I’m thinking that melon farmer might be a tad unfortunate :smack:
My apologies if I’m coming off argumentative, I’m really not trying to be. But with regards to the writer’s strike, even if Showtime and CBS were completely unrelated, I do not see what the difference would be between CBS showing a repeat of one of its own shows vs a repeat of ‘Dexter’ (or a repeat of any other network’s shows). Sorry if it looks like I’m arguing, I just don’t see how showing an in-house repeat is better for the writers than getting some other repeat. No doubt there is some obvious point I’m missing, or perhaps there’s some aspect of the writer’s strike I’m unaware of.
FYI, I understand your objection to paying for something that can be seen for free, I’m just still not clear on the “end-run” writer’s strike issue.
Again, sorry if I’m coming off argumentative.
They have to cut out the swearing, but more importantly the gruesome bits will have to be cut, and they’re pretty important to the story. Are they going to be able to show bodies cut into pieces and nicely wrapped like packaged meat? Decaying bodies of little boys? People pulling dismembered limbs out of hefty bags? Maybe they can get away with that these days on network TV, but I’d think the whole theme of the show is a little much for network TV. I guess I’m just not in tune with what’s on network TV these days.
AFAIK the writers will get paid residuals for the episodes broadcast on CBS per the terms of the contract under which they were written so I don’t see how this can be considered an end-run around anything, except possibly Standards and Practices. I don’t watch CSI or the other forensics shows so maybe crime scenes can be bloodier these days (although blood isn’t initially an issue for many of the “Dexter” crime scenes) but if they bleep out all the profanity the dialogue track is going to sound like Morse code.
Oh, not a problem. I have a terrible understanding, I think, of what an “end-run” really is and that’s hardly surprising since I’ve never watched a football game in my life (it IS football, right?) Let’s just say it feels unfair to me in some ephemeral way that I am going neither attempt to convey clearly nor publicly, but rather nurse bitterly in my own little private heart. The show IS apt to be incomprehensible with the editing that’s going to need to be done.
Looks like CBS is going to be the Forensics Network.
Well, it’s the natural progression after being the Geezer Network. You know, the old folks die and they go off to be autopsied. 
Maybe they’re so bitter they’ve become the Serial Killer Network - hack a perfectly good show to bits and offer it up for general public consumption. Mwahahahaha!
To this point, I keep a list of “Showtime exclusive” movies that interest me for potential “rental”, since I cannot stand edited for tv versions. They are sorted by imdb user rating. For franchises, the rating is for the first one. For titles that have a remake, it’s the remake version that’s on the list.
Basically, if you pay for Showtime, these are the movies you’re (currently) paying for:
8.3 Donnie Darko
8.1 Snatch
7.9 Zodiac
7.8 Clerks II
7.8 Good Night, and Good Luck
7.8 Lucky Number Slevin
7.7 Capote
7.7 Lord of War
7.7 Saw
7.4 Bound
7.4 Mean Creek
7.1 Crank
7.1 Hard Candy
7.0 Near Dark
6.9 Mission Impossible III
6.9 The Devil’s Rejects
6.9 We Were Soldiers
6.8 Benny & Joon
6.8 Duane Hopwood
6.8 Four Brothers
6.8 The Score
6.8 Waiting
6.7 Happy Endings
6.7 Manchurian Candidate
6.7 SherryBaby
6.6 Bandits
6.6 Jesus Is Magic
6.6 Kids
6.6 Lonesome Jim
6.5 The Way of the Gun
6.4 Elizabethtown
6.3 Edmond
6.3 Star Trek: Insurrection
6.2 Longest Yard
6.1 Paycheck
6.1 The Faculty
6.1 The Groomsmen
6.0 Open Water
5.8 Looking for Kitty
5.8 Nacho Libre
5.8 The River King
5.7 Hostel
5.7 Man About Town
5.6 Failure to Launch
5.6 Into the Blue
5.5 Aeon Flux
5.5 Jeepers Creepers
5.4 .45
5.4 200 Cigarettes
5.3 Employee of the Month
5.3 Reeker
5.3 Salvage
5.3 The Dark
5.1 Kettle of Fish
5.0 Drop Dead Sexy
5.0 Whore
4.9 Serving Sara
4.8 She Gets What She Wants
4.8 Twisted
4.7 Dead Mary
4.6 American Crime
4.5 Sleepover
4.4 Black Christmas
4.2 Urban Legends: Bloody Mary
4.1 Coming Soon
4.0 All In
3.5 Doppleganger
3.5 Soul Survivors
3.2 Are You Scared
Anybody want to give me a capsule, non-spoilerish, summary of the show? I haven’t heard of it.
Serial killer channels his murdering impulses into killing only those who “deserve” it; mainly criminals who get off on a technicality type stuff. His job is as a CSI-type guy, a profession that both satisfies his morbid side and also helps him cover his tracks.
So far I’ve “rented” both Weeds and Dexter. Dexter is good, though while I’ve only seen the first three episodes I’m already getting tired of the constant voice-overs. Still, it’s pretty good. I can’t imagine watching the edited version.
