"Dexter"

Quote of the day:
“I’ve never had much use for the concept of hell. But if there is one, I’m in it.”
--Dexter, from the TV show of the same name.

The series “Dexter,” just beginning its second season on Sunday nights on Showtime, is intriguing in many ways.

To me, this show started out with two strikes against it. First, it’s about a forensic investigator. That makes it the 4,828th show currently on the air about forensic investigators. How boring.

Second, it’s about a serial killer. And because it’s on pay cable, I expected some gruesome violence. Great, a boring show with violence.

Sure enough, Merrie and I tuned in at the start of the first season but were chased away by graphic scenes as the first show began. That was it for us.

But I stumbled on the show again near the end of the season and became quite captivated. There was little of the nasty violence that I remembered, and the characters and plot were unusual and intelligently written.

Dexter is played by Michael C. Hall from “Six Feet Under,” the won-der-ful HBO show set in a Los Angeles funeral home. This means Hall now has a career centering on dying and death.

He is excellent in his role. Or should I say roles--he plays the forensic investigator and the serial killer. Who are the same person. It’s a bit hard to imagine how an actor could be believable in such an outlandish combination, but he is.

And there are great performances throughout, as Dexter travels from the present to the past and from outer to inner reality and back again.

In addition to being entertaining, the show deals with significant issues, including how exactly a serial killer gets that way. There is a good subplot about police-department politics (which may be more nasty than anything Dexter does). And there are some fascinating relationships among the characters, romantic and otherwise.

We watched the whole first season in a few days via the in-demand channel, and now we’re on board for season two.