I get what you're saying Larry, but the first 4 seasons of Dexter, IMO, we're better than the first three seasons of Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad, agreed, kicked ass in its later seasons than Dexter.
Dexter has had some standout seasons, but issues that are really prevalent and noticeable in the bad seasons are still there in the better seasons of Dexter, too.
Season 1 of Dexter is great TV, period.
Season 2 was entertaining...very good television...mostly because the play off one another by Dexter and Doakes. Season 2 should have been a series finale type season...a lot of elements from the season should have been used to end the series. They spent the next 6 seasons chasing pretty much all of the elements of Season 2 to re-create them again. A FOIL for Dexter inside Miami PD (LaGuerta and Quinn), Dexter's faith in "The Code" (a constant shitty storyline), Debra's issues with men (every single season), Dexter finding a woman as flawed as he is to love (realization he loves Rita, Lumen, Hannah, etc)...Dexter Season 2 is the definition of blowing their load too soon...they spent the rest of the show's existence chasing nearly every element from this season and never caught the magic.
Season 3 was the drizzling shits and no better than 5, 6, 7, and 8.
Season 4 was great TV, but there are issues that make Dexter the drizzling shits prevalent in it, however, John Lithgow is such a force you can overlook it all, because fuck it, Lithgow's character is just so amazing it makes you forget about all the awfulness that is everything around he and Dexter. Also, the final scene was powerful and was legitimately, Dexter at its peak in popularity.
Season 4 had shit like...
-More unnecessary Debra romance drama...cheating on the black guy and getting with Lundy...again.
-LaGuerta and Batista have nothing to do...lets put them together and have them get married.
-Deb finds out that Dexter and Brian Mozer were brothers and Harry knew!
Seriously...Season 4 is filled with shit...but who cares, John Lithgow as Arthur "The Trinity Killer" was so fucking good, none of it even mattered. They spent the rest of the show's existence trying to find someone capable enough to play off Dexter as well as Lithgow did as the seasonal big bad.
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As for Breaking Bad...its a powerhouse. Things that happened in S1E1 still matter and are very important in S5E17. The two as quality comparisons end with the premise of each show being about a criminal hiding in plain site...after that, they couldn't be more different, mostly, in quality and execution. Breaking Bad, by very definition of its being, is better, any season, than Dexter's best. Breaking Bad is a character study where no piece was ever bigger than the whole and every piece meant something to the greater sum of the series. Dexter isn't anything like that structurally. It SHOULD have been, but it wasn't, which is the point I was trying to make in even bringing up the comparison.
Dexter being formulaic episodically with Kill of the Week type shit and seasonal Big Bads with secondary characters have poor stop and start pushes that never pay off.
Breaking Bad, unlike any other TV show has led to some larger than life payoff that may never again be replicated. Its like comparing what New Japan is doing now, to TNA. Yeah, its still wrestling, but what they are doing couldn't be more different.