Michael Hall takes on new morbid role

PASADENA, Calif., July 17 (UPI) -- "Six Feet Under" veteran Michael C. Hall will play a Miami police forensic expert working a double shift as a serial killer in "Dexter" on Showtime in October.

The anti-hero, Dexter Morgan, played by Hall, doesn't kill randomly, however. He carefully selects criminals the police can't catch, the New York Daily News reported.

As Morgan tells one child killer, "I have standards."

The TV series is based on books by author Jeffrey Lindsay who describes Morgan as "an extremely moral individual, as long as you take situational ethics seriously." Lindsay explains that Morgan "follows the rules that he has learned to live by."

After Morgan became obsessed by blood as a child, his foster father helped him find a career where his bloody preoccupation might become useful. The foster father, played by James Remar, presented a way for the character to "take unique responsibility for his darkness."

"We can talk about the grotesque aspect of ('Dexter')," said executive producer Clyde Phillips. "But there's also, I think, a great sense of humanity, a great sense of buoyancy."