The fourth season premiere of Dexter on Showtime hit a series high 1.5 million viewers in its first airing, and up 25% from the season three premiere. It was the most watched show on Showtime since at least 2004 (apparently the way Showtime counted shows changed then). Californication hit a series high of 821,000. That up 57% from last year's premiere, according to The Live Feed and:
If you fold in the show's same-night encores, "Dexter" was seen by 1.9 million viewers and "Californication" had 1.2 million.
Though I'm happy for the shows, I started to watch Dexter and was about half way through it, got distracted by something and never went back to it. I'll probably wait until there are a few episodes and binge on it, unless I get distracted again. I haven't checked out Californication yet either, but those are so short I like to queue them up and watch a few back-to-back.
Dexter will never be as good as the first season, maybe because that one was actually based on the novels.
The second season was a mess, season three got it back on track. I’m skeptical about this season, but I’m hoping it’s good.
Let’s hope Dex catches up on his sleep so he can get to business!
Nice to know it’s still so successful after 3 season
The Dexter premiere was very underwhelming. Too bad it had all those viewers for a frankly sucky episode
Excellent for Dexter and Californication, Dexter has really put Showtime on the map and I expect it beat Curb Your Enthusiam and Bored to Death and that’s great considering Showtime has less subscribers than HBO.
The second season of Dexter was one of the best seasons of television. They raised the stakes so high for the show, I felt like the third season would have to take the tension down, and be less interesting and that’s exactly what happened – the premiere of season 4 was great, but nothing will be able to come close to when the arc of the season was the serial killer the police were after, was him.
How could you possibly get bored of Dexter? It is simply the best show airing on TV right now (I’m not including LOST because it’s not airing right now.)
Any insight into why I can’t get a season pass of Dexter on iTunes?
Hi robert, I have some SHO ratings as of 2004 and 2005. There are very sporadic, since they hardly had a release about their ratings at that time.
What I’m asking is, which show (I think they are referring to scripted shows, but with Showtime you never know) had 1.5/1.4 million viewers in 2004?
The only explanation that I have is that it wasn’t a scripted show, because as far as I know, no scripted show on Showtime had these kind of ratings back then.
Anyway, about these numbers. I’m not surprised, it seems a trend on SHO in the last few years (2006 onwards) that the ratings for their single shows keep improving year after year, independently of their quality.
I think this is due to two major factors:
1)Its subsciption base is bigger every year
2)People are more inclined to sample their shows now that SHO has created a strings of them.
Back in the days(2004) SHO had less scripted shows than now, so I think viewers weren’t used to watching them on Showtime.
Now thay know that SHO produced scripted shows they are more inclined to watch them.
It’s more difficult for a scripted show to be watched if it’s the only one (or one of the two) to be aired on a channel.
Robert, what do you think? My analysis is completely off?
anon: I think Nielsen changed something about the way it counted Showtime in 2004. But since its five years now, I don’t much care. As for your analysis, I think it’s mostly the first thing you mentioned — increases to the subscriber base.
From the cable coverage numbers we saw, Showtime had impressive year/year growth. I think for a lot of people it’s the shows like Dexter, Californication, Weeds (and now Nurse
BettyJackie) that get them to subscribe to begin with, so those shows are the most-watched shows on Showtime. I watch a LOT of showtime, but almost all of it is On Demand, so I never would count in the numbers for the first airing, even if I was a Nielsen home.Robert – do you mean Nurse Jackie? Nurse Betty was a film with Renee Zellweger if memory serves.
LOL, indeed I did…
The second season of Dexter was also based on the book series. S3 is when they went into uncharted territory. And surprisingly enough, I like the TV show WAAAAY more than the books. I think the show actually delves deeper psychologically than the books do.
Don’t have your hopes up too high for Californication. I tried the show, and it didn’t quite grab me.
My opinion is that Dexter and Californication are two of the most intelligent shows on TV. The writing is amazing, and the acting on Dexter (even from the side characters like the other detectives) is beyond most acting you see on broadcast TV. After the first season of Dexter, I was unsure how they would keep this up through more than one season, but they have managed to keep it fascinating.
If you have any desire to really delve into it and you missed the first and second season that really explored the dynamic between him and his dad and the death of his mother, you might want to go back and watch those before going forward.
His psyche is so complex that it makes you forget you’re rooting for a serial killer not to get caught.
I agree with most who loved season 1 and I don’t agree with others who didn’t like season 2. I thought season 2 was outstanding. Season 3 took a step back last year but not because of the acting (Smitts was great). I think the storyline lacked a bit. I’m on board with Dexter again this year and I know it’s been renewed already for next season but I think it needs to conclude in the next two years. I think the most interesting thing about this show is how it will actually end. Will Dexter get away with this forever? Will his sister or work catch him and find out his secret? Will he just implode with all the lies he has kept up? How does this murderer who is a sympathetic character continue to be the hero at the end?
Very pleasing to see Californication doing so well. I’m really not sure why it isn’t almost rivaling Dexter’s numbers as it’s a far more consistently entertaining show. I love Dexter but it can have periods of 4-5 shows in a row that are flat. Californication is always a joy.
I thought the season premiere of Dexter was alright but not great. The preview for episode 2 looks much more promising. As for Californication, after last season being sub-par I thought I’d watch the season premiere, get bored, and be done with it but the first episode was excellent. Also, I had no idea that the ratings for Dex and Cali were so low compared to other original programming on the network, or HBO for that matter.
I love both shows especially Dexter. I’ve been with it since the start. Season 1 is still the best, but 2 and 3 were still really good as well. 4 looks promising although it wasn’t the best episode of Dexter. The trinity killer story looks like it could be really interesting.
I thought the first episode of Dexter for this season was amazing! John Lithgow is so intensely creepy, and the missing body parts, oh my! I agree that Dexter and Californication are two of the best written shows on TV, and I’m happy for their continued success.
Amy & porky:
No matter what the quality of the current season of Dexter turns out to be, I can guarantee that John Lithgow will be amazing as the Trinity Killer. For a long time that guy used to make his living playing creepy scumbags but, beginning with 3rd Rock From The Sun, he started to do comedy primarily. This is a return to form for him.