As Seen on TV is a new weekly series of blog posts I’ll be doing in response to reading/dissecting the pilot scripts of various television programs, both old and new, and then watching or re-watching the pilot episodes they spawned, whenever appropriate.

Week One: The WB’s Supernatural
Week Two: AMC’s The Killing

Warning: spoilers up to episode 1×04 of Dexter are inevitable

This installment of ASoT is going to be considerably different than the last two because I just started watching Dexter last week and I’m only up to episode four. I haven’t read the Jeff Lindsay novel it’s inspired by either.  As a result, I can’t really speak in broader terms of series-long or even season-long arcs—spoiler-phobe that I am, I can only guess where the story might be going. This week will also differ due to the overall tone of the series.  I didn’t plan the line-up this way, honest, but Supernatural and The Killing share a lot of the same viewers—and their respective fandoms seem to overlap quite a bit from what I’ve observed.  Given some thought, it’s easy to see why.  Despite the differences between the two shows (many of which I outlined last week) both are heart-wrenching and at times devastating dramas with a pair of brooding leads who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.

From the first page of Dexter’s pilot script, it’s painfully clear that we have a different kind of animal on our hands here.  For one thing, our titular anti-hero speaks to us, the audience, in a voiceover straight out of the gate—and candidly so.  He then proceeds to stalk, kidnap, and kill a man in the first few scenes, a reminder those of us watching with heavy hearts that the body count of this series won’t be any lower than the others.  Immediately after this brutal murder, however, we see Dexter jetting across a Miami canal in his little whaler of a boat with a huge smile plastered on his face.  Wait a minute, shouldn’t he be showing traces of remorse? Of regret? Of guilt?  Apparently not. This is a happy and content man, one who is very satisfied with himself, and living the good life on the sunny beaches of Miami.  We could hardly get farther from rainy Seattle if we tried.

A lot can be immediately deduced about a T.V. series given its title, most of which whittled down to a concise one or two words.  Television doesn’t really have the same luxury that films and books do in terms of creativity and intrigue.  Instead, their names are typically straightforward to the point being borderline ridiculous: a show named Supernatural is all about those who protect us from supernatural forces in our everyday lives, a show called The Killing is all about the consequences and aftermath of a high-profile killing, a show named after a city or town is primarily rooted in the history and folklore of that location.  On the other hand, a show named after the protagonist is all about character and psyche.  As with The Killing last week, we don’t start the pilot with a flashback; unlike The Killing, one comes soon enough.  I would actually argue that this series doesn’t need flashbacks at all—the move seems to be a ploy to create manufactured sympathy for a flawed character, and thus far these pieces of his life feel incongruous with the present day scenes.  So much so, in fact, that I can hardly reconcile this young, timid Dexter with the calm and methodical sociopath slicing his victims’ cheeks for the specks of blood stored in his trophy case of an A/C vent—a change from the script, where the slide samples are simply kept in an unimaginative locked drawer.  But perhaps that dichotomy is the whole point.

Nevertheless, the show is at its best when Dexter is being his charming and charismatic self, when he’s interacting with the people for whom he actually pretends to feel affection.  What makes the Dexter such a fascinating character is the way he claims (ever so matter-of-factly) that he is incapable of love and doesn’t really understand it.  And yet, he cares deeply for his family.  We’re aware of this immediately when he’s confronted by his father in the earliest flashback and admits to killing the neighbor’s dog to protect his sick mother.  In subsequent flashbacks we can see how much he respects his foster father and yearns for his approval.  In the present day, his rapport with his foster sister Deb is one of the best aspects of the show, no doubt thanks to Michael C. Hall’s great chemistry with his co-star (and now ex-wife) Jennifer Carpenter.  Even on the page, however, their connection as siblings is obvious and relatable.  Their bond is so strong that it took me a couple of episodes to realize that Deb really had no knowledge of his extracurricular activities, rendering the question of when she’ll finally find out—and how she’ll react when she does—even more loaded.

And then we have Dexter’s girlfriend Rita, a domestic abuse survivor who is, in Dexter’s own words, just as damaged as he is.  Probably the most likable character I’ve ever seen Julie Benz play (and her naturally soft voice and mild demeanor are perfect for the role), Rita seems to bring out a side of Dexter that is not necessarily softer, but perhaps more sincere and less guarded.  In particular, Dexter’s relationship with her two young children is sweet in a very honest way, and in my view, his interaction with them is more than enough to humanize him.  Even so, the aforementioned flashbacks continue throughout the pilot as Dexter grows into a teenager.  As I mentioned previously, one of the main purposes of these scenes seems an effort to show Dexter as a scared little boy with a dark impulse to kill, urges that stem from an unnamed incident in his early childhood that he claims not to remember.  One can assume that he was likely molested or otherwise abused by his birth parents on a regular basis, but at this point we don’t know if the solution to the mystery will ever be revealed.  Another purpose of these forays into the past is to introduce Dex’s and Deb’s father, who is dead in the present timeline—Dexter promises rather facetiously that he wasn’t the one to kill him—but was once also an officer with the Miami police.

Of course, Dexter’s foster father is the one who first suggests that Dexter should use his “evil” for good by killing only those who themselves have committed such horrific acts that they deserve to die.  Part of me is surprised that this series is so popular because so many today are very vocal regarding their opposition to both capital punishment (I’m thinking in particular of recent events on The Killing and viewers reaction to them) and the vigilante notion of “an eye for an eye,” but here is where the difference between writing for an audience who prefers gritty realism and for those who prefer a more stylized and contained world becomes clear.  Personally though, this is not what bothers me about Dexter’s killings.  The fact is, these murderous interludes are not as compelling as the mystery of the Ice Truck Killer.  They also isolate Dexter in a way that hurts the rhythm of the show for at least the first few episodes.  It isn’t until the Ice Truck Killer case bleeds even further into his private life, and the two threads become more and more intertwined, that these scenes begin to integrate themselves more smoothly.

From the beginning, the series is campy and melodramatic.  Even though it takes on very serious and often taboo matters, it can’t be taken seriously.  The climax of the pilot script involves a series of incidents even more ludicrous and over-the-top than what was actually aired—the missing severed head thrown directly at Dexter’s car and shattering his windshield (even on paper, this showdown is written in melodramatic fashion), a run-in with Laguerta that leaves her looking like a caricature, a resolution to Dexter’s aversion to sex that comes too quickly.  The changes ensure that the show still straddles that fine line between reality and absurdity.

In all honesty though, the last scene of the pilot is really what sold me and left me wanting more.  When Dexter finds the doll’s head taped to the freezer door—and subsequently opens the door to find its body parts inside all tied up in ribbon with little red bows—something shifts.  We know in an instant that whatever this is, it’s personal.  We know what this cold, plastic Barbie doll means for the cold and lifeless fragments of the human body out there in the real world, all drained of their blood.  And then the irony: a man who makes his living studying blood spatters is faced with his most interesting case yet—and it’s one where blood has been completely removed from the equation.  And we know that because Dexter is Dexter, he’ll be fascinated and leave these fake body parts to sit in the freezer (which of course acts as a miniature and immobile refrigerated truck) so that he can gaze upon them with the promise of an enduring cat-and-mouse game in the episodes to come.

I don’t know yet if I’ll see this show through to the end.  At nearly 100 episodes, a series like this is quite the commitment.  (I have other shows I’d like to try out: Breaking Bad, Bates Motel, and Warehouse 13 being at the top of the list.)  I’ll definitely be finishing out the first season, but hopefully the writers can sell me on more down the line.

Next week, I’m super stoked to be discussing the pilot script of my favorite TV drama of all time: Fox’s Fringe