Production Companies: Clyde Phillips Productions, The Colleton Company, and John Goldwyn Productions
Producers: Sara Colleton, John Goldwyn, James Manos, Jr., and Clyde Phillips
Creators: Based on novels by Jeff Lindsay

Dexter, a series that aired originally on Showtime, is based on a series of novels by author Jeff Lindsay. The main character, Dexter, is a police blood spatter crime scene specialist working for the Miami police department. But a series of flashbacks and Dexter’s narration shows that he has a huge secret—he is a serial killer. His foster father noticed this tendency when Dexter was a boy, so he trained Dexter to hunt down killers the police can’t catch and those are Dexter’s victims of choice. By day, Dexter is a mild-mannered lab tech who is close with his sister Deb, a police woman and his fragile single mother girlfriend Rita, but in his private time, Dexter murders killers and keeps blood samples of his victims in a safe in his apartment.

As is expected, a series about a serial killer is extremely violent and grotesque. Dexter is depicted capturing his victims, tying them up, cutting their faces with scalpels, and in one incident, chopping a man up with a meat cleaver and stacking up dismembered body parts while covered in blood. Also, Dexter examines crime scenes that included two different dismembered bodies, huge amounts of blood spatter, and later he witnesses a killer tossing a severed head out of a moving vehicle. There is a killer Dexter and the police are tracking that leaves dismembered body parts all over Miami and these are shown in close up in every episode. The violence is very graphic and disturbing. Language on this series includes the words “damn,” “hell,” “bitch,” “bastard,” “frigging,” and “ass.” Sexual content included a few verbal references to Dexter not interested in sex with his girlfriend and a quick visual of Dexter finding one of his victims’ pornographic magazines. There is also reference to an adulterous affair between a police and a victim, as well as a few details about Deb’s work in Vice working undercover among prostitutes.

Dexter is recommended for adults only.

RATINGS
Sex	Language	Violence	Overall

Ratings Legend Show may include gratuitous sex, explicit dialogue, violent content, or obscene language, and is unsuitable for children. The show contains adult-oriented themes and dialogue that may be inappropriate for youngsters. Family-friendly show promoting responsible themes and traditional values. Not yet rated by the PTC. Full Week | Printable Version | Green Shows | Yellow Shows | Red Shows | All Shows