66DEXTER - TIE

Aired: SHOWTIME, 2006-Present

The movement toward dark characters on TV had grown dark enough to make possible a series, albeit on pay cable, about a Machiavellian serial killer whose targets are other serial killers. Dexter is based on the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay. In a 2008 interview in Written By, former executive producer Clyde Phillips compared Dexter to such icons of modernist noir as Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle, a sociopathic anti-hero just as driven by his demons as the bad guys. "Within the noir confines, Dexter is coming from the place of the baddest of the bad guys, and is slowly but surely becoming more human, questioning how he can become more attached to the world around him, rather than less attached, like many classic noir heroes."