Dexter

Started by gob, October 24, 2006, 01:59:21 PM

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AntiDumbFrogQuestion

I told my girlfriend that I'm kind of lukewarm on Dexter this season.
It seems like last season didn't really know what to do with itself, seeming to jettison characters and stories with their short window with a guest star.  It was spinning its wheels with every character except for Dex.
This continues this year.

I said to her "I still love watching Michael C. Hall, but that's about it!  I don't really care about any of the other characters right now"

"Fine! I'll watch it alone then."

And similar PolkaBlues, I was okay with that.
and I'm not saying I don't like any of the actors and their previous work on the show, I just don't like their plotlines.  If we just want to watch a performance come to life onscreen despite horrible writing, I watch Dexter or Masuka.  Dexter because MCH is really fun to watch and Masuka because C.S. Lee's character doesn't need to be taken seriously.


Basically, watching Dexter is no longer an event for me.


I call this the Adam Sandler Effect.
How many of us though Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer were all works of comedic genius? Be honest!
And then came maybe some snippets of that same off-the-wall yet heartfelt joy, like Big Daddy, but otherwise....you know what I'm talking about.

I also think of the band Goldfinger, if you guys recall them.
They had a good, fun first punk album that was fast and kick-ass, then a genre-hopping ska-punk album, followed by a contemporary take on 80's music-meets-punk...and then the 4th album hit.  And it was abysmal.

Like Adam Sandler and Goldfinger, Dexter has been flapping its wings trying once again to fly, and despite its twists and approaches to presentation, we aren't going to get the kick-ass Dexter we know and love back.  If and when we do, it best end right then because Showtime doesn't need to castrate itself any further.

diggler

I enjoyed the first two seasons but thought the third was incredibly boring. From there it got kind of weird. Lithgow was great and last season was the first time Julia Stiles hasn't annoyed me, but this season is just plain bad.

Did anyone not see that twist coming?
I'm not racist, I'm just slutty

Jeremy Blackman

Quote from: AntiDumbFrogQuestion on November 30, 2011, 09:37:37 AMIt seems like last season didn't really know what to do with itself, seeming to jettison characters and stories with their short window with a guest star.  It was spinning its wheels with every character except for Dex.
This continues this year.

I mostly disagree about that... last season was my favorite by far. Yes, it focused on Dexter, but that was its strength. It had the best Dexter introspection content of any season along with the best performances from Michael C. Hall (which are my favorite parts of the show). Most of that was possible because the show had finally unburdened itself of Rita. It even had the most interesting and most plausible "will Dexter get caught?" storyline, with Quinn and Debra. Sure the bad guy was nothing like Lithgow, but it intentionally diverted from the "big bad villain" formula. What it did was far more interesting. When Dexter brings Lumen into his world, and when she first (with his guidance) sinks a knife into someone's heart, that's some of the most chilling and oddly exciting stuff I've ever seen. What a dramatic contrast to the plainness and inept philosophizing of this season.

AntiDumbFrogQuestion

You know, I think that's it.  Dexter seems to be thinking thoughts on a subject he is just discovering as if he's thought about the subject his entire life. I DO like that season 5 focused on Dexter, but it kind of let everyone else flail for a bit as characters.  I like that this season is putting Deb to the test.  Again, everyone else, I'm like "eh" now.

I figured out what I mostly see as the differences between HBO and Showtime shows.  HBO will take a society or landscape and focus on it as a character while it fleshes out its characters as an extension of such settings (Deadwood, Oz, The Wire).  Showtime, on the other hand, seems to take one character and then make up other characters in support of their story (Weeds, Nurse Jackie, Dexter).  That leaves Breaking Bad as an anomaly for me then.  I have no idea why I just chose on this rant.  Oh well. Too late.  Must--Post.

Fernando

did you guys liked the finale?

SPOILERS

the whole season for me was almost unbearable, Dexter has always had a lot of plotholes but this one takes the cake, my only hope for having a better season is that Deb FINALLY knows about him and that could make the show pretty interesting...

Jeremy Blackman

Yes, this season has been tragically substandard, even by Dexter's lowest standards. The finale doesn't really change that, but I still very much liked how it ended.



SPOILERS



I appreciated that they set up the quasi-incest subplot and then crushed it so severely. Clearly the best thing they did all season. I mean really, how can Deb react with anything but horror? Even long-term. The way Dexter was talking, the whole setup of his kill, the way he effortlessly drove the knife into Travis's chest... it all screams serial killer. She must also realize that this is what Dexter is always running off to do, that this is his personal time, etc. Surely she would also put the pieces together concerning mysterious Dexter-related things (including serial killers disappearing) from previous seasons. Which would definitely include realizing that he's the Bay Harbor Butcher (of which the show reminded us just a few episodes ago, in Dexter's voiceover when he talked to Louis).

This has the additional benefit of revealing to Deb that she's in love with yet another serial killer, and even that perhaps she subconsciously knew/sensed that Dexter was a serial killer, and that started all of it. She may even have a suppressed memory of witnessing her dad training Dexter or something like that.

I'm really not sure how they can solve it. Deb is already unstable. Is she going to have a complete breakdown? More interestingly, what will Dexter do? "Deb, I can explain!" Uhh no... you can't.

Any ideas?

My theory... Given the show's alarmingly high turnover of show runners, I'm going to assume the current one wrote them into a corner and is now going to quit.

Also... setting up his kill room in the crime scene was a bad idea. In a crime scene where he knew his sister might expect him to be. Dexter (the character) has been oddly inept this seasons. After all these years working at Miami Metro, is the stupid rubbing off?

