nodisam: even people who don't like their families would rather spend time at home with them than be at the office dealing with work crap. That's why we're paid to work.

And even people who do like their families leave their families to go to work. Having to only work part of the year (assuming his only job is with "Dexter" he is not working while the season is finished and being shown on the air - that's pure vacation).

Exactly, "spending time with my family" is an excuse, not a reason. He gets a lot of the off-season to spend time with his family. Meanwhile everyone else involved in the show has families, too. Same with anyone else who has a job.

This is really bad news for Dexter. Horrible news. The show has been great and Clyde Phillips is the person who has made the show what it is. Now with all sorts of issues left over from season 4 (as we were discussing in the thread about the season finale), they've lost the guy who made the show as great as it is up to this point.

I predict a horrible decline in the quality of Dexter from this point on. The shark is ready to leap.

Bottom line, for a show that's been as good as Dexter has with one guy as showrunner all this time, I simply don't trust anyone else to do it. I'm sure next season we'll start to get vampires and shapeshifters for Dexter to find and kill. Won't that be exciting!

How they tie up the loose ends from season 4 will make or break the show. So the question is: why did Showtime fire Clyde Phillips? And why did Phillips agree to keep his firing confidential? The season 4 finale just got the highest viewing numbers in Showtime's entire history. If Phillips wanted more money, they would have given it to him.

Unless Phillips just demanded an INSANE amount of money and wouldn't budge and quit when he didn't get it. That's a possibility.

Why does someone who has a hit show take time off to spend "more time with the family"? That's what businessmen and politicians say when they get fired or are asked to quit. Seems odd to me.

"It ended on a climax that was so well done and gripping that my mind cannot even wrap itself around the possibilities of how to top it"

Wow, really? See that shark? Yeah they just jumped it.