At long last, the new season is here and you can watch as Dexter‘s world changes forever.

While this season did serve up some awesome gore, it certainly has some tough competition in the murder department. Over the years, some of the gnarliest deaths on television have happened on Dexter. Here’s a rundown of the killer of killers‘ best kills. Hopefully, it will hold you over until next season.

Nathan Marten – “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” Season Three

The code that Dexter lives by only allows him to kill fellow killers, but if his kids are involved, it’s personal. When a convicted sex offender takes an interest in his girlfriend’s daughter, Dexter pays him a visit. That visit ends with Dexter strangling him. While disposing of the body, he remembers he was supposed to pick up milk, so he retrieves it from the sex offender’s fridge. Ever the provider.

Cole Harmon – “Take It” Season Five

Cole Harmon was serving as the muscle in a ring of rapists and murderers, so Dexter needed to take him out before he could get to the crew’s ringleader, Jordan Chase. This was no small task, as Cole was as high-profile as he was twisted and evil. He was even able to smash through doors like Michael Myers. Dexter needed a little help with this one and recruited Lumen, Harmon’s only victim to have ever escaped. Putting a knife into the heart of her torturer proved to be a turn-on as it lead her directly into Dexter’s arms. That’s definitely a chapter that Neil Strauss didn’t cover in The Game.

Mike Donovan – “Dexter” Season One

Dexter’s first on-screen kill introduced us to his hobby with one small exception. His normal M.O. is to subdue and drug his victims. Then they wake to find they have been strapped to a table in a kill room tailored to their particular crimes. Dexter then makes them face photos of their victims, before he shames them and takes a drop of blood from their cheek. He then plunges a knife into their chest.

I guess his printer was broken this time around because in the case of the child-murderer choir master, he actually dug up the remains of the victims to hold before him, stating, “It took me a long time to get these little boys clean.”

Ummm… welcome to television. Let me just set a TiVo alert.

Today we have a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming season in advance of the October 2nd premiere. Looks like business as usual at Miami Metro – a dead body ends up on the beach and that somehow lead Dexter to a coalition of killers. But this time they’re murdering in the name of God, not in the name of “Hey, this will feel cool.”

The cast and crew are promising this will be the biggest and weirdest season yet, with the previously established rules poked right in the eye. Does that mean that the Batista and LaGuerta storyline will suddenly make sense and be interesting? I’m not ready for that.

Newly-appointed guy in charge of making this season not suck, Scott Buck had this to say,

“[It's] a very strong, sure-of-himself Dexter, which would be the difference from the Dexter of last year, where Dexter was questioning himself about everything. A year has passed since the end of last season, so Dexter has put his life in order. Things are good for him. He’s very centered, strong and focused, much the same way he was in season 1, but now he knows so much more. He’s a much more self-assured person. A more evolved serial killer.”

He also shares some info about the killer Edward James Olmos will play. As well as his disciples played by Colin Hanks and Mos (formerly Def).

“Professor Gellar is someone that all of Miami is seeking out. He becomes a big person of interest in some crimes that are being committed in Miami. They are probably the biggest crimes we’ve ever seen on this show. We’re going toward a different kind of serial killer than what we usually see. This is someone more in line with the Zodiac Killer…. He kills people with great conviction. This is probably the first serial killer we’ve had who thinks he’s in the right.”

“Professor Gellar definitely feels like he’s killing for a reason, and Dexter is very, very curious to know what exactly that reason is, and to try to understand it in some way. It’s very intriguing and baffling, and it doesn’t make sense to Dexter.”

“[Colin Hanks's] Travis Marshall is a close acquaintance of Professor Gellar. The two of them work together. Professor Gellar is a character with tremendous charisma, and Travis has very much fallen under his power…. Travis has absolutely no interest or inclination to hurt anyone, yet he’s also someone who’s strongly driven by a belief system that compels him to do things he doesn’t necessarily want to do. ”

“[Mos's] He’s a former street thug who found God while in prison, and now we call him Brother Sam rather than Father Sam, because he’s not so much a preacher or a minister — he’s someone who is trying to live what he believes is a righteous life by helping others. He runs an auto-body shop and he hires ex-cons, trying to help them get their lives straight. One of them becomes a suspect in a crime and that leads [Brother Sam] to cross paths with Dexter.”

Another great question that EW posed, Why did last season suck so bad and what are you going to do about it, fucko? I’m paraphrasing.

“Just the fact that it was Dexter on a very dark path. It became so heavy and brooding at times that we really wanted to brighten up Dexter’s world a bit…. You couldn’t kill Rita and not have Dexter go to that place, but we spent a season there and now we’ve turned him around. Life is good now.”

I wasn’t the biggest fan of season five but the show has been pretty good in past seasons and that’s enough to get me to watch again. As long as it keeps throwing crazy twists our way, it should be able to get its groove back.

I love the show and am ready for a return to form, but it bodes poorly that the new promo is essentially a direct rip-off of the “Teen Wolf” promo that has been airing everywhere these past few months.

Yeah, I bet he bangs Deb. (THR)

Palermo Pictures is looking to put Dead Circus into production soon. It’s a let’s-muck-around-with-actual-historical events drama based on the real life death of 60s singer Bobby Fuller. Do you vaguely remember hearing this song about fighting the law and the law winning? He did that. The cast is pretty solid so far: Michael C. Hall “Dexter“), James Marsden (X-Men), Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire) and Melissa Leo (aka The Oscar F-Bomber).

