Dexter is charming. His Laboratory--Not So Much

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Dexter Morgan is a disarming fellow--in more than ways than one. When he's not helping to solve crimes in his capacity as a blood splatter forensics expert for the Miami PD, he's methodically chopping up bad guys that slipped through the cracks of the justice system. Anyway, that's the premise for Showtime's new series, Dexter, premiering tonight at 10P, ET.

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Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under) portrays the title character, loosely based on the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay. To the world at large, Dexter is an affable guywithout a care in the world, the kind of guy brings doughnuts to work for his co-workers to enjoy, who brightens everyone's morning with flippant, flirty remarks, whose every action reflects his love for the sun and sand lifestyle of Miami. Nobody would ever suspect that all his charm is a facade designed to hide the fact he is actually a sociopathic serial killer devoid of hunan emotion. His relationships, at least in his mind, are based solely on his need to divert attention from his sinister proclivities.

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By and large, the people in his life play into his hands. His girlfriend Rita Julie Benz) is a survivor of domestic abuse and, as a result, disinterested in sex. Since Dexter himself is incapable of feelings of intimacy, she's perfect for him. His adopted sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), the only person he feels any love for, looks to him for inspiration as she tries to move from the vice squad to homicide detective. Only Sgt. Doakes (Erik King), a cynical homicide veteran, suspects something isn't quite kosher with Dexter. The head of the homicide unit, Lt. Marja LaGuerta, is too focused on her unrequited feelings of lust for Dexter to suspect anything.

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If all this sounds a wee bit comic book-ish, it should. The character of Dexter is much more aligned to pulp vigilantes like the Shadow than psychos like Ted Bundy. True, he stalks his victims, researches them obsessively and takes pleasure in dissecting them alive. But there's a difference-- he only kills really bad guys--child murderers, snuff filmmakers, that ilk. Seems Dexter's foster father, himself a cop, channeled Dexter's love of vivisection into a tool for righteous justice. And it's this angle that Showtime is banking on. The idea that some people are so evil that no punishment is too harsh for them is one that resonates in our collective psyche, and a character like Dexter provides us with a cathartic release.

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That's not to imply that Dexter is preachy-- far from it. It takes those dark elements and washes them in day-glo colors, with the final product emerging as a farce that makes us empathize with the protagonist.This is a crime drama unlike any before it. When Dexter sets out to track down a rival serial killer, it's a matter of professional jealousy. His day job serves more as a cover to track down his alter-ego's nemesis.

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The pilot episode of Dexter sets up the premise of the series flawlessly, and leaves just enough unanswered questions and potential subplots to gain a loyal following. Showtime has committed to twelve episodes, as is their customary strategy. But Dexter has enough built-in quirks to take it out of cult status and propel the network to a par with HBO.

Boarding the Enterprise Is Easy Enough--It's the Journey That's Tricky

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Love it, loathe it or think of it as that annoying weekend guest who's too drunk to care that you have to go to work the next morning and you're too polite to kick him down the stairs-- one fact remains abundantly clear: Star Trek is a prime linchpin in the history of pop culture. The show that boldly took us "where no man has gone before"--political correctness not having been invented yet-- turned forty years old in Septermber..

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Pause a moment to consider that this means at the very least, a generation and a half have never known a world without Star Trek. Even among baby boomers, scant few can claim their lives have not in one way or another crossed paths with some sort of Trekkian influence. And those who do claim otherwise are most likely lying.

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While I never considered myself a "Trekkie," I'll readily admit that David Gerrold's book on the making of "The Trouble with Tribbles" taught me the fundamentals of script formatting. He became a bit of an influence on me, more because of his audacity in getting his script actually produced than in the fact that it went on to be the most popular episode of the original series.

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Gerrold's latest endeavor, in collaboaration with Hugo Award-winning author Robert J. Sawyer, is serving as editor of Boarding the Enterprise: Transporters, Tribbles and the Vulcan Death Grip in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. Whew! Despite the unwieldly title, Boarding the Enterprise is a tidy collection of essays centering on the original series and its impact on popular culture. The seventeen articles included here represent a spectrum of thought ranging from straightforward analysis to giddy quasi-philosophy. Mostly, it's an entertaining light read.

