Season Three
I finished watching season two just as the third season started, and I could not be more excited. The first episode was a bit slow, but that could be expected. When this sluggish pace populated the rest of the season, it became an issue. Still, I remained hopeful. The show had made everything count so far; surely the saga of Miguel Prado and his dysfunctional family would soon be as compelling a story of that of Doakes, Lila or the Ice Truck Killer? Maybe, having paid off most of its ongoing subplots in season two, the show was merely carefully setting up new ones. It made sense and it would surely build to something brilliant. And for a moment, it kind of did. The last handful of episodes in season three were great TV, but they came at the end of a dull slog of a season. There was nothing especially wrong with what was happening, it just wasn't all that interesting. The problem with season three is that I always just felt like I was waiting for the moment when I would start caring about the Skinner, or Miguel, or Anton Briggs, or Ellen Wolf or any of what was happening. And yeah, they managed to recapture some compelling tension at the end there, but did we really have to wait until the third last episode for something genuinely exciting to happen? Jimmy Smits was really very good as Miguel Prado, but the material was beneath him, and it's hard not to feel sorry for him considering he will now always be remembered as one of the Dexter adversaries who just wasn't really as good as Trinity. To me, season three represents a television show that had played all its trump cards already and was trying to find a new way forward. It was passable, but not hugely successful, and this left me with a slight sense of concern for the future of the series. This concern was warranted, but as time would tell, it came a year too early. Season three finished with me still loving the show, but less enthused about what was to come next. When season four started, I didn't bother watching it all straight away. I would get to it when I got to it. That was my mistake.