Help! I'm addicted to Dexter

November 5, 2006 6:02 PM

Help! I've become addicted to the new Showtime program Dexter, and I'm trying to figure out how I can get a hold of new episodes legally and theres

I don't own a TV, but staying at a friends house a few weeks ago, I watched all the Dexter episodes to date. Unfortunately, I don't have cable, I don't even have a TV. So I'm trying to find a way to get a hold of the new episodes... legally.

Any suggestions? (And it doesn't seem to be available on iTunes, but if I'm wrong I'd love to be enlightened)

posted by zia to media & arts (14 comments total)

Hm...legally you say... I suppose you could ask one of your friends to record it for you on their computer and then burn a copy for you.
posted by Aanidaani at 6:07 PM on November 5, 2006

Have your friend record it for you and burn it to DVD. You don't need a TV to get a portable DVD player, all you need is $100 or a laptop.

You can also read the books on which it is based, Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Dearly Devoted Dexyterm by Jeff Lindsay. Or get them on audiobook. The series follows them quite closely.
posted by GaelFC at 6:11 PM on November 5, 2006

Let me amend my question slightly. Is there any way to subscribe to showtime on my computer via the Internet? So that I can view the Dexter episodes essentially online? So far, none of my local friends have showtime.
posted by zia at 6:21 PM on November 5, 2006

"Have your friend record it for you and burn it to DVD."

IIRC, that would technically be illegal. Redistribution of copyrighted materials or something like that.

zia: you might as well say "Eff it" and go for bittorrent.
posted by drstein at 6:34 PM on November 5, 2006

As a reference, "Weeds", another Showtime series, aired its first season in Aug-Oct 2005 and came out on DVD in July 2006.
posted by smackfu at 6:57 PM on November 5, 2006

Showtime doesn't distribute on the Internet because there's no revenue in it for them.

Showtime's business model is to sell their material to cable systems, who in turn sell it to cable customers. That's why there are no ads and why it costs a fee to subscribe on the cable.

If Showtime distributed their programs on the Internet, they would be spending money to produce the material, spending more money to distribute it on the Internet, get no revenue at all from people like you who view it there, and undercut the cable companies who are Showtime's customers.

Why would they want to do that? Answer: they don't, which is why you can't get what you're looking for. If you want a real, legal copy of those programs, you either need to get cable, or wait until they're distributed on DVD and buy them.

They have placed the first two episodes of the series online as teasers to convince people like you to subscribe to their cable channel, so that they can make revenue off you. But I seriously doubt they'll put them all online; it wouldn't make any sense for them to do so.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:14 PM on November 5, 2006

They do sell a few shows on iTunes for $2 an episode, but only the ones that are out on DVD already.
posted by smackfu at 7:26 PM on November 5, 2006

The first season is basically the first book in the Dexter series, which is much better IMO.
posted by FreezBoy at 8:07 PM on November 5, 2006

They have placed the first two episodes of the series online

Thanks for the tip, I have been meaning to look into this.
posted by dhammond at 9:00 PM on November 5, 2006

If you and your friend have broadband, you might want to consider giving them a slingbox for christmas?
posted by Orb2069 at 3:47 AM on November 6, 2006

oh wow. it's a book. off to amazon I go. woot!
posted by jaded at 4:38 AM on November 6, 2006

zia: you might as well say "Eff it" and go for bittorrent.

While getting a copy handed off by a friend may be in the eyes of the law (and certainly in Showtime's self-motivated eyes) to be identical, the bittorrent is WAY easier for them to track down.

My lone run-in with the DMCA was when Adelphia turned off my cable modem in response to a takedown notice from an agent of Showtime over a torrent of Dead Like Me. They do monitor and police sharing of their episodes and take action. There are methods available to blacklist possible monitoring IPs and possibly avoid trouble but personally I find it easier to restrict myself to broadcast tv stuff.
posted by phearlez at 7:44 AM on November 6, 2006

out of curiousity, private or public tracker, phearlez?
posted by fishfucker at 4:02 PM on November 6, 2006

ok, then forget bittorrent and go for Usenet. ;-)

you can get encrypted nntp from giganews now.
posted by drstein at 7:14 PM on November 11, 2006