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What distinguishes Boarding the Enterprise from the countless other histories and analyses surrounding Star Trek is its sly wink approach to the material. Take, for instance,Lawrence Watt-Evans' piece, "Lost Secrets of Pre-War Human Technology,"a witty bit of satire that attempts to logically explain why the Enterprise was bereft of circuit breakers and seat belts, among other niceties we take for granted. In "What Have You Done With Spock's Brain?" Don DeBrandt deconstructs the myth of Spock's vaunted logic. Scientist Robert A. Metzger makes a compelling case that the most essential character in Star Trek was not Kirk or Spock, but Scotty, and for reasons not blatantly apparent, in "Exaggerate With Extreme Prejudice."

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Other articles focus more on the Star Trek phenomenon in its historical context, both in socio-political terms, and its place in TV evolution and science fiction as a whole. Eric Greene equates the show as a metaphor for sixties upheaval in "The Prime Question" andin "We Find the One Quite Adequate," Michael A. Burstein discusses the ambiguous religious mores of the 23rd century. Both articles stretch their theses a bit too much to reach their conclusions, though.

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It's when Boarding the Enterprise stays within the "forty years and still relevant" theme that the book is at its best. Norman Spinrad much more eloquently illustrates Star Trek's importance than either of the aforementioned articles in "Star Trek in the Real World." And David Gerrold's forward, "The Trouble With Trek" points outs the flaws of fandom's blind devotion to the series.

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Completely unauthorized, and proud of it, Boarding the Enterprise will undoubtedly fuel unwarranted debate among hardcore trekkies. For the rest of us, it rekindles fond memories of a show that, for better or worse, shaped our perceptions of how the universe should work. Boarding the Enterprise is alternately insightful, amusing and nostalgic. Most importantly, it's always entertaining.

Robert Randolph Hits His Stride with Colorblind

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When I was a kid in East Texas there was a guitar shop called Mundt Music. It was a magical place for any pubescent would-be musician, stocked as it was with Strats, Les Pauls, Sunn amps, exotic guitars of every ilk and hue. It was a hangout where guitarists would spontaneously jam on the weekends, playing honky tonk, blues and hybrids that hooked into Spanish and classical influences. Tucked away in a corner was a Fender pedal steel that nobody ever sat down to play. It was hard to get worked up over a pedal steel with all the music candy that Mundt stocked. In those days, the steel guitar was a pretty sedate instrument.

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Fast forward to, I think, 2002, maybe 2003-- it doesn't really matter. I'm channel surfing late one night when I happen upon Letterman's mucical segment. Now I'm not the easily excitable sort, but what I'm seeing and hearing is hitting me like a solid jolt of caffeine. There's a guy on screen rocking the likes of which I'd not seen Stevie Ray Vaughnn's heydey-- and he's doing it on a freakin' pedal steel guitar!

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That was my introduction to Robert Randolph and the Family Band. I've been a fan ever since.

Anybody who can fuse Jimi Hendrix stylings to Jerry Lee Lewis antics, and make it actually work, is deserving of attention. Still, something about his first two albums, Live at the Wetlands and the studio second LP, Unclassified, didn't fully capture the intensity that Randolph brings to a performance.

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Colorblind, the third release by Robert Randolf and the Family Band, dispells any doubts about the band's ability to translate the excitement of their live performances to a studio recording format. From the infectious groove of the albums' opening track "Ain't Nothin' Wrong With That" to the closing tune "The Homecoming," Randolph makes it abundantly clear that he's come to funk you up, and he has no intention of taking any prisoners.

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To prove his point, he's packed the spirits of Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix a touch of Parliament and Jeff Beck in his arsenal. As if that weren't enough, he's convinced the likes of Leela James, Eric Clapton and Dave Matthews to accompany him on his quest to reclaim funk-soul from the Visigoths. It's a formidable alliance.

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It takes more than a bit of audacity to have Eric Clapton play second on a song, but that's exactly what Randolph does in the blazing cover of the Doobie Brothers' "Jesus Is Just Alright."Though the rendition is almost a dead-on cover, the delineated duel between Clapton's Strat and Randolph's steel spins guitar competitions in an entirely different direction. What results is more subliteral communication than competition.

