An Unkind Cut

A protest over a serial-killer drama shows that it's not gore that bothers "decency" watchdogs. It's ideas

Dan Littlejohn / Showtime

Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan and David Zayas as Angel Batista in Dexter

On Feb. 17, CBS premieres a crime drama about a police forensics expert in Miami. It is a disturbingly grisly procedural in which murder victims are rendered into gorgeously art-directed gore.

They have a name in the TV business for that kind of series: a CBS show. The network has had a successful formula for years with series like CSI and Criminal Minds, bloody odes to killers and the science nerds who catch them. But in Dexter, the science nerd is also the killer. The title character (Michael C. Hall) was raised by a foster father who trained him to channel...

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