Weeds, OTOH, kicked all kinds of ass for the first two seasons; I watched them both in a single weekend. The third season kinda went off the rails, but still pretty good.
Adding to Ellis:
The main character, Dexter Morgan, is a blood-obsessed sociopath. His adoptive father, Miami detective Harry Morgan, recognized Dex’s tendencies early on and gave him extensive training in how to hide them, as well as instilling a strict code (ofter referenced by Morgan as “The Code of Harry”) that the only people to be killed are themselves killers, with no doubt as to guilt. Dexter works as a blood-splatter expert for the Miami-Dade police department, alongside Harry’s natural daughter, Debra, and other precinct cops and experts. Only one person has suspicions about Dex - Sergeant Doakes.
At the beginning of the series, Harry has been dead (of natural causes) for some time and Dexter has been feeling (and killing) his way along without guidance, sometimes with mixed results.
You could derive all that from the first episode. Beyond that, you’re on your own.
Given the rather gruesome stuff I’ve seen on CSI (and I only see 3 or 4 eps each season), it doesn’t sound like it should be too big an issue…
I felt all of this info was too spoilery. I went in knowing only the outline I stated above, and enjoyed the surprise of learning about Dexter and Harry’s relationship inside the show.
ETA: I just read in TV Guide that the only tough cuts they’re having is for time. Alternate dialog was shot during filming of the original production work, so it appears they always planned on selling it to commercial television at some point.
As for violence and carnage, it’s far tamer than CSI. (Although the 6th episode has a bunch of nudity, but I’m sure they shot alternate footage just like with the swearing.)
:eek:
Personally, I think it is great they are going to show in on regular broadcast.
I love the show and want more people to see it. It will give many people a chance to see some quality writing and acting, and keep them glued to the screen. It will make the show all the more popular, ensuring Showtime gets some new subscribers and also, I hope, ensure the show gets picked up for many more seasons to come.
Besides, isn’t is somewhat elitist to say the show shouldn’t be aired to the general public because you paid for a premium channel to see it a few seasons ago? That is like saying they shouldn’t broadcast the movie National Treasure because I paid good money to see it in a movie theater a few years ago and would have waited had I known I could see it for free a mere three years later.
Hey, you want sweetness and light, go watch 7th Heaven reruns.
Well, precisely one person in this thread has made that argument.
For just about everyone else, the problem with Dexter on network TV is not that it’s free, but that it will be so hacked to pieces by family-friendly editing that it will probably lose much of what made it so great in the first places. The Sopranos on A&E sucked, Six Feet Under on Bravo (or whatever channel it was) sucked, and Dexter on CBS is going to suck.
I don’t think it will. As I said upthread, they shot alternate dialog for all scenes with cursewords from the beginning, so the dialog issue won’t require any butchering at all. As for gore, it’s no gorier than CSI – at least through the first six episodes, anyway – so that won’t require much if any butchering either.
Most cuts will be for time. There will probably be almost no family-friendly cuts at all.
ETA: The title sequence and “previously on” runs well over 3 minutes each week, so that may be a good place to start trimming some fat.
And that one person was the OP. I believe it is still considered appropriate to respond to the original posts in threads, isn’t it?
I still think the show will make a decent transition to regular television…Sex And The City is doing quite well (with new dialog filling in for the swear words) and that will most probably be the reason the new theatrical release will be a huge hit - not just the HBO fans. They are already hinting about two more films to be made after this first one.
So if Dexter finds a new fan base with a tamed-down version, good!
I missed that.
This will certainly be an improvement over the usual maiming of expletives—either by simply blanking the sound, or by dubbing using ridiculous words like “mother-lover”—but i still think it will make the show something less than it was. The swearing is part of the characters, part of what makes them appealing, because the way that each one of them swears (like Deb and Doakes) is closely tied to the sort of personalities they are.
You might be right about this.
On the one hand, if you are right, it’s still pretty sad that hearing the word “fuck” is considered by the networks to be more problematic and more upsetting than seeing a live person sliced across the cheek with a scalpel or stabbed with a butcher’s knife or cut into small, bloodless pieces.
On the other hand, i’m not sure that i’m quite as confident as you are about the censoring of the gore. Sure, CSI shows some gory stuff, but much of it is very stylized (e.g. the “in the body” shots of wounds) and most of it refers to bodies that are already dead. We generally don’t see the act of killing itself, except sometimes in hindsight or flashbacks based on the medical discussions.
Dexter, on the other hand, has quite a different relationship with the violence and bloodshed. We see people lying helpless, and then killed. I’d be very surprised if they don’t edit a fair bit of that. And all the nudity, of course.
Cuts for time? Is that all? Sorry, but this doesn’t make me any more optimistic.
Even if they remove the whole title sequence and “Previously on,” that’s still going to leave them with at least 8 minutes of story to get rid of for each episode. And that’s going to make it suck.