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No album can stand on balls to the wall funk alone, so when Randolph does slow it down, he brings in Leela James for atmospheric dimension. "Stronger" is a ballad that evokes both Motown and gospel, and nobody is more suited than Leela James to elevate the tune to its rightful echelon. For my money, she is the heir apparent to Aretha's crown, and Randolph's steel (and side vocals) only add ambrosia to a voice thoroughly steeped in soul.

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But when all is said and done, this is Robert Randolph's album. He loves his pedal steel, and all the intricacies he can pull out of those thirteen strings.With Colorblind, has potentially broken out of cult status to hit the mainstream. ABC Sports is even using "Thrill of It All" to intro their college football broadcasts. (You can hear it here. ) There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, anything that keeps funk alive can't be all bad.

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Robert Randolph is an artist to be reckoned with. Colorblind is is incontrovertible proof of that.

Heroes Has its Mutants in a Row

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At first glance, it would be easy to dismiss Heroes (premiering tonight on NBC, 9 PMET) as a watered-down version of X-Men. To do so, however, would be a huge mistake. While it does tread on familiar comic book-inspired territory, Heroes painstakingly avoids splashiness, instead painting its characters in subtle tones of normalcy shaded by the extraordinary.

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The creation of Tim King (Crossing Jordan), the pilot episode zigzags across the globe, introducing us to a disparate group of characters, from an indestructable Texas cheerleader to a Japanese office drone with the ability to displace time and space to a male nurse who believes he can fly to a Vegas stripper haunted by a separate personality within herself to a drug addict painter who paints visions of the future. Their stories are told in separate vignettes, loosely connected by an Indian researcher's quest to redeem his dead father's reputation. All of it has something to do with a solar eclipse, which has awakened the protagonists' latent abilities, as well as signaling dire events for all earth.

.On paper, it all sounds more than a little hokey, but Heroes transcends any cliches by cloaking it all in ambiguity. The characters in the pilot episode are three-dimensional people-- a devoted single mom with a questionable past, a male nurse whose dreams of flying symbolize his relationship with his politician brother, a high school student who can do no wrong, and so on--whose lives are taking an unexpected and unwelcome turn.

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The pilot episode focuses on the characters' individual stories and inner turmoils, rather than their unusual abilities. It's a teaser, to be certain, but it beckons us to return to find out how the mysteries presented here develop. If Heroes can maintain the focus of the pilot episode, focusing on the characters and their relationship to their environment, NBC may have a sleeper hit on its hands. This is a show that promises social insights presented in allegorical style.

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Here's hoping that it doesn't deteriorate into comic book cliches.

One Day in Hyde Park was a Leap of Blind Faith

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If ever, in all the anals of rock history, there was an aptly named band, it was Blind Faith. Born from the ashes of Cream and the original incarnation of Traffic, Blind Faith was heralded as the first "supergroup." It seemed a brilliant idea at the time--pairing Eric Clapton's blues based guitar with Steve Winwood's jazz-infused keyboards, and tying it all together with the power of Ginger Baker's drums and Rick Grech's (Family) steady bass.

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They were doomed from the start.

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In retrospect, it's hardly surprising that Blind Faith produced only one album in a career that spanned less than seven months. The break-up of Cream had been bitter, due mostly to the animosity between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. Adding Baker as a drummer to what had began as jams between Clapton and Winwood was, in part, the reason Clapton to cynically call the band "Blind Faith," referencing his doubts about the bands future.

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Nonetheless, the fans, the press and, most importantly, the label pushed for an album release. Advances--huge advances--were paid, tours were booked and Blind Faith were superstars before even releasing an album.

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London Hyde Park 1969 documents Blind Faith's 7 June 1969 live debut. It was a less than auspicious live premiere for such a highly anticipated "super-act." The fledgling band was ill prepared for a venue of more than 100,000 fans, and their preformance by today's standards, amounted to little more than a soundcheck. The bandmembers themselves, particularly Clapton, would critique it as mediocre at best. It didn't matter, though--even though their debut was uninspired, the audience ate it up, and Blind Faith was thrust into superstardom.

