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Dexter is an American television drama series that airs on American premium channel Showtime. Set in Miami, the series centers on Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a serial killer governed by a strict moral code who works for the Miami Metro Police Department as a blood spatter analyst. (official distributor synopsis)
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Dexter is a series that relies on a charismatic character, and we have not seen this type of interesting serial killer with such a well-constructed and audience-appealing nature since the days of Doctor Lecter. The series has everything - tension, crimes, intrigues, passions, perversions, well-written typified characters, and a series of unexpected twists. It's a top-notch, cleverly structured commercial product that earns points primarily due to the atmosphere and Dexter's internally detached ironic commentary. Do you like cool entertainment, provocation, and deviation from the mainstream, but at the same time nothing that is profound and hard to digest? Give Dexter a watch. That is, assuming you don't mind the moral relativization that goes very far in the series. To understand, Dexter is a psychopath and a serial killer who is fortunate enough to work as a forensic investigator for the Miami police, and from his position, he has a unique opportunity to hide his tracks, regardless of his intimate knowledge of police methods. Apart from the two mentioned minor flaws, Dexter is a nice guy with good manners and a carefully maintained appearance, who sincerely serves the purpose of becoming normal, starting a family, and overcoming his handicap. At least he still adheres to the code - torturing and killing exclusively those who deserve it, i.e., criminals and immoral people. To make it even easier for the viewer, they are generally unsympathetic people, additionally shown in unfavorable situations - simply characters that you won't miss and won't sympathize with. Dexter's battles with underworld opponents are as thrilling as the knowledge that Dexter is treading on dangerous ground within the police district, and the screenwriter occasionally exposes him to dangerous tests. Granted, from a psychological standpoint, the concept of the character is absolutely nonsensical, and the resolution of the first season is insultingly stupid, or as if it was something out of a crazy parody. The successful plot is constantly recycled in all the seasons, and the series ends in the most banal way just when the audience is tired of it and its ratings are declining. Overall impression: 60%.
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Season 1: A small, kind and addictive audience scam that looks terribly radical, but is actually just a black-humor throw-down of many accepted clichés. Dexter is not nearly as dark a figure as he would like to be - in fact, he quite obediently conforms to audience expectations and does not embark on the thin edge of ethics – inevitably, Doakes' "post-war" revenge on the Haitian criminal is much more problematic than his rampage. Who would want to judge that adorable darling (the teddy bear my girlfriend dubbed him to be)? Dexter entertained me in the first season, despite the relatively early revelation of who the ice truck killer is and what the deal is with him and the main protagonist. The weird feeling is compensated by excellent actors and perhaps even better written minor characters. And I really enjoy Dexter's family life. I'm not saying that more could not be gotten out the character of a murderous sociopath with a reputation as a great guy, but what the creators have made works and entertains.
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At a time when the word "series" is becoming almost an annoying concept, from the depths of inconspicuousness comes a stylish blockbuster that is three levels above its contemporaries. Dexter - the absolutely divine Michael C. Hall - will wrap anyone interested in his adventures around his finger with his cynically black-humored look into the soul of a cold-blooded killer who wears a police badge around his neck. The series then radically changes its image after this brilliant maneuver into a detective story that will make the viewer taut as a string, to reveal, piece by piece, more secrets, the discovery of which not only brings no relief but also, through its subtlety, leaves the audience in a state of total consternation, from which it only wakes up when the credits of the last episode roll. After the end of the first season, I can safely say that in the current flood of series, Dexter is among the very best! There are certainly things to criticize in the subsequent seasons (the predictable crime storylines, underdeveloped characters, lapses in logic), but Dexter's reflections on life (the fantastic flirtation with religion and faith in the sixth season) are simply incredible and keep pushing the series forward. Unfortunately, the final eighth season is something that shifts the series into the science fiction genre, written by the screenwriters of a family soap opera. The development of the main character was fascinating until someone rubber-stamped the creators' approval of Dexter's lobotomy.
