Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress

reviewing Black Doves; Dark Matter; Dept. Q; Detective Hole; Dexter: Resurrection; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; Memory of a Killer; MobLand; Outlander; Paradise; Presumed Innocent; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Smoke; Star City; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Tehran;The: Day of the Jackal, Diplomat, Last of Us, Night Agent; Your Friends & Neighbors +books, films, music, podcasts, politics

George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Showing posts with label Dexter: New Blood. Show all posts

Monday, November 3, 2025

A Political Hypothesis about Why Dexter Original Sin Was Unrenewed

I've been a devoted fan of Dexter since it debuted on Showtime in 2006. My very first review of a TV show on this blog in December 2006 was a rave review of the first season of Dexter 20 years ago on Showtime. The review is entitled First Place to Dexter.

I've reviewed in this blog every episode of every season of Dexter since then. And of course I reviewed every episode of Dexter: Original Sin last summer. I was sad when the original run of Dexter ended in 2013, thrilled when Dexter returned in New Blood in 2021, disappointed when Dexter Morgan apparently died at the end of that one season in 2022, delighted with the prequel Original Sin, glad that it was renewed earlier this year, and I think Dexter: Resurrection this year was masterful.

So you can imagine how stunned I was about the announcement that the renewal of Original Sin for a second season had been reversed, the prequel series cancelled, this past August. As Alisha Grauso pointed out in her Screen Rant article four days ago, Original Sin "immediately became Showtime's most-watched premiere ever, with 2.1 million viewers". She then says its about-face cancellation by Paramount four months after Original Sin had been renewed "was seemingly a casualty of the Skydance-Paramount merger," and goes on to explain that after the merger, Paramount reviewed all of its programming (ok, that makes sense) and she further suggests Paramount may have to decided to revoke its renewal because prequels are narratively difficult and even when successful often satisfy their viewing audience with just a single season. And that makes no sense to me at all. Even if that characteristic of prequels is true, there was no way Paramount would not go for a second season of Original Sin, given how successful -- immediately becoming "Showtime's most-watched premiere ever" -- Original Sin on Showtime was.

My wife, also an avid fan of Dexter on television, didn't get a chance to watch Original Sin until this past week. I was half-watching it with her and enjoying it immensely. And I starting wondering, again, why had Paramount reversed itself? Why cancel at a time when the Dexter franchise was taking the screen by the storm? Yes, that decision was indeed a result of the Skydance merger. And what else had happened with Paramount and CBS after that merger? Well, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert had been unceremoniously cancelled (effective May 2026) after Skydance got in the driver's seat. And why was that? The billionaire who owns and runs Skydance is a big Trump supporter, and Colbert's sarcastic comedy has been at its sharpest when it came to Trump.

But Dexter: Original Sin had no political comedy, right? Ok, but maybe one of its lead actors, or writers, or directors, had spoken out against Trump and the march towards fascism in America he's engendering and leading. I did a search on Christian Slater (who brilliantly plays Dexter's father Harry in Original Sin) and Trump. And bingo! Back in 2018, Slater called Trump an "asshole". Breitbart, a right-wing publication, was so upset about that, they devoted a whole article about it. Surely Trump, who keeps track of every insult, real and imagined, was bearing one of his myriad continuing grudges, and desire for revenge, against Christian Slater.

Of course, I have no proof of this. But I wanted to put this hypothesis out there. Was Christian Slater and thereby Original Sin another victim of Trump's rampage against free expression, abetted by the billionaires who support him, in this case, a billionaire whose company now in effect owns Paramount, and thereby has easy control over its programming? Maybe, given the damage Trump has already done to the arts and culture in this country, I'm being too quick to see him as the villain behind Paramount's illogical reversal on its renewal of Dexter: Original Sin. But the other explanations just don't add up, given Original Sin's enormous success, and I really can't think of a more convincing explanation of why it was cancelled after it had been renewed.

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter

Friday, August 29, 2025

Dexter: Resurrection 1.9: And Then There Were Two

I said and discussed in my review of Dexter: Resurrection 1.8 last week that Dexter was facing three potent enemies (individual and groups) in New York, and Batista was the weakest. In tonight's Emmy-worthy episode, we see all three of them at work, and one of them eliminated.

[Spoilers ahead .... ]

And that indeed was Batista, who is not killed by Dexter, after Det. Wallace of the NYPD gives Batista his marching orders -- get out of our New York, or I'll arrest you tomorrow for impersonating a police officer -- but by Prater. In a brilliantly effective scene (one of many in this episode, and in this series), Dexter cuts not Batista's throat (or plunge the knife into him as Prater is requesting) but Batista's bonds that are holding him on the killing table. And Batista, still understandably fired with fury at Dexter for the killings of LaGuerta and Doakes, jumps Dexter, but is shot (presumably to death) by Prater before Batista can choke Dexter to death.

I thought this was one of the most memorable scenes in the entire constellation of Dexter series. Dexter tells Batista that he (Dexter) wasn't the one who killed LaGuerta and Doakes. Batista says that doesn't matter, Dexter was still responsible for their deaths, as he will soon be for Batista's, lying there bleeding from numerous bullets. I say he's "presumably" dead, however, because I've long had a principle in TV viewing and reviewing: if you don't see a character literally blown to bits, or at least their head blown off, they could still be alive (see what happened from time to time in 24). After all, Dexter: Resurrection is based on that very principle, seeing as how it sure seemed that Harrison had shot Dexter to death at end of Dexter: New Blood.