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Despite the performance's shortcomings, London Hyde Park 1969 is a tidy historical document that offers a rare glimpse of a band who would become a seminal influence on the rock that followed them. The live recording (originally planned as part of a documentary) had been shelved ever since the band's dissolution later that same year. This DVD release features the concert in its entireity, and is the only video release available documenting Blind Faith. The intro, replete with mod-style voiceover, harkens back to the dying embers of the swinging sixties and the socially disenfranchised decade poised to replace it. Bonus materials include prehistoric (at least, music video-wise) videos of the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Cream.

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The influence of Blind Faith, for better or worse, on rock music cannot be overstated. The eponymously titled album that followed the Hyde Park concert was a mega-hit and transformed the face of rock and roll from snappy three chord progressions to a genre that embraced, with varying degrees of success, the experimentations of jazz and blues. What this DVD release does is illustrate the first steps of a new direction rock would take.

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Songs like "Well All Right," "Can't Find My Way Home" and "Sea of Joy" still hold up to scrutiny some 35 years later, and London Hyde Park 1969 affords the viewer a chance to hear them in their earliest forms. That alone would make the disc a worthy addition to a connoisseur's library, but the concert's blatant missteps, such as their cover of the Rolling Stones' "Under My thumb," make it all the more interesting.

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Shark Puts the Bite Back in Courtroom Drama

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Courtroom dramas, like medical series, have been a mainstay of network television from its earliest days. And while both genres have had their share of classics, in recent years they have shown their age. Both ER and Law and Order, once ratings powerhouses, are limping into oblivion. A case could be made that today's audiences, bombarded with information at every turn, no longer have the patience for procedural dramas.

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Shark, the new CBS legal drama starring James Woods, turns the courtroom drama on its ear in much the same way FOX's House skewered medical TV conventions. Both series have protagonists who are wounded renegades reluctantly redeeming themselves by mentoring a group of avid but naive proteges. While the set-ups are superficially similar, the commonalities between the two end there.

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Woods is cast as Sebastian Stark, who, when we first encounter him, is a celebrity LA defense attorney whose credo is "trial is war," and winning is all that matters. Justice, he reasons, is left to God. It's a stance what doesn't win him any friends in the Prosecutor's office, who disparagingly refer to him as "Shark." But when a high-profile client beats his wife to death hours after Stark won an acquittal for him, the haughty defense attorney has an epiphany of sorts, chilled wtih a bout with depression. He's forced to face the consequenses of his cutthroat tactics, and that makes him a shark with no teeth--and a man in search of redemption.

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He gets his chance when the mayor coaxes him into heading up a new high-profile crime unit in the LA District Attorney's office. For a man whose only motivation is winning, this is an ideal avenue for him to get back into the game. There's only one catch: his new boss is his former nemesis, Jessica Devlin (Jeri Ryan.) As to be expected, philosophical and ethical sparks fly, despite their grudging respect for each other.

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Further complicating matters for Stark is his devotion to his 16 year old daughter, who serves as a sort of moral counterbalance for Stark's take-no-prisoners professional life. Couple that with his tough love approach to his proteges, the inexperienced prosecutors that comprise his unit, and the possibilities for conflict in this drama on a regular basis are boundless.

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The pilot episode introduces all the principals without falling into detailed backstories, around a framework centering on an aspiring pop diva's murder trial. It's a terse story, skillfully directed by Spike Lee, whose visual sense adds an immediacy to even the most sedate moments. But in the end, Shark is a showcase for James Woods. Nobody plays smarmy characters better than he does, and his talents are played to the extreme here. Woods has always been able to bring a dimension to a superficially unsympathetic character that makes an audience empathasize with him. In Shark, he's chewing up scenery that would befuddle even the likes of Jack Nicholson. And he does it with a style that makes you want to replay scenes for dialogue alone.

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CBS obviously has high hopes for Shark, slotting in that Thursday spot that ER has dominated for years. If it can maintain the pacing and writing of the pilot, Shark could very well be the crown jewel of Thursday night network TV.

Jericho and the Gospel of Apple Pie

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The problem with Jericho is that it sees the Apocalypse as an annoying inconvenience for the American way. While the promo image of a child on a rooftop watching as a nuclear bomb detonates in the far horizon is undeniably compelling, the producers of this series have done little to capitalize on the drama that image evokes. Instead, they've opted for a derivative story premise heavy on paranoia and apple pie platitudes.

