LITTLE ROCK — If you praise it too highly, Dexter is one of those series that'll get you finger-wagging email based solely on the series synopsis.
After all, the program is on premium channel Showtime. It's rated TV-MA and contains brief nudity, graphic violence, adult language and adult content.
Yikes!
You won't see this adult offering trimmed down and re-run on basic cable A&E. I suppose they could do it, but like the bowdlerized version of The Sopranos, it wouldn't be worth watching.
Our hero, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), is a serial killer. A methodical, calculating, efficient, cold-blooded serial killer.
It would be hard to work up a fondness for that on paper except that his victims are even worse - vicious blights on society who have killed and slipped through the cracks of justice.
If it weren't for Dexter and his vigilante actions, they would continue to prey on the innocent and kill again.
So, what keeps the series from wallowing in the macabre muck of gratuitous, sensationalistic, formulaic serial-killerof-the-week drivel?
The series is a brilliant psychological study of a man attempting to deal with his affliction, focus it into something constructive and deal with those who would stop his need to purge his demons through retribution and violence.
In other words, Dexter's victims more than deserve what they have coming and Dexter gives it to them real good.
The writing is masterful andthe acting, from Hall and the ensemble cast, is memorable.
Still, the subject matter isn't for the squeamish. It's a dark, dark world in Miami where Dexter works as a forensic expert for the police department.
Still, take away Dexter and his sanguinary quirks and the series is a fairly standard crime-solving cop show not unlike CSI.
But what if CSI's Gil Grissom went out, captured, tied up, dissected and dumped in the ocean all the evil murderers who got off on a legal technicality?
Sounds like a hit.
In the second season, Dexter has been able to shake the incessant surveillance by his coworker Doakes, has had his underwater body-dumping ground discovered by divers and is disguising his affliction as a heroin addict and is attending 12-step meetings.
His girlfriend's mother doesn't trust him. His sexy rehab sponsor has her own deep, deep problems and his sister is still affected by the little problem of having her last boyfriend try to kill her.
Meeting with TV critics in Beverly Hills last summer, the cast and producers of the series were on a positive publicity high.
Producer Daniel Cerone said, "Last season was about a search for a connection for Dexter, an emotional connection to this figure out there.
"And in the second season, we're going to just try and honor this world that we set up and play off certain things that are in the DNA of the show and things that we left hanging last season."
For those concerned with the violence, producer Clyde Phillips said, "If you add up all of the actual gore of what we did last year, it is 20 seconds. It's violence implied."
Cerone also offered an explanation of why we cheer Dexter on.
"This is a guy you plug into," he said. "He has a code that's actually very noble and an admirable code, and he's doing what society does, which is, you know, prosecute and, at times, execute killers.
"Now, he's in it for his own inner reasons, but it's confusing and it's complicated because he's actually doing something that we do, so it allows us to root for him."
Hall, whom viewers first came to admire in Six Feet Under, is having fun with another complicated character.
"When we meet him," Hall said, "he's constructed a lot of things for himself. His work life, his relationships, to his girlfriend and her family, to his sister, to his colleagues. It's only when those things that he's pragmatically, methodically constructed for himself start to crumble that he has no choice but to respond in a way that elicits what he may not admit is evidence of a real emotional connection, but is.
"I have my opinions about whether or not Dexter is human. I think a lot of his journey over the course of the second season will be negotiating his growing awareness of his emotions and the fact that his compulsion remains and how to reconcile those things."
If you can deal with the premise, check out Dexter on Showtime. It's powerful stuff.
Myths busted
. Fresh episodes of MythBusters kick in at 8 p.m. Wednesday on Discovery Channel.
Wednesday's episode includes testing whether a car will explode if its leaking gas trail is set on fire; whether an underwire bra will burn a defibrillator patient; and the ol' trail of gunpowder to a powder keg movie trick.
More to come
. CBS has rewarded The Big Bang Theory with a full season order of episodes. CBS has also ordered a full season of The Unit.
Moonlight doesn't have a fullseason order yet, but CBS has ordered four more scripts. That's fairly tenuous. I'd be worried if I were on Moonlight.
More Practice. ABC has picked up a full season of Private Practice, the Grey's Anatomy spinoff.
Program reminder: The fourth season of Nip/Tuck gets under way at 9 p.m. today on FX. The series moves from Miami to Los Angeles, but remains as adultoriented as ever. Keep the kiddies in the other room.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail:
Style, Pages 29 on 10/30/2007