "lumière," a sort of glowing fruit. This is the land of fairies, but looks can be very deceiving.

Meanwhile, this season could do for witches what the last did for werewolves: Lafayette Reynolds (Nelsan Ellis) is invited to join a coven of weird sisters by friend Jesus Velasquez (Kevin Alejandro) who was revealed to be a "brujo," or male witch..

MY SAY All is well, "Blood" fans, if the first episode is an indication. Show-runner Alan Ball has wisely fast-forwarded the timeline a year (you'll see how), which means a major reboot for characters, plot lines and the series itself. Everyone, fans included, needed distance from last year's copious bloodletting. They'll get it Sunday.

BOTTOM LINE These fairies are not from the fairy tales we know so well. A harrowing new season arrives.

GRADE B+