More coffins at HBO

We called it a while back (though we were hardly alone): Mitch Yost won’t be getting back in the game anytime soon, as HBO has fed David Milch’s “John From Cincinnati” to "Deadwood's" pigs.

This was actually probably foreseeable back in January, when Milch presided over a TV Press Tour session that left most critics just scratching their heads in bewilderment (click here for a distilled version of it or here for the whole messy thing). TV critics don’t like to be made to think they’re dumb, even if they are, and on that day Milch had most of the room feeling like Kindergarteners.

Boyoboy, the “Deadwood” fans are going to be apoplectic now. First, HBO cancelled “Deadwood” – a show with a feverish cult base – so that Milch could pick preciously at philosophical string theories with “John,” with nary a “Deadwoodian” c@cks#ck&r” to be heard. Then, as we noted last month, the network’s new brain trust seemed less than sanguine about the chances of those two promised “Deadwood” movies ever being realized (Milch is tuckered out, too hard to reunite the cast, etc., etc.).

Those suits said they wanted to be in the David Milch business, as they say, but for the time being, they ain’t. They’re gathering more coffins for Alan Ball, however: They’ve greenlit the “Six Feet Under” producer’s latest, “True Blood,” based on a series of “Southern Vampire” books. In this world, vampires drink synthetic blood imported from Japan and so a Louisiana small-town waitress (Anna Paquin) who can read minds decides to date one (Stephen Moyer).

And they thought “John from Cincinnati” was recherché.