Showtime is reviving "Dexter" for a single, ninth season (rise from grave community)

[C C]

PRE-COMMENT: It would only be worth it if they could magically bring his sister back to life, and minus the brain damage prognosis. Wouldn't be the same without Debra. I'd even be content with something super-lame, like the infamous Bobby Ewing gimmick, which would also negate Dexter's self-punishment stint as a lumberjack. (Sheesh, it's almost like they got the inspiration for that from the ending of Jack Nicholson's Five Easy Pieces, when he hitched with the truck loaded with logs.)

I already know what the showrunner(s) will do instead (if Jennifer Carpenter could be re-signed to the role). She'll simply replace his similarly dead, foster father in terms of the imagined, internal dialogues he had with the latter.

On the pessimistic side -- given the lousy record of popular or celebrated TV series when it comes to endings (including "Game of Thrones"), there's little reason to feel "Dexter" will get it right the second time around, either. No surprise if the pathetic is waiting again at the termination of this 10-episode tunnel. Or just a dribbling off into ambiguity like the X-Files -- one of the ancestral templates for today's unsatisfactory endings.
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Is Showtime's new Dexter season the revival nobody asked for?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-15/s...l/12769398

EXCERPTS: Dexter, one of television's best known serial killers, is on his way back. Showtime has announced it has given the go-ahead to a limited series, 10-episode revival. [...] Dexter ran for eight seasons until 2013, earning multiple awards including Golden Globe and Emmy wins for Michael C Hall.

But the series finale was widely panned by both critics and fans at the time; the Sydney Morning Herald wrote that it was "full of holes" and "enraged viewers", Vulture labelled it a "terrible end" and Rolling Stone listed it as one of the "worst series finales" alongside Lost, How I Met Your Mother, Roseanne and Friends.

[...] Showtime hasn't given us any hints about the plot of the revival, nor whether any of the show's other main characters will return, however, back in 2013, showrunner Scott Buck told Entertainment Weekly viewers were unlikely to see the current cast in any spin-off. Defending the finale, Buck said it was the most justified ending.

[...] Rolling Stone's chief TV critic Alan Sepinwall tweeted that this was "the revival nobody asked for". We put the question out to subscribers of the ABC's TV topic on Messenger, asking whether fans would bother watching one more season. The answer was a resounding yes, with responders overwhelmingly excited for the Dexter story to continue... (MORE - details)

[Leigha]

I didn't watch this series when it first aired, but binged it a few years ago. It's a great series, but agree with you - without Debra, and some of that original core cast? It probably will feel like a different show altogether. And that ending. Not as horrible as Game of Thrones, but it left me feeling nothing, really. Not sure I'll watch this ''limited series,'' to be honest. Bad endings have consequences.

[C C]

I didn't watch this series when it first aired, but binged it a few years ago.

Ditto. We're also only now bingeing on "Six Feet Under", which debuted two decades ago. After in reverse order having watched "Dexter" first -- it is weird to see Michael C. Hall in his former "gay-for-pay" role. Perhaps because that would presumedly be outlawed nowadays (on the CW network for sure).

I don't see him re-playing David Fisher if that show returned for a mini-series, without it being offensive or at least stirring some controversy in this era. OTOH, maybe it would be forgiven for being prior to Hollywood becoming actively receptive to the "they're putting a real LGBT person out of an acting job" complaint. (Please, no spoilers from anyone making this all moot due to David Fisher dying later on in the series or in the last episode. )

It's a great series, but agree with you - without Debra, and some of that original core cast?

Yah, that would be nice. I can't even remember the character names or who was left, but one actress is on Netflix's "Lucifer".

It probably will feel like a different show altogether. And that ending. Not as horrible as Game of Thrones, but it left me feeling nothing, really. Not sure I'll watch this ''limited series,'' to be honest. Bad endings have consequences.

I had forgotten seeing the controversy about it back in 2014(?) 2013, and just groaned when it suddenly came back to me at the start or middle of that episode. Actually that was good, since I may not have watched the series at all if I had remembered.

[Leigha]

I didn't watch this series when it first aired, but binged it a few years ago.

Ditto. We're also only now bingeing on "Six Feet Under", which debuted two decades ago. After in reverse order having watched "Dexter" first -- it is weird to see Michael C. Hall in his former "gay-for-pay" role. Perhaps because that would presumedly be outlawed nowadays (on the CW network for sure).

I don't see him re-playing David Fisher if that show returned for a mini-series, without it being offensive or at least stirring some controversy in this era. OTOH, maybe it would be forgiven for being prior to Hollywood becoming actively receptive to the "they're putting a real LGBT person out of an acting job" complaint. (Please, no spoilers from anyone making this all moot due to David Fisher dying later on in the series or in the last episode. )

It's a great series, but agree with you - without Debra, and some of that original core cast?

Yah, that would be nice. I can't even remember the character names or who was left, but one actress is on Netflix's "Lucifer".

It probably will feel like a different show altogether. And that ending. Not as horrible as Game of Thrones, but it left me feeling nothing, really. Not sure I'll watch this ''limited series,'' to be honest. Bad endings have consequences.

I had forgotten seeing the controversy about it back in 2014(?) 2013, and just groaned when it suddenly came back to me at the start or middle of that episode. Actually that was good, since I may not have watched the series at all if I had remembered.

I’ve never watched Six Feet Under but have heard good things about it. What is funny about Michael C. Hall - he’s not much different in his tone/personality from Dexter. He’s been rude to fans and reporters, from what I’ve seen on YouTube videos. And comes across incredibly stoic and arrogant in interviews, imo. I think he played a very convincing sociopath but maybe it comes easy for him?

Have you seen “Safe?” He stars in that, but I don’t think it made it past a first season. That’s usually not a good sign.

[C C]

I’ve never watched Six Feet Under but have heard good things about it. What is funny about Michael C. Hall - he’s not much different in his tone/personality from Dexter. He’s been rude to fans and reporters, from what I’ve seen on YouTube videos. And comes across incredibly stoic and arrogant in interviews, imo. I think he played a very convincing sociopath but maybe it comes easy for him?

That makes Hall's role in "Six Feet Under" (SFU) seem even more off his usual(?) path. Though there is that starchy arrogance to David Fisher when he's working as a funeral director, in suit. But off-duty he's an insecure, choir-singing, "pretty" white boy -- almost a stereotype who his more macho partner Keith Charles is alternatingly annoyed with in various ways.

The show has subdued to significant comedy added to the "drama", so having some caricature personality traits to play off of would be expected, I suppose. And since the showrunner was Alan Ball, he surely knew how to tutor a couple of straight actors on how to be representatively realistic in their roles.

Syne would hate SFU. I'm in the 3rd season where the daughter of the Fisher family has been hired by her radical Marxist or Antifa art instructor to be his assistant-chauffeur. Because the "jack-booted fascists" took away his driver's license.

SFU is more watchable than Alan Ball's "True Blood". Though that's just me. I'm still amazed, after abandoning it off and on for long intervals, that I finally agonized through all the seasons of that fish-flopping, vampire thing. Not that I dislike Louisiana hillbillies or that HBO's predictable, constant overkill of F-word variations monotonously put me to sleep. It was just the stupid, erratic decisions and antics of some the latter's characters (that often went nowhere sensible)... Eeesh, even with it being tongue-in-cheek.

Have you seen “Safe?” He stars in that, but I don’t think it made it past a first season. That’s usually not a good sign.

Hhmm... Apparently it was actually a mini-series, though. So I might test its water someday if minus the usual loose ends and cliffhanger from a show that got cancelled prematurely. Thanks, Leigha.