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 Dexter will drain you pale, but you’ll love every minute.
December 2 is the first day of TV’s silly season, so I’m getting in nice and early – which is just as well, because it will give you the time you’ll need to install pay TV (if you don’t already have it) so you can enjoy the dark pleasures of Dexter, a gloriously twisted, serial-killer drama soon to be launched on Foxtel’s newest channel, Showcase.
The program’s pleasures are many, beginning with Michael C. Hall. You probably remember him as Six Feet Under’s ‘David’, one half of that hit show’s resident homosexual couple. If you thought he was fragile after that freaky car-jacking in Season 4, you won’t recognise him here.
Showtime’s Dexter is based on the crime novel series Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay. Our anti-hero is a forensics blood-spatter expert for the Miami police. He’s also a serial killer. Yep, he’s the homicidal equivalent of a fire-bug working under the noses of a fire brigade. But Dexter targets Miami’s murderers, unleashing his gory killing sprees as a way of balancing society’s disorder; taking out the tropical trash in America’s southernmost refuge for human refuse.
Hall is supreme in this most delicious role.
Dexter is a loner, but an intelligent, charming, even sexy one. His thoughts, presented as voice-overs, such as, “Another beautiful Miami day, mutilated corpses with a chance of afternoon showers,” add to the show’s wicked appeal.
Despite his intellect, Dexter is resolutely shy, unable to forge a mature relationship.
“When it comes to the actual act of sex, it’s always just seemed so undignified,” he observes.
He befriends Rita, a recovering rape victim, because, “she is as damaged as me.”
But it’s the tone of Dexter that makes this new series such startling television. It teeters perfectly between malice and flippancy. Dexter thinks little of answering a call in the middle of carving up his latest victim: “Hi honey, I’m just in the middle of a project.” SLIICCCCCCE.
There’ve been too many American vigilante flicks where justice without morality is seemingly validated (The Brave One, anyone?) but Dexter has the luxury of time to delve deeper in order that we understand and empathise with the character. Like Hannibal Lecter, we’re mesmerised by what makes him tick.
Fittingly, the show has critical buzz. Smart, sexy, salacious, it deserves every accolade. Spend your summer with Dexter. He’s just dying to meet you.
Dexter premieres 8:30pm Thursday December 6 on Showcase.
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