The Wall Street Journal-20080215-WEEKEND JOURNAL- Entertainment - Culture -- Review - Television- This One Will Kill You
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WEEKEND JOURNAL; Entertainment & Culture -- Review / Television: This One Will Kill You
Full Text (974 words)My heart sank when CBS announced that it was going to rebroadcast "Dexter," a drama whose star is a serial killer (10-11 p.m. ET, Sundays). When the series originally ran on the CBS-owned subscription cable channels of Showtime in 2006, it left me feeling mentally mugged -- assaulted, so to speak, by exposure to the mindset of people I had hoped to go through life without ever meeting. That their creation was much easier to watch the second time around is no praise, only evidence of innocence lost.
In some respects, "Dexter" is merely taking the next step after shows like "CSI." It, too, is a police procedural, although the gore is more manifest -- featuring not just realistic chunks of human anatomy but lingering shots of entire sawed-though bodies. The big leap is that the hero now is not your ordinary dedicated forensic expert. While Dexter (Michael C. Hall) works by day as a blood- splatter expert with the Miami police department, by night he is a lethal monster nonpareil. After selecting his victims, he transports them to his torture chamber where, once he has sliced open their cheeks to draw blood for his trophy collection of specimen slides, they are hacked to bits.
CBS had the option of editing out some of this for broadcast TV. In fact, language of the original version has been toned down, obvious if you read lips during such altered lines as, "I'm watching you, mother- lover." Visually, however, little if anything appears to have been exorcized from the graphic scenes of Dexter preparing to butcher people. A typical one features a naked man strapped to a table with what looks like Saran-wrap while a gowned Dexter, his head also bound in clear plastic to avoid leaving clues, goes for the guy with an electric saw.
They beg for their lives, the victims do, but Dexter has no pity. The folks he preys on are all baddies who have escaped justice. A murderous child molester, a violent rapist . . . or a drunk driver who has hit and killed several people. Dexter knows that they are driven to do horrible things, because he is driven himself. Except, and here's the twist, he never selects innocent victims. As his kindly foster father taught Dexter when his impulse to slaughter living creatures surfaced as a child, one must learn to channel these urges.
CBS press materials describe Dexter as a "vigilante" serial killer, and although the series never invites us to cheer him on, some undoubtedly will take the bait and sympathize with his plight. Poor Dexter has no real human emotions, only ones he has learned to mimic so he can function in the normal world. He has chosen as his girlfriend a woman who was so badly abused by her former husband that she demands little more from him than the occasional cuddle. It's a good thing, too, because as Dexter explains in one of his voice-overs, "I can kill a man, dismember his body and still be home in time for 'Letterman,' but knowing what to say when my girlfriend's feeling insecure -- I'm totally lost."
The plot this season centers around another serial killer, one who seems to be playing games with Dexter, and in whose crimes Dexter gleefully detects the work of a kindred spirit. Could it be the playmate he never had? More to the point, will we join the fun? As I wrote about the show in this space back in 2006, while not watching soul-deadening stuff is always an option, there is absolutely no way to escape living among folks who have lapped it up.
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Far less ambitious but easier on the psyche is Bravo's "The Millionaire Matchmaker" (catch a marathon of one-hour episodes from 6 p.m.-midnight Tuesday). There is plenty to laugh and groan about in this show featuring Patti Stanger and her Los Angeles-based service for men with more money than dating skills. By L.A. standards, many of these guys are pikers in the wealth department, and while most claim that they have come to Patti for help finding a wife, they tend to ask for babes with "giant, fake gazongas" or who are decades too young for them. Some of her clients learn the error of their ways -- as opposed, for instance, to the guy in one episode who cheerfully demonstrates his skill on the stripper pole in his living room.
When it was first announced, "Parking Wars" sounded like the dullest reality show of all time (new episodes begin 10-10:30 p.m. Tuesdays on A&E). Meter maids? Only marginally more interesting than toll-booth takers, right? Actually, the Philadelphia Parking Authority is a jumping joint, and the days of its maids (and men) can be packed with excitement. Much of it is provided by angry citizens, spouting lies about broken meters or screaming obscenities as they rush out of their house while their car is being booted.
Sometimes the scofflaws manage to drive away before a tow truck arrives. Yet the PPA always wins in the end and nowhere is this more clear than down at the impound lot, where the bureaucrats rule and long lines of obnoxious people throw fits. They are all guilty as heck of something, and as they flail in impotent rage we can't help relishing the spectacle.
Finally, who could resist "Dinosaurs: Return to Life?" (9-10 p.m. Sunday on the Discovery Channel)? Even the most starry-eyed scientists now despair of ever finding enough fragments of dinosaur DNA in old bones to resurrect the creatures, "Jurassic Park"-style. Yet there could be another way, based on the recent discovery that all vertebrates carry latent genes with instructions for building ancient creatures. If anyone can figure out how to switch them on in, say, a chicken embryo, will T Rex burst from the shell?
