NETWORK: Showtime
AIR DATE: September 28, 2008
STARRING: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, Julie Benz, Lauren Velez, David Zayas, and Jimmy Smits
CREATED BY: James Manos Jr.

Everyone's favorite serial killer returns to Showtime this Sunday and I've been lucky enough to see the first four episodes of the third season of Dexter. The second season placed high on my list of the best shows of 2007. The third season will rank even higher at the end of 2008. These four episodes are fantastic, further proving that the writing staff on this show is quite simply one of the best out there today. After the stellar first season of Dexter, there was significant concern over how this show could possibly continue at all, much less ever hope to top its first story. After Dexter had come to terms with the Ice Truck Killer and his history with him, where could the show go from there? It couldn't be about Dexter's moral code and a different murderer every season. That would get stale quickly. Well, Dexter's second season was anything but stale. The flashlight was turned inward as Dexter had to prevent the capture of himself aka "The Bay Harbor Butcher". Family was once again a theme and the writers brilliantly played with issues of addiction. But could they find an original story for season three? Could they continue to enrich the themes of the show without getting repetitive? That's what separates great shows from merely average ones. The latter simply do something well over and over again, but great shows get deeper and more complex. That's exactly what's happening with Dexter, one of the best shows on television.

At the end of last season, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) barely escaped capture and realized that his moral code is a little different from the one that his father tried to drive into him. You see, Dexter's father (James Remar) was a cop, a man who realized that Dex needed kill and tried to use that dark instinct for good. For years, Dexter only killed people who, in his eyes, deserved death. These were murderers who had evaded the inept Florida police force and Dexter was the safety net that got them before they fell through the cracks. But Dexter learned that his dad had a few secrets of his own and that there could be some grays in what he previously saw as a black and white world. That's the Dexter we meet in season three. He's still living a life of somewhat forced domesticity with Rita (Julie Benz) and her kids but he seems to be actually enjoying it more than he used to and realizing that he doesn't always need to fake it. That doesn't mean he's stopped killing. In the first episode, Dexter goes after a young man who got away with murder and the unthinkable happens - someone else is beating him to the punch. Suddenly, Dexter takes the life of someone he hasn't fully researched just to protect his own and things get much more complicated from there.

After the set-up for season three, the show could have developed into a pretty standard mystery. Why would the brother of upstanding A.D.A. Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits) be holding a knife to the throat of a low life in a drug den? Who is out there killing people? But the writers of Dexter never do anything easily. Miguel and Dexter soon share a deadly secret that is going to make for a riveting season. Smits is fantastic, full of raging emotion and passion that serves as a perfect dramatic balance for Hall's cool portrayal. Their scenes together are some of the best TV of '08. And then, of course, there's Hall. What he has developed with Dexter Morgan is one of the most fully realized and fascinating characters of the last quarter-century. This is a performance that ranks up there with what James Gandolfini accomplished with Tony Soprano and what Dennis Franz developed with Andy Sipowicz. He's simply incredible.

Since the beginning of Dexter, I've said that Hall's amazing work left the great supporting turn by Jennifer Carpenter as his sister in the shadows. She gets better with every episode. This season, Deb is stronger and more on her own thematically. She's a fascinating character, a woman not only scorned but nearly killed by her job that has somewhat grown veins of ice in the process. She gets caught in an interesting dynamic between a new cop that is being investigated by IA and an intriguing C.I. Maybe this will finally be the year that Carpenter gets the supporting actress nods she deserves. With the departure of Erik King, David Zayas is also allowed to come more to the forefront and he has an emotional monologue in the fourth episode that's riveting.

There's really nothing negative I can say about the first four hours of season three of Dexter. It's as good as anything you'll see this year and the fastest hour on TV. The writers don't force their characters or their themes down your throat. They write three-dimensional roles and then let the drama develop. Dexter is so unique because it's about ridiculous things like a serial killer becoming best friends with an A.D.A. but it never hits a false note in the process. It sells the unbelievable. After season one and even a little bit after season two, I was nervous about how the show could continue. After the first four episodes of season three, I'm convinced we could still be entertained by the life of Dexter Morgan for years to come.