The story is about a screenwriter — trust me, it does get better — who’s investigating the supposed suicide of newly minted pop star Fuller in 1966. The problem? Most people don’t commit suicide by badly bruising themselves and pouring gasoline down their own throats. Then we veer off into the Make Believe Zone, when the writer discovers that Fuller’s “suicide” ties in with the Manson family and snuff film buried in Death Valley. Guys, something tells me this was not actually a suicide at all.

Dead Circus will be directed by its co-writer Adam Davenport, with novel writer John Kaye sharing writing credit. (Deadline)

This is a touchy subject whenever I bring it up around here, but”Dexter” is an uneven show. First two seasons were great, third season was a departure from that level of quality, Season Four was weird, twisted, gut-wrenching and ultimately fantastic. And then came Season Five: the weakest the show has even been. Characters acted completely out of sync, story-lines were inexplicably dropped, Julia Stiles over-acted, and there were cheap CSI-style graphic effects pounded over our heads. Naturally, it was also the series’ highest rated.

In spite of that, Season Five showrunner Chip Johannessen will not be returning to muck up the sixth. Executive Producer Scott Buck will be stepping up to lead the show, hopefully, back to its former greatness. You can’t be completely pissed at the direction the show took this past season, however. After all, it did introduce us to a cat that hiccups and farts at the same time.

Ha ha. So gassy. (Deadline)

^{Welcome back.}

**SPOLER ALERT: DON’T READ FURTHER UNTIL YOU’VE WATCHED THE FOURTH SEASON OF’DEXTER‘**

Turns out that Julie Benz will return for the new season of "Dexter." Aussiello got the scoop that Benz will reprise her role in the season premiere despite the fact that Rita’s blood is now on the outside of her. Though everyone’s being tight-lipped about how she will return.

As she told us a few months back, Sara Colleton reaffirmed that Rita won’t be brought back as a ghost a la Dexter’s father, “We reserve those for Harry. If you have too many things like that it becomes gimmicky.”

I hear what she’s saying. It’s like when "RoboCop: The Series" introduced that hologram-ghost as a recurring character. Totally pulled me out of the tightly-woven narrative.

^{I’m not ready to say goodbye to this picture.}

Entertainment Weekly has new details about the fifth season of Dexter in the latest issue. If you’re not caught up with the show, there are SPOILERS AHEAD. Bold and all caps. My ass is covered.

It looks lik Dexter will be packing up the kids and returning to his old bachelor pad to crash with Deb in the new season. Suburbia never really felt right and dropping deuces where his wife was murdered doesn’t really appeal either. New showrunner Chip Johannessen had this to say about the new living situation, “It’s partially funny and partially not. Deb is not exactly the most maternal person. Nobody quite knows what they’re doing, so there’s a certain kind of struggle to cope.” In other words, these kids would be better off left in the woods to fend for themselves.

The interesting story detail however pertains to the investigation of Rita’s murder. Neither the police nor the FBI believe Trinity was responsible and consider Dexter the prime suspect. If Nancy Grace has taught me anything, it’s usually the spouse in these cases. Especially the ones that play with blood for a living.

The season four finale on Dexter knocked the wind out of us and made me want to punch John Lithgow (something I swore I’d never do). Though it also served to reinvigorate a slumping storyline. So we were more than eager to chat with executive producer Sara Colleton when we caught up with her on the red carpet at PaleyFest 2010. If you’re not caught up on the series, stop reading now as there are SPOILERS AHEAD. Here’s what she told us we can expect in the new season.

Dexter’s not really one to wear his heart on his sleeve. What can we expect as he learns how to grieve?

He is going to have to deal with a lot of feelings that he’s never felt before, so it’ll be interesting. He’s going to approach it all, we hope, in a way that is unique and feels authentic to the audience. You’ll see him go through all of those things and it will be different. I don’t want to telegraph exactly what we’re going to do because we want to present what anyone would be going through in that situation in a very unique Dexter-like way.

SEE WHAT ELSE COLLETON HAD TO SAY, INCLUDING NEWS ABOUT THE SEASON’S BIG BAD, AFTER THE JUMP…

Dex no doubt feels a great level of guilt now that his secret life has directly harmed his loved ones. How will this guilt affect the tone of the season?

We hope that every year reflects the accumulative emotional experience of previous years. So it’s not as if every year we start with tabula rasa and go through the same beats. So what he’s gone through or the way we ended season four is such powerful emotional gut-wrenching thing for anyone to go through. But for Dexter particularly for two reasons. A, where is his responsibility in Rita’s death and B, has he put his child in a situation that mirrors his own origin as a deeply unhappy person who is too damaged to change?

You’ve always cast wonderful adversaries but John Lithgow had such an amazing turn. Where do you go from Trinity?

We’re trying to write really brilliant adversaries that require brilliant actors so we will hope to get a piece of great casting.

Is Dexter’s suburban life going to come to an end?

It’s going to be harder to maintain because it will be a process, but without a wife and without a reason to be in the ‘burbs, is Dexter meant for the ‘burbs? We’ll see. We feel it’s a tremendous opportunity because we sort of went down an avenoe of human behavior as far as he could go before it became dead ended really.

Will we see Julie Benz again? In flashbacks or in the same way Harry visits Dexter?

I think it’s very important that the show and everyone in Dexter’s life explores and shows the loss of Rita. Bringing her back in a flashback or visionary way sort of steps on our use of Harry. We want to be very, very specific about that and not get gimmicky because it becomes too much of a device.

(Source: Fred Topel)