The Outsiders: 'Dexter' and Duchovny

I've never really understood art. But on a trip to New York, I did my dutiful rounds of the big museums and discovered a painter I really dig. His name was Henry Darger, and he was a recluse who devoted his life to writing the epic story of the Vivian Girls. The Vivian Girls were children who fought some kind of evil force in the world. By all accounts, this book sucks. But as an aide-memoire, Darger also drew and painted scenes from his book, and these pieces are astounding. I bought a few postcard reproductions and I keep them over my desk to remind me that sometimes, you're not making the art you think are.

I like Darger a lot - but I would never want to watch a TV show about his life.
I've never really understood art. But on a trip to New York, I did my dutiful rounds of the big museums and discovered a painter I really dig. His name was Henry Darger, and he was a recluse who devoted his life to writing the epic story of the Vivian Girls. The Vivian Girls were children who fought some kind of evil force in the world. By all accounts, this book sucks. But as an aide-memoire, Darger also drew and painted scenes from his book, and these pieces are astounding. I bought a few postcard reproductions and I keep them over my desk to remind me that sometimes, you're not making the art you think are.

I like Darger a lot - but I would never want to watch a TV show about his life.

But I'll bet if someone wrote a pilot about a lunatic hermit who drew pictures of naked little girls fighting demons, Showtime would buy it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for Showtime. Woman cannot live on HBO alone. But for the last month, everywhere I go online, I find myself looking at ads for 'Dexter' (returns Sunday Sept. 27, 10 pm, TMN) and 'Californication' (returns Monday Sept. 28, 10 pm, TMN) - and not separate ads, but a single ad that promotes the two shows together. It seems like a weird strategy to me. I know everyone is trying save money in these Tough Economic Times, but what on earth do these two shows have in common other than their American network home?

After devoting perhaps more time to the question than most people would deem worthwhile, it hit me - they are both shows about outsiders.




Let's look at Hank Moody of 'Californication' first. David Duchovny's lovelorn writer is a fish out of water, one of TV's greatest clichés. He's a New York kinda guy stuck in an L.A. world. He's all about books, and everyone around him is all about the movies. He deals with this by sleeping with a succession of impossibly beautiful and easy women, all while crying his heart out for his ex-girlfriend Karen (Natascha McElhone), who is basically a pair of walking cheekbones. He even manages to get the girl (and lose her again). I know, aren't you weeping for him? Isn't it so sad?

Look, I've got problems with ''Californication'. I think the women in the show are insulting - they range from nagging harpies to nubile psychopaths. I think the cast - aside from Duchovny, who manages to disappear into this role, leaving Fox Mulder firmly behind - struggles with half-written roles. I think if this wasn't television, Hank Moody would have lost custody of his daughter years ago, probably around the same time he ended up serving a few years for a DUI. But I'm willing to leave all of that aside.

Where 'Californication' really leaves me cold is that Hank Moody is perfectly happy as an outsider. He freakin' loves it. Which means he never really changes, and he never enters the sphere of normal folks like us. Some shows can carry this off. 'Twin Peaks' had it going on. 'Six Feet Under' used grief to excuse all kinds of wacky behaviour. But 'Californication' shows us a cast of amoral, empty characters as if we're all like this, with no sense of how bizarre and senseless it seems to someone who lives outside the vapid world of Hell-A. Maybe with Hank moving into a teaching position this season, we'll get to see him stacked up against ordinary people - you know, kids at school who want to learn stuff. But based on the two seasons I've forced myself to watch so you don't have to, my bet is he'll spend most of season three sleeping with his students who will turn out to be either crazy, stupid, or both.



'Dexter', on the other hand, gives us a cast of fairly average people, with one exception. Michael C. Hall is probably the only actor who could make the show's main pretension work - here is a guy who doesn't feel, but pretends to. Even Hall has trouble with that double-edged sword sometimes - in certain scenes it sure looks like he's actually feeling, no faking about it.

But 'Dexter' works because the eponymous lead character is driven by the urge to fit in with normals (also the urge to kill). He cares for his sister, his wife, his colleagues, and now in season four, his son. Or he pretends to care, since he doesn't actually have feelings. See what I mean about this not-caring thing? It's a tough row to hoe.

Regardless, it's this insistence on fitting in that brings Dexter into our world, the world of the norms. The scenes where he deals with his family and friends bring the real drama and tension to the show, not the showy murder scenes. And the thing is, most of us can relate to Dexter's difficulty in understanding the motivations of the people around him. Who among us hasn't struggled to deal with an annoying sister, an anxious wife or a two-faced friend? That stuff is pretty familiar to me - but I've never had to worry about whether it would be better to expose my underage former lover's plagiarism or keep it to myself. Or any kind of parallel situation.

I said I have issues with 'Californication' - to be fair, I've got my issues with 'Dexter', too. For one thing, each of the three seasons has had basically the same through plot. Someone out there knows Dexter is a killer, and at first it's a comfort to him, then it becomes a threat. Dexter does away with each of them towards the end of the season - his brother, Lila and finally Miguel. If season four progresses in the same way, I'll be inclined to skip it. But with Junior in the picture, maybe Dexter will get to the bottom of this caring-not-caring paradox, and we'll get to go with him.

So I'll give it to Showtime that these shows have enough in common to warrant sharing ad space. And as much as I'm complaining, based on my limited experience of the likeability of serial killers and L.A. writers, they aren't exactly wrong.