Welcome Back

Here I am, a man who hates cop shows, hates CSI type shows, and hates anything that takes place in Miami. I don’t know what it is about Florida; I just find it completely unappealing- both aesthetically and visually. Miami has always struck me as a low-rent California, and it keeps me away from most any entertainment taking place in the old boot state.

Enter Dexter. I usually find pay-cable shows trite and boring (I hated Six Feet Under, The L Word, Sex and the City, and yes, even The Sopranos – I know, I’m a minority), instead of good exposition and writing, they tend to show off their shock value to get ratings. 

Dexter is indeed different. Each episode is a domino. Like Whedon’s Buffyverse , the season starts slow, building characterization, pulling together seemingly unrelated elements. As each episode airs, the dominos start to really click off, building momentum until the entire track folds neatly into place, revealing a work of art at the end that is both fascinating and cut and dropped into neat little packages. Each season is a story unto itself, drawing on all the characters. Unlike most television series, there are no stories that are episodic unto themselves. While Dexter might kill someone different every week, they fold perfectly into the main story line, feeding it, bringing it further into fruition. There are no unnecessary scenes, at least not in these first two seasons. 

That’s saying a lot.

Michael C. Hall is indeed a revelation. Seeing him in Six Feet Under is not the same, he has more weight here in this strange role, and he commands the screen.  Plus, instead of him having sex with a bald black cop, he's made one his arch-enemy. This guy is going to be huge. Wait and see.  (okay, so that sounded just wrong)

Bringing Darla from Buffy (the excellent Julie Benz) to play Rita was another master stroke. (what's with the bad puns?) She gets something about Dexter, and it makes you wonder how much she knows and is ignoring.  It’s fascinating to watch the two play off each other. Watching their interaction is like watching an alien from another planet hiding away in a family home.  Kind of like if ET killed people.

The concept itself is great: He’s a vigilante serial killer who hunts serial killers by night, a forensic investigator by day. Each of the characters he works with and lives with- you will become emotionally entangled with somehow. He has a super hero code, and he has a super hero honor. He has great wit and charm, and knows how to  fake empathy towards everyone around him.  Dexter's id is struggling to become, to find out who he is, what his great purpose is. He possesses extreme intelligence, is inordinately strong, and protects those whom he loves, not matter what the cost is to him- even though, like Mr. Spock- he is devoid of emotion.

Based on the book “Darkly Dreaming Dexter” by Jeff Lindsay, the show bests the material it is based on, wisely avoiding many of the books silly shortcomings in favor of a more realistic approach in some ways (Cody a serial killer?), and making Dexter more likeable. 

However, it should be noted that Lindsay is a huge Star Trek fan, who wrote a book with Michael Dorn before the Dexter series.  There are Star Trek references galore on Dexter.  That is one of the few plusses of the book(s).

The negatives: In the book, he never really loves Rita, and he marries her just for a cover. The books become dumber; by the third one Dexter is largely unlikeable, while the show has pursued its own story, keeping him the hero. Taking cues from The Godfather, another show with a cast of villains– you still have to have likeable characters for anything to work. The show understands this but the book favors the gray area, letting Dexter kill hookers.

There are a few supernatural elements that would be fun to see migrated from print as they are somewhat more psychological than fantasy and could add benefit, as long as handled with care (or else Dexter might be jumping more than dead bodies out in the bay).  "The Dark Passenger" that drives Dexter has been missing from the show so far, but it would be kind of cool if they could do something like that. 

There is a subplot in the third book where a cult finds Dexter and believes this  inner voice that drives him to kill, to be the bastard son of the evil biblical god “Moloch.”  Supposedly, when the Passenger is found out, he goes silent, leaving Dexter without the desire to kill (or the ability), right when he needs it the most (think Daredevil without his hearing from the Frank Miller saga). The cult summons another evil deity hell bent on destroying the passenger called the IT. I don’t know, I know it’s strange, but it was the only cool thing in the third book.