Weekend Reading: Dexter, Californication and More Felicia Day

I recently caught up with the third season premiere of Showtime's Dexter, which airs this Sunday at 9pm (though has been available on the Internet seemingly for eons) and the first two episodes of season two of Californication. Minor spoilers ensue.

When it comes to Dexter, sadly, I mostly agree with Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune. Since she's a real television critic, I'll let you read her version. I fear she is correct when it comes to thinking there were a limited number of seasons you could squeeze out of the Dexter premise, but I am slightly more optimistic that that number might be three seasons because I've only seen the one episode and hopefully it was a set-up that leads to better things for the rest of the season.

The wonderful thing about Dexter, at least in the first two seasons, is that they took a fairly creepy and dark concept -- sociopathic serial killer - and not only made the show a lot of fun, they made the sociopathic serial killer likable. Not an easy thing to do and it was done brilliantly the first two seasons. I'll hold out a little hope. Without the Dokes character, or the Ice Truck Killer to use as Dexter's nemesis, it appears for the season that fate will fall this season to Jimmy Smits. I'm not yet sure if that's the case or how I feel about it if it is, but I'm open to taken in at least another couple of episodes before declaring it over for Dexter.

I didn't really agree with Ms. Ryan about Californication being "on the upswing" though. I really enjoyed season one of Californication, but I found at least a couple of the characters (including the main one) soooo annoying in the first two of episodes of season two that I didn't even make it all the way through the second episode. I will revisit it later as it's possible I'd taken in more television than my mind could process. I doubt it though. Californication is definitely a show that draws different reactions from different genders and I found myself agreeing much more with Tim Goodman, the TV critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. Tim headlined his article Californication loses its grip with reality.

But props to Mo Ryan for catching that the new role of rich and psycho music producer, Lew Ashby was acted by none other than Callum Keith Rennie who is best known for his Battlestar Galactica role as the model "Number Two" humanoid Cylon, better known as Leoben Conoy.

Earlier in the week I showed a little love for Felicia Day for her role on House and described her as a geek's geek. She's now even geekier to me. I was on the site where we got the WordPress theme we're currently using and looking for answers to a couple of questions in the support forums when I saw that Ms. Day had done the same thing. I wound up clicking over to her blog and reading a really cool post about her experiences with her role on House. If you want a very nice insider look at some of her experiences with acting in general, her role on House, and Hugh Laurie's blue eyes, It's definitely an enjoyable read.