Don't mind the blood splatter. Dexter: New Blood, the follow-up series to the much loved Michael C. Hall-starring Dexter, just murdered previous records set by Showtime. The series took a hatchet to series of the network's past, including the likes of Homeland, to score an average of over 8 million weekly viewers across all platforms, becoming the most-watched series in the history of the firm.
Screening this past Sunday, the finale was the biggest for any series hosted by Showtime since the Season 3 finale of Homeland in 2013, scoring a total of 3 million viewers on Sunday alone. A record 2 million viewers also joined from streaming and on-demand platforms, the network said via official press release.
Gary Levine, the President of Entertainment at Showtime Networks, said this on the show's ravenous success:
"We’re thrilled by the overwhelming response from the millions of fans of Dexter: New Blood these past 10 weeks. Whether they loved the finale or couldn’t bear to see it end, we so appreciate their passion. Our deepest thanks to Michael [C. Hall], [series showrunner] Clyde [Phillips], [and executive producers] Scott [Reynolds] and Marcos [Siega] for delivering a profoundly powerful conclusion to our beloved and extraordinary series.”
With the show being such a huge success for the network, you'd think a sequel season is on the cards (regardless of whether it was originally conceptualised to be self-contained). We asked Phillips whether this would be the definitive end to the Dexter story, and he had this to say on the potential of a follow-up:
"Well, it is really Showtime's call. And speaking of calls, if they were to call me and say, "Look, this is a huge asset for Showtime." I think, and I underline the word think, I think Dexter is their number one asset. If they were to call me and say, "We want to do Harrison. Are you interested?" Much like when they called me to say, "We want to reboot Dexter, and you're the guy," I would drop everything to do it.
I mean, the show's hugely successful for them this season. And we're going to be getting some big numbers in January and all the people that DVR-ing the show so they can binge it. We're going to get a whole new set of numbers later in this month. And I think that could well be determinative in Showtime's decision. And if they want to do it, again, I got a lot of stuff going on, and I'll drop everything to do it."
Sounds like he's keen — and with such huge numbers, you've gotta think that many hands are grabbing for receivers. All previous seasons of Dexter are now available for subscribers on Showtime.