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At its heart, Jericho, like most post-apocalyptic stories, is a western. The prodigal drifter (Skeet Ulrich) rides into the sleepy town of Jericho, Kansas on his prized steed (in this case, a '69 Plymouth) to claim the inheritance his grandfather left him. He of course runs into opposition from the town's mayor (Gerald McRaney) who is also the drifter's father.For reasons yet unexplained, the drifter's mysterious past is called into question. The drifter, jaded as he is, prepares to leave Jericho, but not before saying hello to the town's schoolteacher (Sprague Grayden) and briefly reuniting with his high school sweetheart ( Ashley Scott.) The drifter quickly has enough of the town, especially since it was only a stop full of memories best left forgotten, and heads west for San Diego. As luck would have it, though, his plan is stopped short when his trusty Plymouth is totalled, thanks to his and another driver's rubbernecking a mushroom cloud on the horizon.

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It seems Denver was nuked, but whether it was an attack or an accident is unclear, since the resultant electromagnetic pulse has left the town utterly isolated from the outside world. Jericho has become, in effect, the wilderness outpost of civilization. But the denizens of Jericho are either remarkably resilent or blissfully stupid in the wake of this disaster. Sure, there are hints of mass panic, but a few patriotic words from the mayor quickly quell any potential uprising. Even when word eventually comes (via a phone tape message) that Atlanta was also nuked, the citizenry rallies behind the mayor and his message of unity.

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None of it is very compelling, much less believable. Even when word comes that Atlanta has also been hit, the citizens become momentarily jittery, but once the mayor gives yet another "We can beat anything if we all work together" speech, the populace nods unanimously in agreement. There's not one word of dissent voiced. Not one. That's not only unrealistic, it's bad writing.

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The pilot does set up a few plot points that might develop in coming episodes. There is a mysterious shooting, the mayor's bid for reelection against an opponent who "has his own agenda," budding romance--oh, and those mystrerious nukes--were they accidents or were we attacked?--and if so, by whom?

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If the Jericho pilot is any indicator, they'd probably be well-advised to answer that question in the next six episodes.

Smith is a Nice Enough Guy--for a Sociopath

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By all appearances, the Stephens family have a picture perfect suburban life. Bobby Stevens is doing well enough in sales--at least with wife Hope's income as a dental assistant-- to afford them a comfortable lifestyle for them and their two kids in an upscale suburban neighborhood where all the houses look the same.

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And that's what makes Bobby--well-- a little bit crazy.

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The pilot episode of Smith explores the ramifications of duality without offering much in the way of its moral implications. This is familiar territory for Goodfellas star Ray Liotta, who portrays Bobby Stevens. Here, he plays the frustated suburbanite who happens to be a master thief. Virginia Madsen (Sideways) is cast as his wife Hope, who may or may not know that his frequent "business trips" are actually excuses to cover up his heists. Hope has secrets of her own, which are merely hinted at in the pilot.

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The pilot also introduces us to Bobby's crew-- Johnny Lee Miller as Tom, the electronics expert, Simon Baker as Jeff, the psychopathic weapons expert, Frankie G as Joe, the transport specialist, Amy Smart as Annie, the decoy and Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog) as

Charlie, the fence. If all this sounds a bit like Ocean's 11, it's much more akin to Reservoir Dogs in execution. These are not sympathetic characters--they do their job with precision, without moral regard. It is difficult for the viewer to feel any empathy for the principals, but I don't think that was producer's John Wells' (ER, The West Wing) intent. Rather, it reflects the prevalent social clime of nothing--and nobody--is what it seems on the surface.

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While the premiere episode is laden with plot holes and incongruities--two million dollars split five ways is not a large chunk of change, especially after you figure in preliminary costs--Smith does have potential. CBS is taking a huge risk here, however. This being network television, pilots serve to set up the series, and not much else. If Smith turns out to be heist of the week with the Feds in dogged pursuit, there's not much hope for it.

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If, on the other hand, Smith focuses more on the mysteries and motivations surrounding the characters, and less on the gratuitous nature of the heist, this could be a series to follow. Either way, things can't turn out well for the Stevens family.

