Season Six
Which brings us, painfully and inevitably, to season six. Oh, season six. To this day one of the worst, most abysmal pieces of crap I have ever sat through. My expectations had been set so low and yet this season still managed to disappoint. If season four was a collection of some of the greatest moments the show has ever yielded, season six is its antithesis. From the stupid religious killers to the painfully obvious 'twist' regarding Travis' split personality to the downright insulting 'Deb is in love with Dex' subplot; it was as if the writers recognized everything that made the show great and decided to just do the opposite. Moments of sheer idiocy abounded; when the villain paints a gigantic incriminating picture of Dexter at a crime scene, the police conveniently wait for our hero to arrive before going inside because they 'need the blood guy'. This has literally never happened before. In every crime scene the show has ever done the investigation is already underway when Dex arrives. This painful contrivance exists so we can get a 'tense' scene of Dex destroying the picture before the other police see it. Then, the revelation about Deb's feeling for her brother. It was a slap in the face for long-time fans of the show. After all, the relationship between the two adopted siblings was one of the strongest elements of the series. They cared about and supported each other through everything, and to make it romantic simply destroyed all of that. Add to this the poor scripts, the overabundance of unnecessary voiceovers (characters discuss the Bay Harbor Butcher, Dexter's voiceover announces 'I am the Bay Harbor Butcher' as if we'd forgotten) and it starts to seem like the show had completely lost it. I was quite prepared to just give up on the show by this point, until that final moment. The writers must have realized the level of audience goodwill they had spent the season destroying, and this was all they could do to ensure viewers stuck around another season. I can tell you now; it's the only reason I did.