17/13

Synopsis

He’s smart

He’s lovable. He’s Dexter Morgan, America’s favorite serial killer, who spends his days solving crimes and his nights committing them. During season 8, Angel Batista was not always played by David Zayas. His son David Zayas Jr.

Dexter Morgan: I lived in the darkness for too long

stands in for his father in some shots, as the two look so much alike. Visible throughout the first season, Dexter has a large scar on his left side. Later in season 2, the scar moved to the right side, leaving the left side unmarked. As the years went by, my eyes adjusted, until the darkness became my world and I could see.

Performed at the 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards (2007)

Main Theme Written by Rolfe Kent Performed by Rolfe Kent. After four episodes, I’m ready to proclaim this the best show on TV right now, one that may one day rank among the likes of _The Sopranos_ and the first season of _Twin Peaks_ as a contender for the second-best TV show of all time (after the incomparable _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_; one of the show’s producers and writers is former Buffy writer Drew Z. Greenberg, and the cast includes Buffy/Angel mainstay Julie Benz). Dexter is a sociopath, someone with no human feelings and therefore no natural inner moral compass, and he has an insatiable bloodlust that drives him to kill.

Another thing the show does brilliantly is move at different speeds in parallel

But he has the great grace of having been the adopted son of a police officer, who (as we see in fantastic flashbacks) successfully instilled in him a complete moral code, to which he adheres on a strictly intellectual level. This is an absolutely brilliant concept (which I assume derives from the novels it’s based on), allowing the writers to explore the nature of moral behavior and what it means to be human (Dexter is, in a sense, an alien). There’s a primary story arc that’s apparent throughout the season (concerning a cat-and-mouse game between Dexter and a serial killer), and a secondary arc involving Dexter’s sister’s police career. The first handful of episodes include a very powerful full-length arc about one of Dexter’s fellow cops and a local crime lord, while two of the four episodes so far have also included a standalone story split between (and replaying) the ongoing ones.

The cast and crew are fantastic

I’ve seen the future of TV season structuring, and this is it. While the writing isn’t up to the best of _House_, it’s been excellent. The only reason you wouldn’t want to watch this absolutely brilliant show is its frequent use of extremely graphic imagery: there were probably more severed body parts in these first four episodes than in the first four episodes of any other TV show on the air combined. If you can stomach that, tune in for a mesmerizing look at what makes us human—or inhuman.