With its fifth season now in full flow in the States (albeit with ratings slightly down on last year), eccentric HBO vampire saga True Blood has been officially renewed for a sixth season to air next year. The steamy Louisiana-set show stars Stephen Moyer as vampire Bill Compton and Moyer’s real-life wife Anna Paquin as Bill’s telepathic ex-fairy on-off love interest Sookie Sackhouse. The show was brought to the screen by Alan Ball, previously responsible for the hit feature American Beauty and the outstanding HBO drama Six Feet Under whose ensemble cast featured Dexter’s Michael C Hall. Back in February Ball announced that he’d be moving on from True Blood at the end of the fifth season to work on Banshee, a new cop show for HBO’s sister channel Cinemax, but assured fans that if the show was to continue into a sixth season (and possibly beyond) most of the rest of its current production team would remain in place to drive the series forward.

Meanwhile, with season two already running Stateside and due to launch shortly in the UK, it’s likely that TNT’s Steven Spielberg  exec-produced alien invasion drama Falling Skies will be back for a third ten-episode run in 2013. The show’s second series, which promises to be pacier and more heavily militaristic, has posted healthy ratings for TNT who are on a roll at the moment with their well-received reboot of 1980’s oily soap Dallas having been recently renewed for a longer second series next year.

Falling Skies season one is now available on DVD (and is reviewed here). Season two debuts on the FX Channel in the UK on 3rd July. True Blood returns to the FX channel in the UK later this year.

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