“Dexter” and why I like series
No! I don’t want to hear how good GTA IV is! The reason: I haven’t bought it yet, and are not planning on buying it before the end of June, because of the exams, which I will entertain you guys with later. So this post is about something completely different.
After I’ve seen the season 2 of Dexter, it came to my attention that maybe this is the thing I’m the biggest fan of, series. I like the way it have a really limited time to tell a “little” story, about 20(Sitcoms) - 50(HBO’ish series) min, thereby making the pacing in the story really fast, which is something I really appreciate, specially after I started at Film- and media studies, because we are forced to see several classic movies(Maybe force is a strong word, specially considering that we actually get to see movies instead of reading books), where the speed in the story in the movie is so slow that you fall asleep, but with a episode of a show, there is only 20-50 min to tell a story. But on the same time you can have a long storyline that develops over the different episodes.
Also after watching Dexter, it became clear to me there is another force within series, the ability to build a character, and really get to know that person, and get to know why he is doing what he does, instead of a movie where there is a limited time to get in deepth with a character, where it sometimes tends to be somewhat shallow.
Jonas:
GTA4 is exceptionally good!
Okay, obvious joke out of the way, series are great. I definitely agree one of the greatest strong points of a well written and paced series is they can afford to take their time developing their characters, like how the ever amazing Battlestar Galactica can dedicate entire episodes to fleshing out the drama between its characters, making its action episodes all the more powerful.
But I dare say MY favourite medium is computer games, far superior to anything else in their groundbreaking interactivity.
4 May 2008, 1:38 pmCasper:
I still expect that I can borrow Battlestar Galactica from you? I still think in the sense of storytelling my prefered media is TV-series. My main focus when playing game is also someplace different than the story for the most of the time, which you might have noticed when we play Co-op
Btw have you seen Dexter?
4 May 2008, 11:17 pmEER:
Is this ‘Dexter’ the main character from “Dexter’s Laboratory”, or is there another series called Dexter I am not aware of?
5 May 2008, 8:13 amCasper:
The Dexter I’m talking about is this one:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0773262/
“During the day, Dexter Morgan is a jovial employee in the Miami Metropolitan Police Department’s crime lab, but his meticulously crafted life masks his true nature. In reality Dexter is a disciplined and murderous psychopath (a self-admitted “monster”), and he slakes his blood lust at night by carefully killing the serial killers he tracks down during the day. Based on the novels (Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dearly Devoted Dexter and Dexter in the Dark) by Jeff Lindsay.”
It’s really a good show, and the main character, Dexter(Michael C. Hall), really does a perfect job, you have to see it!
5 May 2008, 9:06 amEER:
I looked it up a bit, and it is not aired on dutch television currently
So I’ll have to check out youtube or other dubious sources
5 May 2008, 1:23 pmJonas:
Yeah I’ve seen several (but not all) episodes from the first season. It struck me as excellently dark. Very weird and off-beat, and really sadistic. I’ve heard the second season, which goes beyond the book the first was based on, drops sharply in quality though, do you have any opinion on that?
And of course you can borrow my BSG boxes. Apart from BSG, there are only two series I’m really interested in at the moment: House, M.D. and Numbers, both crime shows to varying degrees. The reasons I love House so much are Hugh Laurie’s excellently portrayed sarcastic-as-fuck egomaniac doctor, and not least the fact that it is effectively a crime show with the crimes replaced by diseases. Numbers is good for being really different and intellectual and produced by Ridley “You can’t mention his name without inserting Blade Runner here” Scott.
8 May 2008, 10:31 amCasper:
I must say I agreed that the second season drops a bit in quality, well that’s what I thought to I saw it to the end, when I saw the last episode in season 2 I actually thought that it was actually also quiet good, not as good as first season, but I think you can compare it with First Season vs Second Season of Heroes. But I’ll highly recommend that you see both season, if not, then at least see first season, it might sound really bizarre but I could really identify with Dexter Morgan, not in the sense of killing, but a lot of his emotional problems he is going through, and the lack of finding motivation to the thing he has based his whole life on. I don’t know if that came out somewhat strange
I will love to borrow your BSG boxes, but maybe I should make it a Post-Film History-exam thing?
Funny you say that about House, that’s the same reason why I love Dr. Cox(Beautifully portrayed by John C. McGinley), though he act like a total bastard, he is really carrying about J.D, and he really cares about his patients.
Oh! I didn’t know that Ridley “You can’t mention his name without inserting Blade Runner here” Scott produced Numb3rs, then I’ll have to see it then
Btw have you seen Total Recall 2070?, info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Recall_2070 , you can see it for free on Joost, it’s a mix between “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?” and “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”.
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28 February 2010, 1:10 am