TV Review | Dexter (Season Five)

My problem with Dexter has never been with Dexter.


In his most prominent role before playing the eponymous anti-hero, Michael C. Hall was quietly commanding as Six Feet Under's put-upon brother, son and lover David Mitchell. Only with woeful rarity was he given the material with which to stand out from the powerhouse ensemble of that dark dramedy - most notably in a certain fourth-season episode those of you who've seen the show will recall all too well.


However, front and centre as Dexter Morgan, blood spatter analyst for the Miami metro division, sometime family man and erstwhile friendly neighbourhood serial killer, Hall has been a revelation. Suave, conflicted, charming, brooding, childlike and cold-blooded, his is a character unlike any other on television today - far less yesterday - and for five seasons now, he has lent Dexter an air of credibility and intelligence without which the series would as like as not be a laughing stock; if indeed it could exist without him.


A big if, that. For without Hall, what do we have here? Courtesy of Jeff Lindsay, from whose Darkly Dreaming Dexter the series initially spun off, count one neat premise: can a man "born in blood" and determined to die in similar circumstances... a man carrying a "dark passenger" addicted to the dealing of death... a man who lies, cheats and deceives those who care for him on a daily basis... can such a man be in any sense redeemed?

Certainly Hall works tirelessly at the task - and for whatever it's worth, you get the feeling the rest of the cast and crew do too. Sadly, the fact of the matter is, but a few of them are up to it. Jennifer Carpenter as Dexter's oblivious sister Deb makes the best of a bad lot; the butt end of some dire storylines in her time, Carpenter has nevertheless stood clear of the crowd. Charismatic, energetic and refreshingly direct, she wears her character like a second skin, so natural is her performance.


And there have been some stand-out supporting players. Last year, John Lithgow as the chilling Trinity killer set the bar tremendously high for future guest stars, and to precisely no-one's surprise, Julia Stiles - the reason for the season, if you will - doesn't even come close to reaching it. Her turn as gang-rape survivor and would-be protégé to our serial killing hero Lumen begins badly, ends abruptly, and is in the interim awkward, inconsistent and decidedly inappropriate on occasion.


Except for her sex, the plot thread she participates in is one we've been through  before... as is the relentless detective on Dexter's trail. Remember Doakes, from the first few seasons? Well this year, Quinn - Deb's on-again, off-again fuckbuddy - picks up where the ludicrous sergeant left off, roping in lamentably cartoonish guest star Peter Weller as a disgraced policeman looking to win back his place in the good books with one big bust.


And I'm thinking: again? Really?

After the surprise high of last season, then, not to speak of the shocking events of its finale, season five returns Dexter to its usual form, which is to say a woebegone case of could have been, would have been, should have been; and given the largely misspent dramatic potential inherent in the death of Trinity's final victim, it's harder to reconcile the series' quagmire of issues than usual. Instead of giving Dexter the time and the space to grieve, the showrunners have opted to crowd out his crisis with a retread of tired old narrative tracks. Add to that some obscenely obvious scriptwriting, a-typically awful performances from a supporting cast more suited to made-for-TV melodrama than the difficult themes Dexter means to address, an utter misfire in the form of Julia Stiles, and... well.


I take no pleasure in raking Dexter over the coals; truly, I don't. Somewhere therein there's a superb show clamouring to truly spread its wings - seasons one and four were (all things considered) a testament to that fact. Sadly, as a whole season five only serves to diminish the good that's come before... to back up startled from the bold steps the creators have taken in directions apparently come to nothing. So by all means, watch the wheels spin. Just don't expect them to take you anywhere of note - this year, at least.

Last Stop on the True Blood Train

I've tried reading Charlaine Harris - I have - but the Sookie Stackhouse books... they simply aren't for me. No surprises there, I suppose: the whole notion of paranormal romance rubs me the wrong way.

All the same, when HBO announced Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball would be showrunning an adaptation of the series, I was as excited as all get-out. For me, Six Feet Under represented a very personal watershed moment in television drama. I know a lot of people criticised the series in its later years, and yes, even my interest wavered amidst all the navel-gazing and tiresome relationship shuffling of seasons four and five, but looking back, three great years and a superlative finale is all the redemption Six Feet Under needed in my mind. Deep, dark and daring, it will always have a special place in my heart.

So when I heard Alan Ball would be directing his attention to an adult vampire drama loosely based on books whose speculative leanings had interested me but whose soap-opera execution I'd found wanting, I didn't let the sour taste half of the first Sookie Stackhouse book had left in my mouth spill over into my expectations for True Blood. 

 Perhaps, in this case, I should have been a little less objective. Because as of last night, when my lovely other half and I belatedly polished off the last episodes of the second season, I think I'm done with True Blood; unless something significant happens to change my mind, I'm washing my hands of it. I know it has a huge following. And in light of the way the likes of Twilight and The Vampire Diaries have seized the contemporary zeitgesit, that isn't surprising. Certainly True Blood is the best of that bunch. There are moments when I genuinely do enjoy it, and irrespective of my tastes, I admire its stylishness, its energy, its panache.

I'll even go so far as to say I've fallen for a few of its characters. Bear with me here, because I'm not great with names, but I enjoyed the Cajun from the first season; the lonely vampire Jason and his girlfriend preyed upon; and Godric, short-lived though he was despite his long life, was great. But there's no-one in Bon Temps that delights me more than Lafayette - though his role in season two sadly downplayed the very outrageousness that made his character so memorable.

And that, I think, is a stake straight to heart of my problem with True Blood. It has its strengths, and no shortage of them, but rather than play to them, time and again it digresses towards its less winning aspects. Characters tread water, promising narrative threads amount to nothing more than a return to the status quo. A warning: look away now if you haven't yet caught up with the show and don't want some pivotal plot points spoiled.

Now Buffy suffered through some pretty dire antagonists in its seven years, but truly, the Big Bad of season two of True Blood takes the cake. Maryanne could have been another great character. Instead, the writers spent perhaps half the season driving home the same point, again and again: Maryanne reduces people to their basest, most animal instincts. Her development happened too slowly; the big reveal, on the other hand, happened too fast. I understand the limitations of serial television, but a show with the pedigree of True Blood - not to mention a network noted for its support of television which breaks the mold - simply shouldn't fall victim to such problematic pacing. That's a problem of the creators' own making, rather than a by-product of its format.

Anyway, I could go on, but I'll save you the bellyaching. I really was ready to love True Blood; I just don't. Ill-content to let its best characters breathe and thrive and determined to repeat itself ad infinitum, pandering at the best of times and insulting at the worst, I honestly feel this show could have been so much more than a supernatural soap-opera with sex and death. I see the appeal, but I don't feel it. If you ask me - though nobody did - Alan Ball needs to move the True Blood train on rather than reveling in the world he's realised.

When and if he does, someone hit me up, alright? I'm ready to fall for this world, though as it stands it seems too busy falling for its own self.