Much can be said about the opening episodes of Dexter’s fourth season. We can discuss the usual Pros and Cons, throw around predictions of what might or might not happen… even share theories on just what the show’s creators think they’re doing adding more silly Deb drama into the mix. But we all know what the hot topic is.

Our boy Dexter has got himself a new nemesis.

Whom, you ask, could possibly stand up to Michael C. Hall going all righteous Patrick Bateman on Miami’s criminal underbelly? To his methodical genius, advanced jujitsu, and boy-bookish charm?

Like a dose of sodium-pentothal to our collective carotid artery, our mystery guest steps forward.

A man who has faced down a raging sasquatch with a vaguely disgusted glance, then made himself a sandwich. A man who has chased windmill-giants and bandied words with the world’s most lovable ogre. Who has gone toe to toe with Jeff Goldblum, and likes to kill in his birthday suit. I think, by now, you know just who I’m talking about.

Admittedly, being excited over a naked John Lithgow is never a place I expected to find myself. Certainly it fits perfectly into the realm of those curious circumstances for which life can’t adequately prepare you. Like your first car crash, or Elektronic Supersonik. But from the minute I realized it wasn’t just a bath he was neurotically preparing for, up until he told that kid on the boardwalk that his choice of an ice cream flavor was repulsive, I’ve been hooked.

He’s the first thing that set the “oh shit, that’s creepy” hairs on the back of my neck on edge since this show’s first season. And I have to say… even those earlier tastes of what macabre lengths this show was willing to get into didn’t effect me like this nut job already has. The villains of this show have always had issues, not to mention our lovable antihero. But whatever the hell is going on in this guy’s head is steps and shadows beyond the rest. While Dexter’s “dark passenger” might always have one hand on the wheel… I think Naked Lithgow’s is in complete control.

Lithgow is the man in every way that shouldn’t be cool. Even when he was repeatedly groaning out eerie no’s beneath the scalding hot water of a darkened YMCA shower. Or when he watched the life drain from his victim’s face via a vanity mirror. Sick shit! Plus, brothers built like a peach colored brick house. Mighty, mighty, and letting it all hang out.

But that’s enough about Naked Lithgow. I don’t want to spoil the cool, refreshing breeze his character is invoking by dragging him through the muck of too much hype. Instead, a few words about the rest of the show. Which, naturally, was the usual mix of positive and negative elements the third season taught me to expect.

While I thought, for instance, that the new family dynamic with which Dexter must contend will prove revitalizing to a formula that has begun to drag, I found some other areas of the story wanting. Like why is the focus on Quin suddenly intensifying? He’s just not very interesting. And are they attempting to revive that lost Dexter-Doakes friction… or is it just me?

Also, like Dexter committing murder in the 1st on too little sleep, the editing felt noticeably sloppy. Or maybe it was just the production in general. Even the writing was clumsy and a little predictable. From the minute you see that pretty reporter approach Quin, for instance, you know what they’re trying to do.

But some of the other changes might spin out well. I always enjoy watching Batista keep his pimp hand strong, and Lundy chasing down the one killer who has managed to escape him repeatedly might prove interesting.

So… despite the few criticisms I have, my focus will remain firmly on John Lithgow’s surprisingly firm backside. And the promise of the first good story arc since the initial season that it brings. So what do you think? Is Dexter going to learn some lessons and move on to a fifth season… or is Naked Lithgow, like the plagues of Egypt, marking the end of a series that has perhaps gone as far as it is able?

Open on blatant hook: the aftermath of a catastrophic event designed solely to snag viewers nice and early. Pretty, English, possibly eye-linered Joseph Fiennes pulls himself from a flipped over, ruined car and looks onto a city immersed in chaos. All the traditional imagery follows: woman calling for help while holding her dying husband’s head in her lap, shocked people stumbling around with wounded hands on wounded heads and/or wounded necks… even a screaming man on fire that seems incapable of recalling the old axiom of stopping, dropping, and rolling.

After this quick little taste of things to come, we jump back to four hours earlier. Naturally.

Here we’re subjected to Mr. Fiennes and Lost’s Sonya Walger–two gifted British actors–playing the typical American couple with painfully typical American accents. He playfully claims that he hates her, she calls him babe, and I throw up a little in my mouth.

A few steps later brings homeboy into an Alcoholic’s Anonymous meeting with what might be a hillbilly, and the real disappointment sets in. Network TV actually expects us to accept another tortured, AA hero. Now, I understand and fully respect the fact that all good heroes need character flaws, but isn’t this particular downfall getting a tad cliché? If the show’s creators were determined to spotlight substance abuse, why not try something a little more refreshing and gritty, like methamphetamine or cocaine? Imagine Joseph Fiennes twitching between action sequences… ‘nuff said.

Anyway, a clumsy series of character introductions later, and the show builds suspense for the oncoming mass black out. Car chase over here, above mentioned hillbilly climbing electric pole over there, just a dash of hospital operation room drama, a shore-side suicide, and a babysitter in mid-coitis… boom! Fade to black and the beginning of some slightly contrived feeling mystery, and we pick up where the show started: city in chaos. Only this time a fuel tanker explodes and a helicopter crashes into a high rise. All of this in just over eleven minutes. Ye gods.

Beyond that, I’m not even sure what else to mention. I guess the show does pose some excellent questions, such as, how the hell does it only take the FBI approximately five hours to accept precognitive visions as viable evidence in their investigation? Or why wasn’t Dominic Monaghan in the pilot? And why, in God’s name, is the show’s hero so into standing on top of ruined cars?

John Cho is in the show as well, and his acting is, of course, top-notch. Although (through no fault of his own) the most interesting thing about the character is the cool scar pattern on his face he sports through most of the pilot. And you’ll love the closest thing to a nemesis the show’s heroes have–Suspect Zero–yet another cliché, tortured, and the one man walking around during the mass blackout.

Part of me wishes I could Flash Back and reclaim that hour of my life. But who knows, maybe there is potential here. I’ll at least check out next week’s episode in support of my man Dominic.