It’s a point long since accepted as truth that without Joss Whedon’s groundbreaking (and ground-opening) Buffy The Vampire Slayer, we’d probably have no Twilight movies, no Vampire Diaries TV and certainly no True Blood, now entering its final season.

“I had never seen Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” reveals True Blood Season 7 star Kristin Bauer van Straten, speaking exclusively to SciFiNow, “so I’m going back and I’m watching that now.

“I can’t help but see the parallels and think that without Buffy, I’m not sure there would have been True Blood.”

Bauer van Straten, who plays the scene-stealing Pam, clearly sees HBO’s scandalous supernatural soap as a similarly high watermark and not an lacklustre imitator, and she hopes that True Blood has the same incredible legacy as Whedon’s genre gamechanger.

“We can’t help but notice on True Blood that there’s yet another vampire show happening,” continues the star without naming names.

“It’s definitely opened the door again to this arena that’s been around for a long time and I hope that in 20 years time that people are [still] being forced to watch the DVDs.

“For 20 years my friends have been saying, ‘You haven’t seen Buffy what’s wrong with you?!’ I hope that happens to True Blood.”

True Blood Season 7 is airing now on HBO in the US and from 7 July 2014 on FOX in the UK. Pick up True Blood Season 5 on DVD for £28.75 or Blu-ray for £36 from Amazon.co.uk.