Slice & dice

If anyone can understand the notion of being sliced up a little bit to protect the public, it should be "Dexter."

The fine Showtime series about a vigilante serial killer who uses his "talents" for good, while being nonetheless warped, moves from premium cable to broadcast prime time when it helps fill the strike-induced programming vacuum at CBS at 9 p.m. Sunday on WBBM Channel 2.

Along the way, it's had its language scrubbed down and a few of its more graphic shots sliced out and left on the cutting-room floor. Yet that hasn't placated conservative media-watchdog groups such as the Parents Television Council, which is planning to hassle CBS, its affiliates and any sponsors for backing a show it says "effectively celebrates murder."

That it does, but one could make the same argument about "Dirty Harry," "Death Wish" and even "Batman." Sorry, PTC, but I've got to come down on the side of the series that "compels viewers to empathize with a serial killer, to root for him to prevail, to hope he doesn't get discovered," all of which is undeniably true, and which in fact is what makes this such compelling drama.

Simply put, I'll take an edited "Dexter" over treacle like "Jericho" or "Brothers & Sisters" every day of the week -- and twice on Sunday. If anything, give CBS corporate credit for cutting into its DVD sales by putting it on free TV.

The key to it all is Michael C. Hall, who goes from being the insecure homosexual brother in HBO's "Six Feet Under" to playing Dexter Morgan, a blood-splatter expert for the Miami police who just happens to moonlight as an avenging angel of death.

As Sunday's pilot episode explains in childhood flashbacks, Dexter was an adopted kid with something sinister in his infancy that made him a serial killer. His cop father was quick to recognize it, but slow to condemn it, saying, "OK, we can't stop this, but maybe we can do something to channel it -- use it for good. … You can't help what happened to you, but you can make the best of it."

For the record, both Dexter's adoptive parents are dead, but "I didn't kill them," he insists. "Really."

Now, in the real world an utter amorality is precisely what defines a sociopath, so the notion of a serial killer "channeling" his skills to serve the common good is ludicrous. Yet once a viewer buys into the idea that Dexter is just a modern-day vigilante, Batman crossed with Gil Grissom, the drama grows out of it naturally.

And Hall is mighty convincing. His Dexter is empty inside, fakes emotions and can't even understand sex, saying, "It's always just seemed so -- undignified."

Yet he is indeed empathetic, and he serves an undeniable purpose taking out killers the police can't nab. Who wants to argue with his exterminating a child killer or a murderer/rapist? "With a solve rate of about 20 percent for murders, Miami is a great place for me," he says, "a great place to hone my craft."

Craft is exactly what distinguishes "Dexter" as a series. It is filled with immediately identifiable characters: Jennifer Carpenter as his mousy sister, Debra, a vice cop who asks his help in making the move up to homicide; David Zayas as his jovial colleague Angel Batista and Lauren Velez as his commanding officer, Lt. Maria LaGuerta; and, best of all, Erik King as the foul-mouthed Sgt. James Doakes, the only person in a station full of police officers who detects something suspicious in Dexter.

Doakes' comic impact is blunted by having his language edited, so that at one point he calls Dexter a "mother lover," but he still plays a key role in creating an adversary for him. Another comes in the form of the "Ice Truck Killer," a murderer who knows Dexter's secrets -- and who toys with him by draining his victims of the blood Dexter treasures. In fact, the entire first season concerns their game of cat and mouse. Or is it vice versa?

So, no, "Dexter" doesn't constitute family viewing, but few 9 o'clock shows do. In fact, as edited for broadcast, your average "CSI" or even "Bones" is more gruesome. "Dexter" works more with suggestion, most of all the suggestion that there might be something worthwhile and perhaps even admirable in the most irredeemable sort of killer. That doesn't make it unwatchable; if anything, that makes it all the more fascinating.