Dexter...first time watcher

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by GregM, Jan 13, 2019.

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  1. It was bad.
     
  2. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    Seasons 1-4 are excellent throughout.

    Season 5 is OK.

    Season 6 (with Colin Hanks) is hideous. Just garbage.

    Seasons 7-8 are OK, but developments in the plot moved things to a place where they could never recover what was best about Seasons 1-4.

    Some hate the ending. I thought it was OK, not great, and consistent with the hole they dug with other plot developments.

    Some have argued you should end after Season 4 and call it a wrap. I can see that point of view. On the other hand, Seasons 5, 7 and 8 are entertainment, if not up to the same standards.
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2020
  3. Brenald79

    Brenald79 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    You’re in the minority with your season ratings. Season 6 has 1,600 reviews average 4.5 stars. Hundreds of reviews there give it 5 stars.

    You guys have to admit looking at ratings on Amazon and IMDB that you’re in the minority poo-pooing later seasons.
     
  4. finslaw

    finslaw muzak to my ears

    Location:
    Indiana
    Seasons 1, 2 and 4 are the only ones worth returning to. Otherwise a ton of contrivances and every character needed a crisis which got tiring. Who is Deb sleeping with now? That kind of stuff.

    One bigger problem for me is that the best version of Dexter is the one who had a girlfriend solely to look normal and dreadfully feared her hitting on him. As he got more "normal" and less critical about human behavior, the less interesting.
     
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  5. misteranderson

    misteranderson Forum Resident

    Location:
    englewood, nj
    I loved most of season 6.

    The thing about Dexter is that suspension of disbelief was a little shaky from the get-go, so they could get away with some things that were pretty out there.
     
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  6. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    Absolutely, I agree. Having him balance his interest in a good person girlfriend as a buddy with the more romantic requirements of that situation was part of the great push/pull of the early seasons.
     
  7. finslaw

    finslaw muzak to my ears

    Location:
    Indiana
    I found Season 6 to be the best post-4 season. A clear bad guy, a twist and enough time away from Rita to not seem wrong.
     
  8. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    I'll say you're DEFINITELY in the minority with that opinion :)
     
  9. finslaw

    finslaw muzak to my ears

    Location:
    Indiana
    Yeah, I know. But I found Season 5 unpleasant,never warmed to Stiles, not to mention conveniently clean slating Dexter's entire personal life. I can't even tell you what went on in the 7th season and the majority of the 8th. Was there a big bad in either of those seasons?
     
  10. Wigru

    Wigru Forum Resident

    Location:
    Belgium
    *SPOILERS*

    Me and my wife stopped watching after the season Rita was killed.
    Was that season 4? The one with John Lithgow? That was great.
    Thing is, my wife was pregnant and was too shocked from the last scene with the kid in the bathroom. She didn't want to continue watching.
    Then I also read that the next seasons weren't that good. I read the rest of the story online (wasn't going to watch it alone either), and that didn't make me eager either.

    This is what I would have done storywise after that season Rita died:

    Dexter is a single father. His son is very traumatised by what he's experienced (Ritas murder; sitting next to her in blood).

    Since 'the code' helped Dexter to cope with what he's been through (essentially the same), Dexter tries to teach this code to his son.

    Well, that's the starting point. (Could even 'fast forward' a few years.) Of course dilemmas arise when trying to teach the code. And then his sister is also on his tail.
     
  11. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    He's coming back.....

    Back from the dead: can Dexter finally get the ending it deserved?

    he last anyone saw of Dexter was back in 2013, staring off into the middle distance with a ratty nylon beard Sellotaped to his face, looking glum because he had just realised that he had inadvertently starred in the worst series finale of any television series in history.

    But now, he’s back. Last night Showtime announced that it had signed up the star, Michael C Hall, and the writer Clyde Phillips for a brand-new 10-episode limited series Dexter revival. The new episodes will air next year, finally giving Dexter fans the closure they so sorely deserve.

    That is, of course, if there are any Dexter fans left. Because you could spend years racking your brain and still not come up with a better example of a show crapping the bed than Dexter. Although it started well enough, its premise – what if there was a serial killer who was also a police forensics expert – quickly wore itself out. It was good for four seasons, two of which were genuinely excellent, before quickly falling off a cliff.

    Between seasons five and eight, the storylines became silly and repetitive, the cast were sleepwalking through their scenes and, perhaps most damningly of all, Dexter’s colleagues had to become dangerously incompetent to keep letting him off the hook. The series quickly became less a TV show and more a weird human zoo where we could all go and look at the biggest load of absolute nincompoops in living memory.

