Hang up that plaid shirt! Michael C. Hall is set to reprise his role as Dexter Morgan in a 10-episode revival of Dexter on Showtime, the network announced on Wednesday, October 14. The series will begin production this winter with hopes for a fall 2021 premiere.
“Dexter is such a special series, both for its millions of fans and for Showtime, as this breakthrough show helped put our network on the map many years ago,” Showtime president of Entertainment said in a statement on Wednesday. “We would only revisit this unique character if we could find a creative take that was truly worthy of the brilliant, original series. Well, I am happy to report that [executive producer] Clyde Phillips and Michael C. Hall have found it, and we can’t wait to shoot it and show it to the world!”
The original series aired for eight seasons from 2006 to 2013, following the complicated journey of Dexter Morgan, who helped the Miami police force by day and murdered people by night. In the series finale, the character faked his own death and became a lumberjack.
The show took home four Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and one Screen Actors Guild Awards during its run.
In 2014, Hall, now 39, opened up about the series’ end — which many believe is one of the worst finales of all time — admitting that he felt “sadness” when he read the final scene.
“Given what [Dexter] had been through and his attempts to have his cake and eat it too in regards to indulging his compulsion to kill and have a more authentic life, his self-imposed exile did resonate,” the Six Feet Under alum shared during a Reddit AMA in 2014. “I think Dexter came to believe that … anything he touched would eventually be destroyed and so he felt he needed to let it all go. Of course, Dexter is also a pragmatist and a self-preservationalist so he didn’t do himself in. But rather put himself on hold.”
Phillips, who exited the series in 2009 and went on to run Nurse Jackie, had a different ending in mind.
“In the very last scene of the series, Dexter wakes up. And everybody is going to think, ‘Oh, it was a dream.’ And then the camera pulls back and back and back and then we realize, ‘No, it’s not a dream,’” he told E! in 2013. “Dexter’s opening his eyes and he’s on the execution table at the Florida Penitentiary. They’re just starting to administer the drugs and he looks out through the window to the observation gallery. “And in the gallery are all the people that Dexter killed—including the Trinity Killer and the Ice Truck Killer (his brother Rudy), LaGuerta, who he was responsible killing, Doakes who he’s arguably responsible for, Rita, who he’s arguably responsible for, Lila. All the big deaths, and also whoever the weekly episodic kills were. They are all there.”
He continued: “That’s what I envisioned for the ending of Dexter. That everything we’ve seen over the past eight seasons has happened in the several seconds from the time they start Dexter’s execution to the time they finish the execution and he dies. Literally, his life flashed before his eyes as he was about to die. I think it would have been a great, epic, very satisfying conclusion.”