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Season 1 – 85% – At its core, a small, pleasantly escalating case where too many personal coincidences happen around the main character. And in the bigger picture, it's the first step of a sympathetically sophisticated series that intoxicates viewers with a sweet feeling of knowing more than everyone around the central character, while still being led by the footsteps of an unknown killer. In the end, it's a relaxed and gradual spectacle that once introduced me to the world of cable TV and gave me a criminally minded character with purely logical thinking and somewhat noble intentions. However, nothing is black and white, and there are many twists yet to come. Season 2 – 90% – Cold logic starts to crack due to an animalistic force in the form of a seductive stranger, sympathy is increasingly stolen by the uncompromising Debra, and the deserving place in the spotlight belongs to the charming Julie Benz as Rita, who is unnecessarily scorned by viewers. In this season, the creators found the ideal balance that guaranteed the show's position for a few more years, a show that everyone watches (or at least plans to start watching at any moment). And it must be said, deservedly so, because the dynamics of relationships between Dexter-Doakes, Dexter-Lila, or Debra-Lundy can captivate viewers. Season 3 – 70% – Surprisingly stumbling at a time when all storylines should gain strength. Laguerta, despite occasionally emphasizing her importance too much, fails to impress, and she can't compete with the consistent performances of Deb or Rita. Dexter himself battles with an almost anonymous enemy and embarks on further endeavors with a rather problematic sidekick, Miguel. Here, in the third year of his Miami escapades, I got the feeling that the script can waver dangerously and, in the wrong hands, could lead the entire series into unexpectedly murky waters. Fortunately, that didn't happen, and the Skinner case was concluded with aplomb, leaving only the anticipation for a more nourishing prey, which didn't take long to arrive. Season 4 – 100% – The pinnacle of the whole bloody show, which cannot be surpassed in terms of uncompromisingness, nerves, or breathlessness due to unexpected twists. The Trinity Killer became a symbol for Dexter, the epitome of a first-class villain whom everyone that follows will strive to match – and they will never succeed. When the storylines around Batista and Joey Quinn finally work perfectly, the outcome is determined. It's a a royal ride with a breathtaking thriller of a finale, and arguably Showtime's most popular viewer trophy-winning showcase. Season 5 – 100% – A change of central creator for the first time and a straight-up hit. Chip Johannessen may have tried out for the role of leader for a single year, but it's the season helmed by him that is my favorite of the entire series. The charming Lumen, the manic Jordan Chase, and the pleasantly intertwining relationships of the various main and supporting characters have simply pieced together an unbreakable whole for me, led by the increasingly humanized title character. A heartbreaking period that unfortunately couldn't last forever. Season 6 – 80% – A change of central creator for the second time and the beginning of the end. It was from the arrival of Scott Buck as showrunner that some promising storylines never reached their zeniths, and in Dexter himself, that original unreadable hero was sometimes hard to recognize. Fortunately, the tension and the gradation of individual twists still work perfectly, and the religious subtext also fell on unexpectedly fertile ground. The rating is thus not lowered by the almost unbearable Maria Laguerta (nothing against the fitting Lauren Vélez by any means), nor by the feeling that some of the material should not be subjected to too many rewrites. Season 7 – 80% – New key characters like clockwork and occasionally a lot of question marks over the actions of the old ones. Some explicitly annoy (Louis, Nadia), some delight (the unflappable Yvonne Strahovski as Hannah) and some, somewhat surprisingly, steal every episode (Ray Stevenson and his rhino-like freshness in the skin of mobster Sirk). As a whole, I'm still enjoying it so much that I'm not only sitting on the edge of my seat in suspense, but almost on the back of it at times, but the final impressions, like last year, are perhaps a little lost. While the first seasons had a more meandering pace but lingered in the mind for months, the more recent seasons – despite heartbreaking or absolutely pivotal events – simply fail to impress. This leaves one single but all the more crucial unknown, the quality of the final batch of blood, evidence, and monologues. For it is with Dexter, perhaps more than any other series, that the quality of the finale itself is depended upon to support or detract from the previous season. Season 8 – 60% – Pleasant flashbacks, surprising explanations, and a slowly collapsing house of cards. But what at the beginning seems like a paraphrase of earlier themes (Dexter as both mentor and pupil) eventually degenerates into a rather dull plot due to dysfunctional supporting characters (Elway and the Marshal) and, worst of all, a chase with the absolute worst villain. That this particular amateurishly-acting individual would slam Dex, Deb, and everyone present in such a manner is what I consider to be a regular screenwriting misstep. Ironically, instead of feeling like a culmination, the final season just feels like a series episode and is therefore a considerable disappointment. After all, even an unconcluded season seven would have felt a bit more fateful as a finale, as it at least somehow gradually arrived at its