Dexter: Original Sin
Dexter: Original Sin
A young Dexter Morgan transitions into an avenging serial killer.
grantss reviewedAugust 2, 2025
Good but not in the same league as the original series. 7/10
Before there was Dexter Morgan, vigilante serial killer, there was Dexter Morgan, pre-med student. We see how Dexter developed into the killer we know, the part his traumatic childhood played and his relationships with his father, Harry, and sister, Deb.
I was a big fan of the original Dexter series though the final season, especially the final episode, took the shine off somewhat. To my surprise I enjoyed the sequel, Dexter: New Blood, though it didn’t have the same content nor vibe as the original series.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this series and was initially quite pleasantly surprised as this series seemed to blend quite seamlessly into the original series. It has the same eerie theme music, roughly the same intro, the same vibe. It even has Michael C Hall (Dexter in the original series) narrating, just like in the original!
However, after a very impressive first episode, the quality and engagement drop off somewhat, though not enough to make it unwatchable. Patrick Gibson, who plays the young Dexter, is no Michael C Hall. His Dexter schtick seems forced, like he is trying to be weird for the sake of it. He quickly irritated me and by the end of the first season my engagement with his character was quite limited.
Adding to this is some uneven, sloppy writing. The broader story arc is okay and there’s some great sub-plots (e.g. Brian Moser) but there’s scenes and sub-plots which are really clumsy and contrived, some to the point of being laughably stupid. I was also hoping for more a build-up before Dexter becomes a killer, to show the conflict within him and to slowly develop his character, but the series launches into that almost straight away.
Overall, it’s reasonably entertaining. It’s also quite disappointing as after Episode 1 this felt like it had the potential to come close to, if not equal, the original series.