AntiDumbFrogQuestion

SPOILERS

Despite not liking this season on the whole, I look back and figure maybe I was just being picky and had a vision about the show that the show itself didn't.
These last 3 episodes were actually pretty cool, maybe because I wasn't expecting my mind to be blown.

The Finale, though, I'll admit, offered a bit of mind-blowing.  Especially the final moments.

Since the first ep., I always thought the beauty of Dex and Deb's relationship is that they wouldn't fall for each other because they're siblings, right? Even adopted ones.  Even as a fan of "Royal Tenenbaums" I didn't want to see this happen.
So I don't really like it, but I do have to give the writers respect for letting it be so gradual and make sense when it came along.

I'll stay on as a casual viewer, watch the Season 7 premiere, and hope that the fans like my girlfriend still enjoy it.  She even admits that her internal commentary on each episode is "Duhr, Dexter kills people. Yay", so that's cool with me.  It'll never be "The Wire" or "Breaking Bad", and that's alright.  It just takes some frustration to get over that.

Jeremy Blackman

Quote from: AntiDumbFrogQuestion on December 20, 2011, 11:15:50 AMI look back and figure maybe I was just being picky and had a vision about the show that the show itself didn't.

Like... being a good show?

Don't be so easy on Season 6. Dexter has had some genuinely good/great seasons, and this was something else entirely.

diggler

You could have watched the "previously on" before the finale and skipped to the last scene to retain all you needed to know about this god awful season.
I'm not racist, I'm just slutty

AntiDumbFrogQuestion

what's starting to really shine thru the cracks of this show are the episodic contrivances.

Harrison gets sick ---> Dexter gets to hear a soliloquy by Brother Sam ---> Harrison is fine by the end of the episode

Dexter almost gets gassed ----> Dexter loses his grasp physically at a pivotal moment ----> Next episode he's fine

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting about, but oddly enough, another show has done this lately.  The Office has seemed to forget character development in order to try and shove established characters thru "interesting" situations.  Someone knocked one of the supports out beneath the stage these shows are on, one obviously being Steve Carrell, the other maybe the Dexter showrunners?

Anyways, things don't seem to hold as much weight when they happen on Dexter nowadays because I think they feel they can't take any real chances.  They fell back on reminiscing on seasons past with Rudy and Jonah Mitchell in a single episode.

I'm sure there's more I can whine about, and you're right Jeremy Blackman, I am being a bit easy on Season 6. Usually I'd say "What Do Kids Know?", but I think you're spot on there.  I hope Season 6 goes down with Season 3 as the two crappiest times for Dexter.

Jeremy Blackman

You're right, Season 3 wasn't the best. Just not very memorable. I still really enjoyed it, though. I remember it being a totally welcome shift into subtlety from the insanity and silliness of Season 2.

And yes Dexter after the gas really was dumb. We've never seen this character being this dumb, over and over again, all throughout a season. Part of me thinks it's intentional, to make the final scene more plausible. Remember Dexter dropping his slides early in the season?

I agree, generally Harrison is just being used as a writing device. This quote from the AV Club summarizes something from the finale rather nicely:

SPOILERS

"Regardless of how one feels about the technique of imperiling a child to force the audience into caring about what's going on in the story, it didn't work here because at no point did I feel like Harrison was in any real danger. In fact, at no point in the episode did I feel like anyone was in any real danger, which is a reflection of the season on the whole..."

Jeremy Blackman

Just watched the premier, and I was impressed. Dexter could actually have a good season.

For whatever reason, when the show has a plotline that's really difficult to pull off, the writers typically step up to the challenge and bring the show to that next level. Which seems to be the case with this current story. (SPOILERS!) They're handling Debra especially well. It's 100% true to her character. She's disturbed by the situation, and highly skeptical of Dexter, and she has to get to the bottom of everything. Dexter's reactions to her various reactions were also spot-on. It's a good choice to not drag out the full reveal, too.

There were at least 2-3 major plot holes in the episode, but it's Dexter, so I'm not going to let them bother me. (But seriously, unless it was some Lynchian twist, why did they have Deb watching herself on "LIVE" TV?)

Fernando

yeah, this episode was better than the entire S6.

only part I didn't like is that he cought and killed the ukranian IN A FUCKING AIRPORT!

and the excuse for his needles:

dexter: got diabetes
airport security guy: go ahead honestman face

other than that, this season cant be worse than the last.

Jeremy Blackman

MORE SPOILERS

I'm really wondering if they'll continue to handle Deb's complex reaction process deftly. They might be able to pull it off.

She will have sympathy for Dexter, at least on some level. There is precedent for it. Very recent precedent, if you pretend last season didn't exist (which is really best for everyone at this point). In Season 5, she was so disturbed by the rapes and had so much empathy with the rape victims that she was basically cheering on the vigilantes (Dexter and Lumen). And when she eventually stumbled across them, she let them go and essentially condoned what they were doing. I should go back and see exactly what she said, but yeah, hopefully she finds out who she was talking to through that plastic curtain.

Bold prediction: Next season, if not sooner, Deb will be deploying Dexter as her secret weapon.

AntiDumbFrogQuestion

last week's episode packed a punch, even with the silly "i'm going to kill this guy in a semi-public area" thing.

I think this is a sign that all good television shows should agree on an end game/ "last 2 seasons" type deal as soon as they begin flailing creatively. While last season may have been interesting, if not "meh", many of my friends thought that a sixth season should have been the last. Even if you don't like "Lost", their deal to break only 3 additional seasons caused the writing to become tighter and that oddly enough gave them time to play around more with their presentation (flash-forwards, time travel, etc.).  I hope tonight's episode has us all on our seats just the slightest bit too.