The Class Is Full of Edgy Friends, But Will it play?

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If the premiere episode of The Class is any indication of the direction the producers intend to go with this ensemble comedy, CBS may very well rule Monday nights this season. As the lead-in for a night that includes How I Met Your Mother, The New Adventures of Old Christine and Two And a Half Men, it has the potential to propel the network to the ratings that NBC used to enjoy on Thursday nights.

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Comparisons to Friends will be inevitable, given that The Class centers around a group of twenty-something acquaintances reunited by a singular event--in this case, an engagement party. Seems Ethan (played by Jason Ritter,John Ritter's son) met the love of his life, JoAnne in the third grade. Romantic that he is, he tracks down his third grade classmates and invites them to his wedding announcement party.

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The problem is , twenty years later, those classmates are nothing as he remembers them to be. They've all grown up--Kat is cynical, her sister Lena is loopy, and neither of them even remember Ethan. Nichole was dumped by Duncan, who discovered he was gay on their prom night. And then there's Richie, the suicidal depressive whose attempts at killing himself are inevitably by a phone call.

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Sure, it sounds all a bit contrived at first glance, but this is a pilot, after all. And the key to comedy is incongruity. Before the episode is done, subplots are set in motion, and motivations are fleshed out. And it's all done in dialogue that weaves between hilarious and poignant.

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The Class is a very witty little comedy that has a lot of potential. I'd check it out if I were you.

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Chris Smither Illuminates a Path Less Taken

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True, when he first gained national attention some forty-odd years ago, Chris Smither was associated with the folk blues movement of the time. But to dismiss him as a "modern blues"

player in 2006 indicates a lack of appreciation for the multitude of influences that drive his music. With a finger-picking guitar style that is equal parts Lightnin' Hopkins and Django Reinhart, and a baritone voice borne of Jack Daniels and Leonard Cohen, Smither transcends categorization.

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On Leave the Light On, Smither realizes his full potential in a work that is sometimes jaded, and at others almost whimsical, but always threaded with the odd coupling of romanticism and cynicism unique to the American psyche. "I'll live to be a hundred./ I was born in forty-four./ Thirty-nine to go/ But I ain't keepin' score," he laments in the title tune, setting the tone of the theme of mortality that runs through the album. It's by no means defeatist, though. Smither may be a bit long in the tooth, but he still has plenty of brimstone left in him.

And it is in striking the brimstone that Smither's genius truly lies. He's out to spark the stone, not set a fire with it. "Origin of Species" is a hilarious send-off of both intelligent design advocates and strict evolutionists told from God's point of view. Set to a Texas swing rhythm, it immediately disarms both forces through the comical logic of it all. "Diplomacy" is a commentary on current US international policy as seen through the eyes of Jerry Lee Lewis and the jukebox mentality.

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When he does play the blues, Smither has no peer among the current crop of players. Drawing on the roots of the genre, his thumb-oposing-two forefingers style of playing harkens back to the roots of recorded blues, as in his version of Hurricane James Hurt's "Blues in the Bottle."

More a tribute to his main influence, Lightnin' Hopkins, it nonetheless conjures a vision of blues at its purest--acoustic, raw and from the gut of the soul. Neo-gospel group Olladelle's back-up vocals lend an Appalachian flavor to the lilting "Seems So Real." Anita Suhanin's haunting

voice adds an atmospheric dimension to "Cold Trail Blues" and "Shillin for the Blues," serving as a perfect counterpoint to Smither's smoky leads.

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Leave the Light On is a distinctly American work, regardless of the angle from which Smither approaches any individual song. His cover of Bob Dylan's "Visions of Johanna" is turned on its side and treated as a waltz, with mesmerizing results, and his rendition of "John Hardy" is played in a manner not that far removed from the classic Carter Family recording. Musical spirits roam this album, from Delta blues to Texas swing to bluegrass to urban ballads, and Smither masterfully weaves the various idioms into a unique whole.

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Full of irony and poignancy, Leave the Light On showcases Chris Smither at what may be the pinnacle of his career. Here is an artist who has evolved over the years at his own will, and it shows on evey song on this album.

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