    I am one of the very few who, presumably out of a deep-set self-hatred, made it all the way to Dexter’s final episode. And how did Dexter repay me? With a scene of Dexter as a lumberjack moping around with some pubes glued to his face. It has been eight years and I’m still angry.

    That said, of course I’m going to watch the revival. Call me an optimist, or call me deluded, but I truly believe that it could represent one of the all-time great reputation reversals. Let me explain why.


    Most important is the participation of Phillips. Although Dexter ended up burning through showrunners like they were going out of fashion, Phillips ran Dexter when it was good. He departed at the end of season four, at the climax of the still brilliant Trinity Killer storyline, and has been fairly vocal about his feelings about the show after he left. During one Reddit AMA in 2013, he said that Dexter had left him “a bit confused”, that “it didn’t make sense”, that it “broke the code with the audience” and that, when told by one user that Dexter had gone from his favourite to his least favourite show, replied: “I share your frustration.” Getting the original showrunner to knock it back into shape is the best possible thing that Dexter could have done.

    Also, a lot of the more frustrating elements of Dexter are no longer a problem. Debra Morgan – Dexter’s sister, played by Jennifer Carpenter, whom Hall married and then divorced while the series was ongoing – cannot return because she died in the finale. Charlotte Rampling’s irritating quasi-mother figure suffered the same fate. Dexter’s dead dad, who would regularly appear from beyond the grave to offer annoying tone poems about morality, ascended to heaven in the penultimate episode. True, many of Dexter’s idiot colleagues made it to the end tragically unmurdered, but at least the show can return without many of the elements that were holding it back.

    Plus, you know, it’s not as if Dexter can get any worse. You could chain a million monkeys to a million typewriters and concuss them and the results still wouldn’t be as staggeringly dumb as Dexter at its climax. Even if Hall and Phillips lose their minds entirely and stuff these new 10 episodes with more senseless leaps of logic and more characters who change their personality completely from scene to scene and more long, dull monologues about the nature of death – even if these new episodes consist of nothing but 10 hours of Dexter staring into space with his little Oregon lumberjack armpit-hair beard still strapped to his face – then new Dexter scientifically cannot be as terrible as old Dexter.

    Can it?
     
  12. SteveRes

    SteveRes Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    I'll watch season 9 for the lols but I can't understand why this is returning or who was eager to see it back. Season 5 onward was poor and season 8 in particular was one of the worst seasons of a TV show I've ever seen.
    That ending :doh:

    They really crapped the bed with this. All most fans wanted was to see Dexter discovered by his colleagues, and on the run then eventually apprehended. Would have been an exciting end to the show. Hopefully they'll go down this road for this comeback season but I won't hold my breath.
     
  13. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    I will unquestionably watch Season 9. I'm reservedly excited about this.

    But I wonder if they re-establish the proper equilibrium without (especially) the sister. In the best years (1-4) the interplay between the two was pretty critical.
     
  14. tommy-thewho

    tommy-thewho Senior Member

    Location:
    detroit, mi
    Can't wait for more Dexter...

    I agree 1-4 seasons were great.
     
  15. George Co-Stanza

    George Co-Stanza Forum Resident

    Location:
    America
    I will admit, I am psyched for this, largely because of the return of Clyde Phillips. I have faith that he will give us a better and more proper ending.

    And of course it goes without saying that Michael C. Hall will knock this out of the park. Even when the writing went to you-know-what in the later seasons, Hall still made it worth watching (barely at times, I will admit).
     
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  16. '05Train

    '05Train Crashin' & Flyin' & Livin' & Dyin'

    Location:
    Roanoke, Virginia
    I'm cautiously optimistic. There's a solid 4 seasons of the show that could be edited out of the existing 8. Phillips returning is a very good sign.
     
  17. Brenald79

    Brenald79 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    I’m really looking forward to this. Loved season 6. Can’t wait to see the haters freak out about the new season lol.
     
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  18. misteranderson

    misteranderson Forum Resident

    Location:
    englewood, nj
    This pretty much mirrors the way I think about it.

    The ending of Dexter was about as "WTF" as it gets. I don't think the acting was ever in "sleepwalking" mode. I always like Julia Stiles, and think Yvonne Strahovski was excellent in season 8. It's not like the ridiculous hoops the plot had to jump through were her fault.
     