climaxes. Eight, on the other hand, just works around the new characters, tries to close everything that needs to be closed in the last two episodes – and leaves the rest lying around. No catharsis for the secondary characters or answers to the burning questions of the last few years. Thus, the top ratings that have been slowly grinding away for some time now are rightfully fading into irreversibility, making the end of a viewer cult an unnecessarily bitter bite. To make us wait years for redress after the worst episode ever was maddening. But all is forgiven in the winter of 2021. New Blood – 75% – This surprisingly self-contained project, cut off like this by many years, works a little better than it would have as a possible ninth season. And for how long the creators have been treading around its creation, they're a bit like elephants in china now, standing still the moment they're supposed to step up and rushing forward when it would be convenient to wait, so fast that I don't even have time to look around before the plot is somewhere else. However, what remains the same is the atmosphere, which even without the sun and Miami beaches brings back that paranoid spectacle of the protagonist spinning thrilling wheels in all directions. The much-praised and hated finale is certainly not the best episode, but thankfully it's not the worst either, easily undoing the damage done by the last episode nearly a decade earlier. It's just a shame that it's where the rush is by far the most frantic, because by that point the viewer already has an inkling of how the whole series might end, and is just guessing who's going to kill who, who's going to stay where and with whom, and just throwing figures around in such equations. But because the creators leave the viewer groping for a very long time, it is still possible to fit almost any composition into such a conundrum some twenty minutes before the end, and then when it finally comes to breaking bread, it loses in emotion the weight that the nine previous episodes tried to soak up. As a result, New Blood doesn't rank among the best seasons, but it reaches somewhere to the level of the third, sixth, or seventh, the ones that are good enough and solidly watchable, with surprising ease. Without the blatant logical shortcuts, where a lot of things are made implausibly easy for the main characters (see the very convenient conference or the increasingly rapid putting two and two together), I would still be a class above satisfied, but the main goal is met. A series that I still considered one of the best (at least of the ones running at the time) after its fifth season, I suddenly stopped caring about at its first ending because I felt like the creators were making a fool of me. Now I certainly do care, and my memories of Dexter as a whole have finally been properly brightened again.
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Takes life. Seriously. A likeable and successful Miami PD forensic detective who is very popular and has a happy relationship... But first impressions can be wrong. Dexter just pretends to have emotions, in reality he isn’t capable of feeling anything. And, just by the by, he is also a serial killer who only murders murderers, but as we know, the more you eat the hungrier you get. No, this really isn’t just another variation on CSI. And personally I wouldn’t even this as a criminal thriller. The indescribable acting performance by Michael C. Hall (who played David Fisher in Six Feet Under; this guy seems to have a natural talent for strong roles and working with dead bodies) in the main role will get right under your skin and, although this time he is directly involved in their deaths, so this is a completely different slant. And again he handles it beautifully; without him Dexter wouldn’t work for a second and the entire concept would collapse like a house of cards. A disturbing series that asks controversial questions and, because it’s made for cable, is peppered with rude words. Everything here is brilliant, from the choice of actors, through capturing the special atmosphere of Miami, to the technical aspects, where the soundtrack is the proverbial icing on the cake. The opening credits, reminiscent of Švankmajer, and the flawless “dark" piano during the ending credits complete the picture, convincing you that this series is pure genius. However much Dexter’s psychological profile differs from the book (like totally; in the book he is an absolute screwball on the brink of madness and schizophrenia), it really doesn’t matter in this series. The series makes up for this with detailed storylines involving the other PD members. It almost seems that the creators found inspiration in the Argentinian series Epitafios. This is missing in the book, which is really only about one sick mind. And what about season two? Some drift away in their thoughts, Dex’s cadavers drift away in the sea. Significantly different to season one. And, believe it or not, although it doesn’t look like it at the beginning, it’s even better. FilmBooster hasn’t got enough stars to be able to evaluate this properly. It’s that good. And even season three exceeds the quality bar, although perhaps not as much this time round. Despite this, Dex is still unique and mainly unbelievably real. At least as far as life is concerned. Again, still, again and anew. It loses points mainly in the storyline with the main baddy which is... Just a little tired. And then, not only thanks to the phenomenal Lithgow, season four is the best season of all (so far). Of course, if I took Dexter primarily as a criminal series, I wouldn’t be so enthusiastic, but I take it mainly as a series about life. Sooner or later, we all end up having to deal with Dexter’s