There were many other prime scenes in this superb episode. It was great seeing Dexter get the drop on Charley, and great seeing Harrison talk his way through Charley attempting to find out more about Dexter.

Just one more episode of this debut season of Dexter: Resurrection left , and I'm looking forward to seeing which of his enemies is left standing.

Saturday, July 26, 2025

Dexter: Resurrection 1.4: The Nefarious Club

Well, we finally get to know Peter Dinklage as Leon Prater in the fourth episode of Dexter: Resurrection, and it had lots of other appealing and important elements:

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

1. My favorite was the romantic spark between Dexter (posing as the ersatz Dark Passenger) and Mia aka Lady Vengeance (good job Krysten Ritter), an elegant, erudite, attractive, and (by her own account) highly effective serial killer. She invites Dexter to her apartment, leaves the door ajar and begins undressing for her shower-- and Dexter leaves! He has a killing of his own to attend to. Too bad. I would have followed Mia into the shower, but, then again, I'm not a serial killer myself.

2. Romance was in the air in this episode. Harrison tries to kiss Elsa, she says no, but looks a little like she might regret that so ... I'd say they have some kind of future. Meanwhile, Batista's talk with Harrison has shaken him up, and based on the last scene, I'd say Harrison has a future with his father. All things considered, he has to be happy, deep down, that he didn't kill Dexter at the end of New Blood.

3. Back to Prater: As I said, I'm happy to see the chemistry between Dexter and Lady Vengeance, and I'm glad Dexter found a victim for his table, and has others to choose from. The idea of a serial killers club or association or whatever you want to call it is promising. But in this first meeting, the villains (other than Mia) struck me as an unimpressive, even innocuous bunch. We'll see.

4. And a final word for now: I'm really enjoying Dexter in Manhattan. Maybe because I've lived and worked in or very close to New York City all my life, but Dexter looks very much at home here.

Friday, January 3, 2025

Dexter: Original Sin 1.5: Revelations and Relations

Dexter: Original Sin just keeps getting better and better, and that means powerful indeed, giving us everything we want in a story like this, a story about how a serial killer for the cause of justice came to be. But episode 1.5 has some special juice, because--

[Here I have to warn you about spoilers ahead .... ]

Last week's episode 1.4 concluded with young Dexter getting his man killed, but indirectly. A car strikes him down after he breaks free of Dexter's restraints. Harry is furious and worried when he finds out what happened, and grounds Dexter, and this sets in motion a whole series of revealing events ...

The most important is Dexter convincing Harry that Dexter is good to go as a serial killer with a white hat, and this leads to one of the most powerful scenes in all the Dexter series so far: Harry winds up strapped on Dexter's table with his adopted son looking over him with a knife. Dexter drugged Harry, already drunk and on his way to kill a killer whom the court set free because Harry messed up the previous process of apprehending the killer and getting him on trial. Dexter of course doesn't kill Harry, but does convince Harry not to stop Dexter's crucial work -- crucial to Dexter and crucial to the world -- of killing killers that the justice system for whatever reason has been unable to stop. This scene would have been crucial for that reason alone -- convincing Harry to accept and use Dexter's talents. But there was something else in that scene that was really bone-chilling. The look on Dexter's face as he loomed over Harry with a knife, well, just cut to the quick: you could see Dexter resisting the impulse to kill the father he loved. Yes, he loves Harry. But he loves the gratification of killing even more, and it takes considerable effort from Dexter to control that lust.

Control of that lust is what Dexter's development and future life is all about. The code itself is a series of rules which Dexter has to follow -- that is, rules that control Dexter's lust, so that he does the killings without getting caught, or harming the people he loves, etc. Dexter: Original Sin is providing an excellent primer -- exciting, chilling, instructive -- on the final ways in which Harry, for better or worse, has been helping Dexter enact the code.

There were other notable things in this notable episode. Deb in the car with her boyfriend. I don't know why, and maybe it's just the over-protective father in me, but I have feeling something no good is going to come from that. Also the developing relationship between Harry and Dexter's mother (in the past) was good to see. We already knew that Harry's first son died in the swimming pool, and talking about it was one of the ways Harry and Laura (Dexter's mom) drew closer.

But in some ways the most interesting revelation in episode 1.5 comes from adult Dexter's voice narration (by Michael C. Hall) near the beginning of the episode, when adult Dexter says that back in 1991 Miami, the homicide squad's success rate was whatever. What this tell us, of course, is that the adult Dexter's voice is coming from the future (indeed, as we learned in the first episode, after adult Dexter survives being shot by his son at the end of Dexter: New Blood). I like the fact that Dexter's voice in Dexter: Original Sin comes from the future -- unlike Dexter's voice in all the original episodes of Dexter, which came from the present, and Deb's voice in Dexter: New Blood, which in effect came from the past. There's something, almost, time-travel-ly about that voice from the future.

"challenging fun"
- Entertainment Weekly

e-mail received from a reader:
Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchildren. Thanks! Tom

I of course happily replied...

42 reviews of The Plot to Save Socrates!