Jonathan Storm: 'Dexter,' about a serial killer, OK?

The latest battle in the culture wars concerns Dexter, a boyish serial killer who wends his way at 10 tonight from the homes of twisted Showtime subscribers, those perverts, onto Main Street, U.S.A.

CBS is proud as a peacock (well, maybe not a peacock) to be the first broadcast network to bring a full season of a high-class premium cable drama to the eyes of the masses for free.

But a Washington pro-censorship group is all aghast - "Is a show about a serial killer normal?" it asks - and it's demanding that CBS change its plans. After all, it argues, those plans were hatched as a way to present new (to almost everybody) programing during the writers strike, and now that's over.

With a platform like that, it's hard to tell if the group knows anything about actual television, since it will take more than a month for CBS to have any new episodes of its highly rated regular shows. And those shows already focus on such normalcies as psycho sex killers, lunatic bombers, and mega-minded geeks who frequently fixate on ladies' panties.

So the Big Eye still needs to fill the gap, and Dexter, from corporate sibling Showtime, is an excellent candidate.

For starters: With minimum cutting from the original, each episode is about five minutes longer than a regular broadcast TV show, and, with CBS needing to wrap by 11 p.m. to avoid the toes of its affiliates' lucrative local newscasts, that means five minutes less promotional clutter.

It's not precisely the Showtime original, but there's been little damage in transition, and the show remains riveting. You might find yourself rewarded for a little extra patience, if you find it slow going at first.

The nakedness (there wasn't that much) from Showtime is gone, and the naughty language has been toned down. The editing there can be distracting, as lips do not move in concert with the words they are producing, and the hardened police sergeant, who's the only one who suspects something is askew with Dexter, calls him a "mother-lover."

Bits of gruesomeness are also gone, which some might see as an advantage, but Dexter sustains the grimness that informed its character studies and its mysteries on Showtime.

You don't have to watch, of course. The pro-censorship people at the Parents Television Council don't seem to understand that. They think you're too stupid to change channels if something comes on that you don't like.

Or maybe they think kids will stay up to 10 p.m. (9 o'clock Central) to pick up some pointers on serial killing. Since nobody younger than 30 has ever even heard of CBS, that seems unlikely.

Kids will, however, be watching an episode titled "Bitchness" on MTV's Making the Band, in which scantily clad babes and thuggish-looking dudes (who are all probably perfectly nice) do all sorts of provocative things that kids actually do imitate, but if you're a pro-censorship group, you get a lot more notice attacking CBS than MTV.

It's understandable that people get angry when an unexpected curse word comes through the screen, or when something sexy shows up on a supposedly family-friendly show.

But there are no surprises like that in Dexter. It's about a serial killer, OK? He's also a blood-spatter analyst for the police force in Miami, so it's not going to be The Big Valley. Got it?

It does contain what the Television Critics Association, rightly, called the best performance by an actor in a series last season. Michael C. Hall is a mesmerizing monster, with a ready grin and a friendly quip, even though his character lacks an authentic emotional life. So he must behave in a way that seems perfectly fine to the show's other characters, while exhibiting enough contrivance that we viewers know something's wrong.

The writers apparently don't trust him to do that, so they go a little overboard on Dexter's inner voice. That's probably the show's biggest weakness.

Dexter has a strict code of conduct (he only kills killers) and a marvelously mixed-up sister (Jennifer Carpenter). Both of them got a lot of support from their foster father, whom we see in flashbacks, but also, perhaps, some less-useful baggage. Dexter has a girlfriend, too (Rita Bennett), who's almost as emotionally broken as he is, but much less deadly.

And the supporting characters on the police force are just as interesting as those fascinating, obsessive, naked-body examiners on CSI, which is TV's second-most-popular scripted show this season, right behind all the gossips, killers and adulterers on Desperate Housewives.

Television

Dexter

Tonight at 10 on CBS3