Michael C. Hall: Showtime’s Dexter revival has a story worth telling

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

It was announced in October that Showtime is bringing the television series Dexter back for 10-episode limited series revival, with Michael C. Hall reprising the role of the title character. Showrunner Clyde Phillips, who served as showrunner for the first half of Dexter's eight season run, has said that this revival is a continuation of the series that will not discredit anything that happened in the seasons he wasn't involved with. (The first eight seasons of Dexter can be purchased at THIS LINK.)

Hall recently sat down for an interview with The Daily Beast, and while the main focus was his band Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum, the subject of the Dexter revival also came up along the way. Hall confirmed that Showtime has been trying to get him to return to Dexter for years, but they hadn't found a story he felt was worth telling until now.

It’s a conversation that’s been ongoing, and different possibilities have emerged over the years. I think in this case, the story that’s being told is worth telling in a way that other proposals didn’t, and I think enough time has passed where it’s become intriguing in a way that it wasn’t before. And let’s be real: people found the way that show left things pretty unsatisfying, and there’s always been a hope that a story would emerge that would be worth telling. I include myself in the group of people that wondered, “What the hell happened to that guy?” So I’m excited to step back into it. I’ve never had that experience of playing a character this many years on."

When asked if he felt the criticisms of that "pretty unsatisfying" finale were warranted, Hall replied, 

A criticism that speaks to someone’s experience is warranted. I certainly thought it was justifiable for Dexter to do what he did. I think some of the criticisms were about that, and some of the criticisms weren’t so much about the “what” as they were about the “how,” and those were valid too. We certainly do live in an era where the bar is very high as far as the simultaneous surprise, satisfaction, and closure that should go along with a series finale."

Marcos Siega will be directing six of the new Dexter episodes. Siega directed nine episodes of the show's initial run, contributing to the second, third, and fourth seasons.

The revival's official synopsis goes like this:  

Set 10 years after Dexter Morgan went missing in the eye of Hurricane Laura, the revival sees the character now living under an assumed name in a world away from Miami.

Hall is executive producing the revival with Phillips, Siega, John Goldwyn, Sara Colleton, Bill Carraro, and Scott Reynolds.

The new season of Dexter will premiere on Showtime sometime in the fall of 2021.