Does this annoy anyone else? I mean, what exactly am I paying for Showtime for? I’d argue that it’s a bit different with the Sopranos and Sex & the City as those shows didn’t appear on (non-network cable) channels until after the series ended. But presumably Dexter is coming back. Apparently, I should just wait out the season and I can see it (albeit edited) on network for free! It’s a pretty tacky end-run around striking writers too, IMO.
grumble
It’s going to be edited to shit. What’s the length of the average episode, about 55 minutes? To get the thing in under an hour they need to knock like 12 minutes off unless they allocate 1h15 minutes to the show.
Yeah, editing for network tv is a huge pet peeve of mine. The creators make their art a certain way and the networks should respect that. It’s like putting swim trunks on Michelangelo’s David.
Ooh, I forgot about that. They have to make time for umpteen million commercials. Still, Showtime runs plenty of their own “commercials” (“PLEASE watch the Tudors! We’re BEGGING you!”) and sometimes it seemed Dexter came in at under 45 minutes, which is annoying in and of itself. Come to think of it, if I added up how much I was paying per minute of “original programming”, I’d probably just go see a movie or ten. Popcorn IS cheaper at my house, though…
How so? They gotta air something. Why is this worse than some other repeat or a reality show?
A&E started showing The Sopranos before the series ended. CBS will only be showing season 1 edited. The situation is the same except for the basic cable/network issue.
Yep - it should be pretty brutal editing. iTunes lists the shortest episode of season 1 (is there more than one season?) at 51:21, the longest at 58:11. Checking another CBS show, CSI (season 8), the longest episode is 44:19 and the shortest is 41:13.
That’ll be some hackjob unless they allow it to run long. Maybe they can put it on before The Amazing Race so we have even less of an idea when that’s going to be on. 
Well, I’m pretty pro-union, so I think they should settle with their writers or settle for re-runs.
Maybe it seems different to me because I don’t have HBO and the Sopranos ran longer than Dexter has - or it just seemed like it.
I’m also realizing that all I watch on Showtime is their original programming. The HBOs would occasionally have a movie I actually wanted to see. Showtime has a really bad track record with that - they run some spectacularly craptacular movies. Anyway, I don’t think this is necessarily a bad move on the network’s part (except for the editing issue), I think it’s a bad move on Showtime’s part.
They are reruns, it’s season one they are going to show, not a new season.
Well, if they cut out all of Debra’s swearing (which they will, of course, do for network), that should shave at least 5 minutes off per episode. 
I’ve never been able to watch the Sopranos on A&E, and there’s no fucking way i’ll watch Dexter on CBS.
I don’t get Showtime, but just today finished watching Season 1 of “Dexter” on DVD. Great show; a version edited for network tv would be ridiculous. (And it’s typical that the network folks would have more of a problem with realistic swearing than they would with the fact that the whole show is a sympathetic portrait of a serial murderer.)
Can we count on them to blitz out all the cuss’n but leave in the dismemberment?
No titties, neither. (hey, were there tits in S1?)
“Pardon my [sub]breasts.[/sub]”
Well, actually, I can kind of believe that the kid in Dexter’s Laboratory grew up to be a serial killer. Especially if his victims all had the initials D. D.! 
Their own reruns. Of network shows.
IIRC, CBS and Showtime are owned by the same company, so they are showing their own reruns (and if Showtime isn’t a network, what da heck is it?).
I give up. I didn’t know they were owned by the same company.
I was just under the impression that I was paying for something that I wouldn’t eventually see for free. I was wrong. Carry on.
Ah, but you get the privilege of paying to see it before the network-staring proles.
Besides, a great many theatrical films eventually find their way to free TV, with all the expected chainsaw edits. I doubt the people who coughed up $9-$11 for a movie ticket when it was first released feel cheated because of this.
Hah. I’m morbidly curious how they’ll handle Deb “ShitFuckDickheadAsshole” Morgan and James “Motherfucker” Doakes. There really isn’t too much graphic violence or sex in the series, but I have a hard time seeing how they can handle those two characters.