Dexter: New Blood is on Showtime Sunday, Nov. 7. The eight-season run of the original Dexter premiered on Showtime in 2006 and starred Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan, a conflicted blood-spatter expert for the Miami police department who moonlights as a serial killer. The series ended in 2013.
Hall again plays Dexter. The cast also features Jennifer Carpenter, Julia Jones, Jack Alcott and Alano Miller.
Clyde Phillips, original Dexter showrunner, reprises his role. There are 10 episodes.
Set 10 years after Dexter went missing in the eye of Hurricane Laura, New Blood finds him living under an assumed name in upstate New York. In the wake of unexpected events in this close-knit community, Dexter’s Dark Passenger beckons.
Hall said the decision to revisit Dexter was based in part on the original series’ finale. “I think the way the series-proper ended has a great deal to do with why we're revisiting the show and the character,” he said at a TCA event. “I think a lot of what was mystifying or dissatisfying to people is a lot of what creates the appetite that we're hopefully satisfying now. The show did not end in a way that was definitive for people or gave anybody a sense of closure. We didn't hear from Dexter. He didn't say anything to us when the show ended, and I think it left audiences, if nothing else, in a sense of suspended animation.
“I think a big part of our motivation was to definitively answer the question of what happened to this guy?” Hall added.
Phillips spoke about the New Blood title. “This is not the ninth season of Dexter. This is a whole new embodiment of the show, a whole new imaging of the show,” he said. “And I keep using the word ‘new,’ because it's new blood. Obviously, blood has a lot to do with the show. It is, after all, Dexter. But Harrison is not necessarily the new blood. It is the fact that almost a decade has passed since the finale, and we want to acknowledge them.”
Phillips said the theme of fathers and sons emerged as they were hashing out the new season. ”You can't do a show about Dexter without including--and with the theme of fathers and sons--without bringing back his son. Dexter had left his son when he was five years old, and the son has always thought he was dead, and then found out he was alive, and has a great resentment. And Dexter has a lot of work to do to win his son back and prove that he's a good father. We think we get there.”
Produced by Showtime, Dexter: New Blood is executive produced by Clyde Phillips, Michael C. Hall, Scott Reynolds, Marcos Siega, Bill Carraro, John Goldwyn and Sara Colleton.
