Re: True Blood
The books were good, the tv show - ick - I don't think they got the right actors for many of the characters (Sookie for example was described as buxom blonde in the books with a beautiful face - the actress with the gap between her front teeth and nearly flat chest did not work just on the looks department. Northman fit alright, but the Prince of New Orleans, in the books, was a young teenager looking woman. The one in the show looked to be in her 30's and they totally left out her right hand man, who was a big player in several of the books).
Sorry diverging from plot lines - of the concept, It works well if you have a versicle enough GM (or multiple GMs who can work well together).
I personally would go with a VtM type game concept (world of darkness) just for character creation rules, but over all plot would likely be more sandbox 'ish' I think, once you got the stories going.