Dexter Morgan works for the Miami Dade police department, as a forensic specialist in blood splatter analysis. His sister Debra is a detective for the same precinct, and their father Harry was also a well respected policeman at the same station. All this sounds pretty humdrum. However, that is as far from reality as can possibly be. While Harry's daughter Debra is biologically his own, Harry adopted Dexter as a young child. But before Harry took him in, something mysterious happened to Dexter that changed him forever. Today he is an emotionless, self-proclaimed "monster" whose only pleasure is in killing. Harry saw this coming, and realized he couldn't stop Dexter from becoming a murderer. Instead, he decided to teach Dexter how to seem normal to the world while channeling Dexter's urges so that his targets are only other killers whom the authorities have never been able to bring to justice.
This is the basis for the TV series "Dexter", and what an interesting premise it is. As you can see from the blurb above, the series was inspired by the novels by Jeff Lindsay an author I've never heard of, but I'm certainly impressed with his idea of a sort of 'Robin Hood' serial killer. Needless to say, this is not your ordinary crime drama series. The "hero" here is about as much of a criminal as the people the police and he are hunting, and are certainly no less sociopaths. This is combined with Dexter's dilemmas with his girlfriend, trying to promote his sister's career, living with Harry's ghost, and all the while attempting to behave like a normal person makes for some very interesting situations.
What makes "Dexter" a true stand-out of a crime series is that instead of having a crime presented to us at the beginning of every episode, which is conveniently solved by the end of that hour, this series takes on one major crime PER SEASON! Yes, just like in real life, in this show, when a crime is discovered, it takes days, weeks and sometimes months to uncover the truth and arrest the right suspect. I have to say that watching the first three seasons like this really has made me become a bit cynical about other crime dramas that solve their mysteries within their single airing time-slot. We all know that the criminal justice system doesn't work that quickly, and even the Law & Order series - which at least notes the passage of time in their cases - shove a whole case into one episode.
The other thing that makes this crime drama different from the others is the way they use voiceover of Dexter's thoughts so that we get to know and understand what he's thinking about. This is done in a very "film noir" style, which despite the Florida sunshine, lends a darker atmosphere to the whole show, even in the parts which are humorous. Obviously, this helps with the adaptation from the novels, and spotlights the title role almost completely. We never get into anyone else's heads, so we get a very "first person" feel. That being said, Hall's boyish good looks is very inviting, and on the surface isn't at all sinister. This is where the innocence comes in and how they assured a higher level of viewer sympathy for him. (In other words, he's cute some might even say, he's hot and so you want to think the best of him, despite knowing that he's a serial killer!) What's more, I've even noticed that they make sure that we know through costumes and makeup when it's hot and humid, or if there's a cool breeze somewhere. This only proves that in addition to the marvelous acting, and intelligent scripts that the direction and set design is equally superb.
As for the actors, when I saw that Michael C. Hall was playing the title role, I was immediately intrigued. Hall's work on "Six Feet Under" playing a catholic homosexual undertaker was certainly not your run-of-the-mill roles, and I knew he wouldn't take on a part that was less challenging or any less atypical. In "Dexter" he seems to have hit a goldmine for the bizarre, and pulls it off with just the right amount of humor, innocence (yes, you read that correctly) and sinister cold-bloodedness that is close to genius. Unlike with many of today's Hollywood actors, Hall seems to have mastered the art of subtlety and internalization that makes the viewer feel the character is so real, that perhaps this actor has a parallel personality to the person he is portraying. But since the characters Dexter Morgan and David Fischer are almost as different as night is from day, that can't be the truth.
Hall is joined by an excellent cast that, for the most part, I'd never seen or noticed before, with the exception of Harry Morgan played by James Remar, who fans of "Sex & the City" will recall played Richard Wright Samantha's wealthy boyfriend before she got involved with the young model. Jennifer Carpenter's portrayal of Dexter's sister Debra, the straight-talking, tough-girl with hidden insecurities and is portrayed totally spot on. What I really like about her character is how she has developed and changed over the seasons. Of course, no one is quite as brilliant as Hall, but on the whole, they all seem to be doing outstanding jobs. And then you also get one or two guests per season, not the least of which is Jimmy Smits playing the Miami DA in season three. If you haven't seen any of this series, do watch the first two so you can get to the third one with Smits he's nothing like the characters he's ever played before.
I'm not going to discuss the different episodes because I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. Leave it to say that "Dexter" is a very unique crime drama that might even appeal to those watchers who don't normally like thriller series. I personally cannot find any fault with this show and after three full seasons of twists and turns, I can only hope that Jeff Lindsay's fourth novel gets made into a fourth season!