honey and sting

Major spoilers of the entire first season of Dexter under the lj cut. MAJOR!

Went to the Paley Festival evening for Dexter, and here's what happened:

For the unitiated, the Paley Festival brings together actors and creators/writers/producers of a tv show for an evening of officially sanctioned squee. They showed an episode that already aired, then an interviewer asked questions, the opened the floor to questions from the audience.

Headline news items:

Season 2 will air beginning Sept 30th. It will NOT follow the storylines of the Dexter books (2 and 3), which is a good thing because in book 2, apparently very bad things happen to Doakes, and we don't want that. All the major cast members are returning, and the guy who plays the Japanese forensic expert, who was a recurring character, will now be main cast.

Michael C. Hall, on being asked to compare Dexter with his 6 feet under character: "Dexter is more of a go-getter." Also, when asked if it "means something" that both shows feature dead bodies, he said, "I hope not!" but then added that a critic had pointed out that he is now on the "supply side."

One of the creators said that the theme of Season 1 was "the search for connection." That, in the book, the big climax is whether or not Dexter will kill his sister, but that anyone watching the show wouldn't really believe Dexter would do that. So that scene becomes the "pre-climax", with the climax now being the question of whether Dexter would kill Rudy. Since the theme is the search for connection, and Rudy is not only a blood brother, but the only person with whom Dexter could be completely himself, a peer, this is a real question.

He also said that the theme of Season 2 will be, "the search for meaning." There will be more on Harry, and how he came to the decision to raise Dexter as he did. There was mention that a lot of serial killers are adopted, and abused by their adoptive parents, and that the abuse turns them into killers. The actor who plays Harry cut in rather plaintively, "I didn't abuse him!". The irony was then pointed out, that it's Harry's love for Dexter that makes him a serial killer.

Someone asked about the music and the opening credit sequence. The credit sequence was done very painstakingly, and took over a 100 hours to make. The music was deliberately "contrapuntal" to the theme of the show. One of the creators, a woman whose name I don't recall, said that "if the show is horror, we DIDN'T want to underline that with the music, but instead, go counter to it."

Then I got to ask a question, and asked what thought they had put into the *look* of the show.. the pallette, the settings. They said the guy who shot the pilot was an indie film-maker, had never done tv, and brought that attention to the look, with his camera guy Romeo. They also shot 4 or 5 of the eps. Romeo has had a lot of influence to the look, which they pay a lot of attention to for each ep. Romeo took the camera angles, shot from low, from graphic novels, to make Dexter look heroic, and they built ceilings in the sets, which sets often don't have, so they could do these shots.

The look of Miami skies was very important to them, too... that in contrast with the "white" skies of L.A., Miami skies are full of color, with the tempuratures hot and steamy and the look of everything is affected by that. They shot images of Miami, especially the sky, and made huge murals of it so they would reflect in the windows of the shots.

A kid in a Dexter t-shirt that his mother made for him "thanks, Mom", asked what it felt like to view the episode with the fans. The actors all said how much fun it was, more like doing live theatre. Michael C. Hall said how glad he was to hear people laugh at the funny places.

ETA: There was a neat point made about how Dexter creates structures in his life to fit in, to "look" human. Rita, the girlfriend, is an example. But it's actually when the structures start to fall apart or are threatened (e.g. by her ex) that Dexter's humanity shows up, that his suppressed feelings start to break through. In the pilot, he says that he is "empty", but he's really not -- rather, he's like the coffee press with the feelings pressed really, really far down, and every once in a while a bean jumps out.