With Dexter, It all started so well. In 2006, Michael C. Hall, who had shone in Six Feet Underdid not yet know that he was going to embody a future character icon on the small screen. Almost twenty years later, when you hear Dexter’s first name, you think more of an engaging serial killer than a young boy in his laboratory. This series controlled by the showrunner James Manos Jr. definitely marked its generation.
However, we cannot say that Dexter We have made all the love we had for him. The main series will not have constantly sinking qualitatively from its fifth season to end in a final that the majority of us consider it completely failed. That it does not hold, our dear sociopath, wanting to be forgiven, returned in a mini-revival mini-series, New Blood, in 2021, still with C.Hall, but this time under the thumb of Clyde Phillips. Except that again, it’s the cold shower And the character still cannot offer us correct farewells. To the point where we end up preferring to remember Dexter, than to see him again once. So as much to say that when Showtime has announced to plan two new series, one that would follow New Blood and the other in the form of a prequel to the original show, we were blowing very much by fearing two new disasters.
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And if we cannot judge the rest of New Blood which has not yet been laid, we can now give us an opinion on Dexter: The origins The season of which arrives on Canal+ after noticed beginnings on Showtime and Paramount+ US last December – the series having produced one of the best audiences in the history of the two services. With six episodes made available to the ten that the season will have, it may have reassured us – or not – on the direction taken by this prequel.
Dexter, prequel or remake?
Dexter: The origins In the early 90s, when the young D. Morgan, just a graduate of medicine, joined the Miami Metro PD as an intern. An era which will allow us to explore the beginnings of a serial killer of the young man when he has not yet had the opportunity to apply the code put in place with his father. Harry Morgan must Juggling between his cop life, the murderous impulses of her son and a daughter who feels more and more put aside.
From the credits reusing the notes and the imagery of its elder, we understand that the series wants to make amends. This time, we are not lost in the middle of Alaska, no major upheaval, we are on Pure and hard nostalgia. We find the sun of Miami, the offices of the police station, the Maison des Morgan, Dex and Deb who consider themselves (fortunately for us) always as brothers and sisters. Brief, The origins intends to reconnect to the letter with the spirit of his model when he started.
If you read us often, you know that it can happen to us to criticize just as much a production freed a little too much from its primary inspiration (Paris Has Fallen for example), that from his extreme opposite which would offer nothing new. The success being, in our eyes, in the difficult balance between fidelity and novelty. All that to say that our first two hours in the company of this prequel did not promise us the moon, as we could not grasp the added value of this series, other than surfing a license always extremely popular despite the narrative failures .
Simply because The origins presents itself as a result of Dexter While responding to all the questions we didn’t ask ourselves On the character’s past. His relationship with Harry or Deb? Explored long, wide and flashbacks for eight seasons. His first murders? The same. His first meeting with Batista, Masuka, Laguerta and the others? Not sure of the need … with this approach in the form of an image of events already told, The origins Above all, makes us want to relaunch the viewing of the original. Especially since the narration provided by Michael C. Hall in person does not help to detach us from the guy to appreciate his successor in the role.
Visual style, black humor, winks … we feel that This series no longer wants to take risksrightly or wrongly, and prefers to walk on the marked paths that made the success of its model. A facility that turns into constraints more than once for the casting, forced to stick to the expressions of their counterparts. There is nothing more annoying and desperate than to see Patrick Gibson not playing Dexter Morgan, but playing Michael C. Hall playing Dexter Morgan. Same bell for Molly Brown in Debra Morgan or all the secondary protagonists with an earlier version.
Appetite comes by killing
However, this A little too faithful approach For his own property ends up convincing us from episode to episode. Already, because it must be recognized that this fidelity supported is well done. It may be a little too ostentatious, it is nonetheless very effective to immerse ourselves in what made Dexter’s success. And then, simply by achieving, little by little, to take the spaces left by the main series to trace his own path. Admittedly, out of the question to get out of the nails, but the writers-including one who participated in Dexter-manage to make their universe exist beyond the simple tribute, allowing everyone to express themselves more. If Gibson can deploy his own interpretation of Dexter In these “holes”, the big winner remains Christian Slater who seems to completely rewrite Harry Morgan to appropriate him without distorting him. At times, we even tell ourselves that the series would have won to make him the show of the show with the advent of his adopted son in the background.
And since we are talking about the casting, The pole is tense to speak of a certain person. As the credits say so well: ” With the special participation of Sarah Michelle Gellar ». It is not complicated to understand why the former star of Buffy against vampires does not appear on the same generic line as his comrades. While its name is one of the reasons that pushed us to cross the doors of Miami Metro PD again, it never exceeds two minutes of screen for as episode. And this, despite a central position in the young Dexter Morgan’s new career as head of the scientific police. We do not know what fate reserves him the rest of this first season, and we still secretly hope that this minimum presence is voluntarily caused by a final twist, but as it stands, SMG could have turned all his scenes from the season in a daytime. What a spoiled talent.
A significant case compared to The wait around Sarah Michelle Gellarwhich actually affects the almost all of the secondary casting to various degrees and which is symptomatic of a series obsessed with the idea of making the new cohabit with the old man. The origins must (or want) compose with the rejuvenated versions of the characters in the initial show while integrating a plethora of new protagonists. Take stock of the races, a gallery of second -handed knives where none has the place of existing. The series thinks they have found the parade by managing to offer everyone a preferential passage with our grass serial killer throughout the season, just to learn more about them. Except that we are witnessing more the game of musical chairs and Each winner disappears Then a scene to give way to the next. Ultimate proof of a series that is still looking for a little?
If it seemed important to us to come back to so many small details, it is because it Dexter: The origins seems, for its beginnings, to go on the right path to follow that we quit above: a balancingist number between the scenario too referenced and the originality. Which is a very good thing in itself and that is what allowed us to swallow these first six episodes and to be still hungry for the future. Yes, we have the feeling of attending the old -fashioned dexter with its good and bad sides and yes, there is sufficiently new blood – this time – to be able to succeed with its own weapons. But beware, balance is fragile and threatens to collapse at any time if the dosage is no longer respected.
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