But opening a review of ``Dexter" with its graphic thrills might mislead. The sum of this show, based on Jeff Lindsay's novel ``Darkly Dreaming Dexter" and starring Michael C. Hall from ``Six Feet Under," is so much more than its body parts.
On the surface, ``Dexter" is a neo-noir with a gruesome central mystery -- the ``ice-truck murders" -- that will stretch across the season's 12 episodes. Who's killing hookers and draining them of blood? Then it is also a fascinating character study of Dexter, a man raised by his cop foster father (James Remar ) to channel his violence into taking out society's trash. And deepest of all, it is an intelligent and sustained exercise in moral irony. Dexter may be an obsessive murderer, but he's also a hero of sorts.
He's Hannibal Lecter , but he's also Clarice Starling .
By day, Dexter helps the Miami police as a CSI expert. By night, he's stalking killers, gathering proof against them, and lecturing them about their sins before chopping them up. ``I have standards," he screams at a child killer before finishing him off. And he does have standards, which he calls ``The Code of Harry" after his father, who taught him to kill only those who'll kill again. In flashbacks that play like mythology scenes in a superhero comic, we see Harry mentoring young Dexter in murder as if he were teaching him to shave.
By episode two, I'm betting you will not hate Dexter, despite his vigilantism and his slippery personality. And that is one of the many miracles of ``Dexter," as well as of Hall's grand performance. TV anti-heroes have been popular since Tony Soprano showed us how a two-timing mobster could somehow be an everyman. The fact that Hall makes Dexter likable is even more impressive, since Dexter is so profoundly controlled, with none of Tony's passion. He can only mimic human warmth -- bringing doughnuts to co - workers, courting the mother of two kids -- because he is a shell of a man.
