Dexter Morgan’s second act as a lumberjack is coming to an end: Showtime has ordered a 10-episode Dexter revival, with Michael C. Hall on board to reprise his role as the killer vigilante.
Original EP Clyde Phillips will be back as showrunner of the quasi-ninth season, which is set to begin production this winter ahead of a Fall 2021 launch.
“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,” said Showtime president Gary Levine in a statement. “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 Clyde Phillips and Michael C. Hall have found it, and we can’t wait to shoot it and show it to the world!”
Dexter made its Showtime debut in Fall 2006 and ran for eight successful (if polarizing) seasons. In the much-maligned series finale — which aired on Sept. 22, 2013 — Dexter faked his death and assumed a new identity as a lumberjack. (TVLine readers gave the episode an average “D” grade.)
“I thought it was narratively satisfying — but it was not so savoury,” Hall previously conceded of the swan song, adding, “I think the show had lost a certain amount of torque. Just inherently because of how long we’d done it, because of the storytelling capital we’d spent, because our writers may have been gassed… Maybe some people wanted a more satisfying… ending for him, either a happy ending or a more definitive sense of closure.”
Showtime has for years been kicking around the idea of resurrecting Dexter. In 2014, then-president David Nevins confirmed that “ongoing conversations” were taking place to revive the franchise, but maintained any new series “would have to involve Michael… If we were to do it, I’d only do it with Michael.”
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