‘Dexter: Original Sin’ Is Guilty of Beating a Dead Horse: TV Review

variety.com:

Alison Herman TV Critic It is seemingly not possible for “Dexter,” as a franchise, to move forward. In the final moments of the sequel series “New Blood,” which aired eight years after the original series finale in 2013, Michael C.

Hall’s serial killer was fatally shot. (Or at least, he appeared to be — more on that in a second.) This development, on its surface, marked the end of the road for one of the defining leads of the antihero era, a role Hall had been playing for 15 years at the time.

Sure, yet another follow-up, “Resurrection,” would pass the torch to Dexter’s son Harrison (Jack Alcott). But if network Showtime wanted to keep wringing drops from this blood-soaked towel, the only direction left to go in was back.

Incredibly, the prequel “Dexter: Original Sin” tries to have it both ways. Not only does the 10-episode season — advance screeners of which were not provided for critics — wind the clock back to 1991, when a 20-year-old Dexter (Patrick Gibson) graduates from the University of Miami and makes his way into the local police department as a paid intern.