Everyone’s favorite serial killer with a purpose goes high-def, but the extras leave something to be desired. It’s not that they don’t sound good, but the majority of them are available via BD Live and I couldn’t get them to come up. Darn the interweb and its inventor Al Gore!
Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) is a blood splatter expert with the Miami police department. He moonlights though. He has a secret life after work since he’s also a serial killer. Don’t think too badly of him though as he only kills those that deserve it.
Dexter was adopted by policeman Harry Morgan (James Remar, seen in flashback) and raised alongside his daughter Debra (Jennifer Carpenter) who Dexter know works with on the police force since she’s a detective on the force. Harry recognized that Dexter would go down a dark path thanks to his years of police training and decided that if Dexter was going to be a killer then he might as well kill for the right reasons.
He trains Dexter to recognize and seek out evildoers and take out his homicidal tendencies on them instead of innocents. This becomes the “code of Harry” as Dexter kills so that he’ll not hurt an innocent person.
However, a “dark passenger” called the Ice Truck Killer is his competing serial killer and he doesn’t have such a code. In fact, he appears to be challenging Dexter to catch up with him and his final revelations will cause Dexter to question Harry and his code. Showtime’s Dexter is an addicting view with Michael C. Hall playing an anti-hero that you can sympathize with.
Dexter arrived on DVD in a season one set in 2007 and you could tell by the vibrant colors that it was going to shine in high definition and I can report that to be the case. Dexter leaps off the screen at you. I hope that you’re not deserving of his attentions and have been a good boy or girl this year.
Dexter is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (1.78:1). Special features include a commentary on “Return to Sender” by actors Jennifer Carpenter, David Zayas, Lauren Velez and Erik King and on the final episode, “Born Free,” with producers Sara Colleton, Clyde Phillips, and Daniel Cerone.
The rest of the special features are accessible via the BD Live aspect of the disc (on disc three). They include The Academy Of Blood - A Killer Course, Witnessed In Blood - A True Murder Investigation, a Michael C. Hall Podcast, the first episode of Dexter Season 3, and the first two episodes of United States Of Tara. This means if you don’t have a player capable of going on the Internet then you’re out of luck.
The problem was that I wasn’t able to access them either. Not that my PS3 isn’t hooked up to my home network, but that when I clicked on BD Live, it loaded but the screen was blank and I couldn’t get to the things that they said I could.
I suspect that these features will not be up on the site till the disc hits the street on January 6, 2009. I’m still torn about the functionality of putting special features up via BD Live.
It seems like it could deliver new special features to users but I want them on the disc and not have to fool with downloading them or accessing them via the Internet.
Dexter is just as addicting on Blu-ray, perhaps even more. The picture is spectacular; you only have to watch the opening credit montage to know that (I love that musical “wink” at the end too). I can’t wait for the other seasons to show up too.
Dexter: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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