relationship, family and social problems, and that is where the power of this series lies. And if I add to that a suspenseful and gripping sarong, then it can only be positive. Although I am convinced that it would have worked well even without that sarong. Surprise, surprise, season five is nothing short of excellent, but for my taste it has strayed too far from Dexter’s struggle with “humaneness" to classic thriller (albeit with wider overlap into other realms than most, even above-average thrillers). The behavior of some protagonists and the police is rather illogical given that this is presented as a thriller; on the other hand, it is fundamental in building atmosphere and suspense. In this season, Dex finds himself a little sidelined and it is the girly Debra/Lumen duo who go through the greatest development. But this isn’t a negative - there is a reason for it - but the screenwriters should have stepped on the gas in the last quarter hour, instead of cowardly putting it into reverse, thereby throwing the entire series back to where it had got to once before at the end of season four. In doing this, while on the one hand they made this season extremely high quality (and very tasteful), on the other, it seems rather like superfluous watered down porridge. I christened season six the “most to-and-fro-est". But that doesn’t make it bad or even average, but it is a bit too much of a patchwork of storylines, all of them with untied loose ends; at the same time it is pleasantly soap opera-style daring (but only if the screenwriters manage not to fumble this situation in the next season). However, a kind of conflict between good ideas and fizzling out takes place in the first two-thirds of this season. While Rita’s departure was logical (and necessary too), and was a great help to the series overall, the (temporary?) departure of Lumen is much more damaging and so the Dexter storyline (again) begins walking in circles, not even interrupted by Dex’s dabbling in religion. Although this is super, this promising storyline ends sooner than it starts to develop into something that might move the story forward. Tying up the storylines from past seasons comes across almost like they had no better ideas (the Nebraska episode) and the main “murder" storyline isn’t completely uninteresting, but the more observant viewers realize how this is going to finish (and it does excellently) long before the outcome. And primarily the whole storyline with religiously motivated murders stays too long on the sidelines and nobody at the police department seems to show the slightest interest in it. And also deus ex machina comes into play far too often, and also the way Dex keeps on making mistake after mistake, but without any real consequences (unlike the first few seasons or other uncompromising series where every action has a corresponding reaction) is a bit annoying. The only thing that I can have no objections to is everything happening around Debra. The way this rather superfluous character (as she was in seasons two and three) turned into the main powerhouse of the series (sorry Dex) deserves respect. And in view of what course this character takes, I retract what I said about the ending of the previous season. It made sense to wait a season for “that". Season seven begins with the best episode of the series and... But nothing comes of it. Although more happens in the side-stories than elsewhere (including the fantastic Stevenson), none of them get adequate space for development. And the reason? The Dex/Debra storyline that steals most of the air time for itself. Is this a problem? Not if they didn’t get done with it in the first four episodes. The series is founded on “this" from the very beginning, and they have been preparing the ground for “this" for six years already. And what do we get? “An entire" four episodes! And considering how they dealt with similar situations in other series (T Shield, Breaking Bad) this is all the sadder. I think the creators got this over with so quickly only so that they could send Dexter toward a relationship that doesn’t move the main protagonist at all forward and therefore for the first time has no reason for happening. Dexter’s change of demeanor to a state of “smug jerk-off ignoring any consequences" doesn’t improve things either. I have already reluctantly come to terms with the fact that Dexter the series isn’t (and probably never again will) be that all-encompassing study that it was originally, dressed up as a crime series merely to attract viewers. But I don’t see why I should come to terms with the fact that it isn’t even a crime series, but rather something dangerously bordering on a badly written telenovela; and the reason isn’t that the central theme of the series this time round is love. If, under the strict supervision of an uncompromising dramatist, they combined the best of the last two seasons, turning them into one respectable season, it would be no disaster for this series as a whole. This way we have one great season and one to be quickly forgotten. Season eight, the final season could have saved the series from going under and save it, despite the quality of the past couple of seasons; it wouldn’t have taken much to make this an uncompromising and unforgettable ending, but that doesn’t happen and so all that can be said of season eight is that it’s exactly the same as the preceding two seasons. And that’s bad, very bad. P.S.: What does it say about me when, the second time I watched it, I realized in horror that that pervert Masuka in season five is wearing the same Desigual shirt that I have in my closet? S1: 4/5 S2: 5/5 S3: 4/5 S4: 5/5 S5: 5/5 S6: 4/5 S7: 3/5 S8: ?/5
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