TV is the New Reading

‘Dexter’ loses some

of its soul in translation

“Dexter” – starring Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan, a good-natured forensic blood-spatter expert by day who, in his spare time, is a serial killer who targets bad people – airs 9 p.m. Sundays on CBS.

Fans of crime dramas, fans of quirky character development and fans of film noir will enjoy this show. But they might prefer to subscribe to ”Showtime” and catch the original.

Just like “The Sopranos” on A&E and other premium-cable series retooled for basic cable and network broadcast, the show loses a little bit of its soul in the transition.

The first thing I noticed – above and beyond the subject matter, which I’ll talk about in a moment – was the awkward editing. While a swear here and there is easy enough to work around, Morgan’s sister has a potty mouth and so do his other colleagues. And watching a big tough Miami sergeant berate Dexter with the line “I’m watching you, mother-lover” takes you right out of the show. Really, just rework the entire line or leave it out. “I’m watching you” is dark enough on its own.

As for why he’s watching him – that Dexter gives him the creeps – is the other part of why this show will never translate perfectly to the CBS screen. Dexter stalks serial killers. He confronts them with their crimes and then he murders them himself in a glorious technicolor flayed-alive bloodbath.

Part of how he manages this is bound up in the 20 percent solve rate for murders he estimates for Miami’s police force. The other part is that his foster father, a cop, instilled an intriguing moral code in the young Dexter, who was already a psychological mess when they took him in: That some people do very bad things and the cops can’t catch all of them.

The show is extraordinarily dark. By the end of the first episode, Dex himself is being stalked by a serial killer and the story just gets weirder and twistier and gorier and creepier.

It also seems a little out of place on the Tiffany channel.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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