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  19. George Co-Stanza

    George Co-Stanza Forum Resident

    Location:
    America
    Agreed, I never got the impression that the cast was sleepwalking through the last few seasons. They did the best with the material they were given.
     
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  20. Roland Stone

    Roland Stone Offending Member


    My theory is that this is a statistical mirage, not unique to this show. People don't stick with a TV series or movie franchise unless they've already liked what they've seen.

    I say this because I noticed on Rotten Tomatoes that several movie sequels received better aggregate reviews than their predecessors, even though the number of superior sequels can probably be counted on one hand. But once you're several installments or seasons in, only the committed remain.
     
  21. Brenald79

    Brenald79 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Possibly. Scanning the seasonal reviews on IMDB and Amazon.com it looks like there is generally the same amount of reviews for each season. For your theory wouldn’t you expect to see a lot less reviews for later seasons as less people stuck with the show?
     
  22. George Co-Stanza

    George Co-Stanza Forum Resident

    Location:
    America
    I think a lot more people would have jumped ship if Dexter had aired five years later, but since the whole binge watch/Netflix phenomenon didn't get out of control till the end of its run or shortly thereafter, the committed stayed with it till the end. Nowadays, there are so many more options that it would be easy to bail and move on to something else.
     
  23. hbbfam

    hbbfam Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chandler,AZ
    I won't add to the piling on of what was possibly the worst final season in human history. My guess is Hall needs the work and the bread. And for those earlier who sited high reviews of season 8:

    Dexter: Season 8

    I have a plausible plot line...Season 8 was a dream, and we return to Dexter showering after completing his later "project".
     
  24. Timeline Man

    Timeline Man Time Traveler from Naples

    Location:
    Naples
    All 8 seasons were magnificent. Season 8 was bleak, fascinating and brilliant. The series finale was touching, epic, tragic and definitely genius.

    Blood and special effects look gorgeous. Writing is great. Always.
    I think the thread starter just... oh well, just didn't like the series for some weird reasons.

    By the way:

    THE DEXTER TIMELINE (SEASON 1-8) by Timeline Man:

    SPOILERS........................












    1968 - Brian Moser/Driscoll is born. Daniel Vogel is born on 12/23.
    1971 - Dexter Moser/Driscoll is born.
    1973 - The "Container Event" (October 3d). Dexter is adopted by the Morgan family in the aftermath.
    1979 - The true Oliver Saxon is born (November).
    1981 - Harry Morgan approaches Evelyn Vogel for the very first time.
    1982 - Daniel Vogel kills Richard Jr. Evelyn and her husband cover it up and then send Daniel to a Psychiatric Hospital located in England.
    1983 - The Code is developed.
    1985 - Fire at the Psychiatric Hospital. Daniel Vogel fakes his death.
    1989 - The true Oliver Saxon dies. Decades later, Daniel Vogel will use his identity to create a new persona for himself.
    1990 - Dexter's first killing ever. He is 19.
    1991 - Dexter ends high school. Harry records his detailed reports on Dexter's progress through Vogel's cam. Vogel refers to Dexter as "Patient Zero".
    1994 - Dexter starts working at the Miami Metro Department around this time.
    1995 - The very first human killing Harry "sets" Dexter to do, a nurse called Mary.
    1996 - Harry kills himself after he watched Dexter dismembering a corpse for the very first time.
    2006 - Season 1. Joe Driscoll, Dexter's biological father, dies.
    2010 - Season 5. By this time (Rita's death), Dexter has killed 67 people by following his rituals and the "bloodslides classification", and many more criminals in the 1991-2006 timespan without classifying them via bloodslides.
    2012 - Evelyn Vogel dies. Dexter "dies" in the Hurricane Laura (reported as suicide?). Debra is missing. Harrison has been kidnapped by Hannah McKay.


    Body count: 134 certified, at least 60/70 not certified, mentioned on screen or depicted on screen.
     
    Last edited: May 3, 2021
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  25. Scowl

    Scowl Forum Resident

    Location:
    ?
    I stopped watching after the Colin Hanks season because they made it obvious that they were even attempting to write things that made any sense. Specifically, the climax of the season had Dexter magically transporting unconscious Hanks down the elevator or stairs of a tall building in the middle of the city without anyone noticing, not even his son who is right there the whole time. They simply cut from one scene to another and hoped no one would think about it.

    An additional technical complaint about the scene: elevators don't go to the roofs of tall buildings. Elevators in those buildings hang from a cable under the roof, yet this magic elevator just floated toward the sky.
     
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