Dexter

Few television programs, certainly few within the realm of “entertainment,” have delved so deeply into moral quandary as has Dexter. How far, the series asks, are “we” willing to go in our frequent celebration of vigilante justice in popular culture? What is the limit of our tolerance of the violence so often taken for granted in more conventional television programs? Are we truly ready to claim that murderers should be executed, even if by the hand of an individual, if they escape official systems of enforcement and justice? A focus on a sociopathic serial murderer hardly seems a compelling narrative strategy with which to answer such questions. And indeed, answers are hard to come by in Dexter. But the series draws on its tightly scripted, thriller-like qualities and its police procedural generic heritage to ask such questions, to explore blurred boundaries of personal and social obligation. And in Michael C. Hall’s spectacular portrayal of the eponymous central character, in all his tortured self-awareness of right and wrong, obsession and compulsion, we find the perfect embodiment of these matters. For shoving audiences into uncomfortable confrontation with profound, eternal issues surrounding our most sacred social conventions, Dexter receives a Peabody Award.