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Idea of a Dexter-like TV show

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Joe Washington

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
It would be called SOULMATES. A twisted love story about two people realizing in the midst of their relationship how much alike they truly are. Taking place in a small town and possessing elements of a black comedy, SOULMATES would be like Mr. and Mrs. Smith but with serial killers instead of spy assassins. It would be a one-season show with a definite ending like Harper’s Island, the Prisoner remake, or Jekyll.

The series opens with the boyfriend, who’s a medical examiner, enjoying his boringly normal relationship with his girlfriend, who’s a shy librarian. But the boyfriend is feeling the emptiness of something missing in his life with her. He goes to his therapist for help and the therapist suggests maybe he should be more open with her. Maybe he should tell her the secret that the therapist feels he’s been keeping from him and others in his life for some time. The boyfriend says no to the suggestion, believing the girlfriend would leave him on the spot if she knew. It is revealed that the boyfriend is a serial killer and a very good one.

The boyfriend’s always felt confident in his killer skills until a rival serial killer comes to town slaying people in a way the boyfriend never dreamed of. The boyfriend doesn’t know whether to be impressed or deeply jealous of the rival serial killer. When the rival killer steals a victim the boyfriend has been stalking for a while, the boyfriend launches his own investigation into the rival killer to find out who he is and expose him to the police so he would be out of the way and things would be as they were before he came in. Things take a shocking turn when the boyfriend discovers that the rival serial killer is his girlfriend. At some point, the boyfriend and the girlfriend confront each other about their dark secrets. Surprisingly, knowing this about each other strengthens their relationship.

But their happiness may not have long to last when a legendary FBI agent joins the police investigation to hunt down the girlfriend’s killer alter ego. The FBI agent has history with the girlfriend's killer alter ego going back when he was investigating her early killings. The FBI agent went into early retirement when his investigation came to a disastrous dead end. Now he’s back with a vengeance and he won’t rest until he catches her.

What do you think? Would it work? Would you watch something like this? What would the show or the characters need to connect with the audience and attract their interest?
 
And that's how it would be viewed, as bits of other shows/movies mixed together. And you're mixing in Dexter twice, s1(ITK) and s4 (Lundy).

Sometimes Hollywood doesn't want anything too original, so you might get away with it. Sometimes it's too close to the wind. I suppose it would depend on how it was finally executed (no pun intended).

Would I watch it? TBH, based on the above, probably not. Again, it would depend on the execution (with still no pun intended).
 
The FBI agent would be a combination of Dexter's intuitive Frank Lundy and the Shield's obsessive John Kavanaugh.

And the only similarities there would be between the girlfriend and the Trinity killer would be that they are both very clever serial killers, they have killed for a while, and they both have been pursued by FBI agents. Beyond that, they would share no similarity in personality, occupation, or backstory.
 
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Yes two. The Sopranos is one of the most overrated TV shows of all time. They had 6 seasons and maybe 1.5 of them were good.
 
Are you trying to prove you're more obsessed with Dexter than I am? :rommie: Oh I give up and cede the title to you. I know when I'm outclassed.

I think your idea is very risky but as a surreal black comedy, with a tone similar to Pushing Daisies except eeevil, it could just work, of course only on HBO or Showtime.

I wouldn't have the bf be a medical examiner, if only to move the details further away from Dexter. Maybe one or both of our young lovers should be lawyers in a big-city DA's office - similar access to criminal info as Dexter but a different milieu, more like Miguel. The Lundy-like character as nemesis is probably inescapable.

Dexter has already glommed the unique territory of a serial killer who kills only the bad guys, so this show couldn't do the same thing - far too imitative. So our serial killer lovers would have to be killing innocent people. The surreal comic tone would be necessary to keep the audience onboard - if it feels too real, like Dexter, even a premium cable audience would bail on the show (unless the FBI agent is the protagonist, but then it loses what makes it unique).

And having charming and kooky actors in the lead roles would be vital if this has a hope of working. I nominate Lee Pace and Sarah Silverman.
 
What if Zach Braff (who plays JD on Scrubs) and Sarah Chalke (who plays Elliot on Scrubs) were playing the serial killing couple? It would give them the opportunity to play different characters than the good-natured, sometimes goofy ones they have played in the past.
 
Trouble is we're too used to seeng them together as a comedy couple. People would say, "Where's the laffs?" They could do it if they did something serious in between first, break up theior comedy routine.

You know who I thought of first? Jim Carrey. He has a range, and does the unexpected. That might skew the couple a little older than you were thinking of, it's just an idea. Someone like Jennifer Jason Leigh or Jennifer Beals as the woman. They are known for their serious work, but have good comedy timing.

If you make 'em young, you'd have to watch it didn't degenerate into Dexter, OC, as these things have a habit of doing in the pre-production process.

ETA: you can write it in your head with certain actors in the theatre of your mind, but you have to keep the character descriptions generic enough they can be played by a range of them, within a certain ethnicity/age/etc. William Goldman mentioned this in (iirc) Adventures In The Screen Trade, and it's a very good point: if the actors you wrote it specifically for turn it down, why would anyone else want to take it up?
 
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What if Zach Braff (who plays JD on Scrubs) and Sarah Chalke (who plays Elliot on Scrubs) were playing the serial killing couple?
Zach Braff is the right idea, assuming he can act. I've never seen much of Scubs. I've never seen Chalke in anything and don't know who she is. Those roles would require a fair bit of acting ability, because you need to convincingly portray two diametrically opposed personas, one of which is going to drive the audience away if you do it wrong.

Other actors who could be cast: Zach Levi and Kristen Chenowith.
 
I'm also sensing a You've Got Mail potential storyline here. Only instead of e-mail, it'd be messages they leave to each other on corpses.
 
I imagined as the boyfriend's occupation him working in the town morgue or working as a reporter for the town's newspaper. Either job would feature some interaction with the police without him being an actual member of the force like a cop or something. I just imagined him wanting to keep an eye on things from the side of the law and using what knowledge he gains from there to his advantage when he's out on the prowl. But I don't want this to become a rip-off of Dexter which is what many of you are fearing this show would become.

And whether it's a librarian or something else, I wanted the girlfriend's job to make her seem less likely to be involved in something like murder or even hurting a fly.

I imagined the couple to be in their late 20's to early 30's.
 
I like the show. Its simply an amazing show. Its all episodes are very very interesting. Its basically a good show.

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