Dexter

When I first heard about the show “Dexter”, I wrote it off. It was an interesting concept, but I had preconceived notions.

For one thing, it’s on Showtime. My impression of most Showtime and HBO “original” series is that they follow this pattern of development:

1) How much soft-porn can we cram into 60 minutes?

2) How many cuss words can we work into the dialogue around the 60 minutes of soft porn?

3) OK, now that we have our soft porn and cussing quota, what kind of story can we write around it?

The first 2 episode of True Blood were enough to validate my opinion.

So when I first heard about this show about a serial killer who was raised by a cop father to only kill bad guys, I wrote it off.

Then I ended up watching it. I was visiting some friends, who had a disk from Season 4 from Netflix. They asked if I wanted to watch. I didn’t want to be rude. I was hooked quickly. The disk ended with the episode “Hello, Dexter Morgan”, where John Lithgow’s character found Dexter in the police station. I’m still feeling anxiety from the cliff-hanger. I need closure on the story.

I’ve since gone out of my way to watch as much Dexter as I can. I actually enjoy it, and I’m intrigued by the concept. It’s sort of how, as “gay” and emo as Twilight is, I was intrigued by the concept of a “vegetarian vampire”, or a monster that consciously decided not to be evil. I don’t mean gay as in homo, but as in “stupid” or “cheesy”. Basically, consider that I’m using the word in the same context that it is used on South Park, like when Stan says “Dude, this is totally gay”. On the subject of Twilight, I know it’s written for tween girls, but seriously, not a single male shows a sign of testorerone. They all lack hair in any place other than their heads. And, as I’m fond of teasing my wife, who likes Twilight, a vampire lacks a beating heart, which means no blood pressure, which means he is physiologically incapable of achieving an erection.

OK, I’m rambling. I like Dexter. I’m a fan now.

I had a similar idea. I came up with an idea for a story about a sociopath who believed and decided to obey the Gospel. But I’m not a fiction writer, so the idea is languishing in the “Writing Ideas” tag in my Evernote account. I had that idea long before I’d heard of Dexter.