‘Dexter,”Californication’ make success from excess

I've never been much good at denying my urges -- the low point being my set of commemorative plates commemorating the first set of commemorative plates -- but I live like a monk compared to Dexter Morgan and Hank Moody.

As the focal points of "Dexter" (9 p.m. Sundays, Showtime) and "Californication" (10 p.m. Sundays, Showtime), these guys exhibit less self-control than the Palin family at Neiman Marcus. (I know, it's piling on. But when am I ever going to get to make that reference again?)

But that's exactly what makes them so watchable. Whether it's Dexter's (Michael C. Hall) spilling the blood of another murder victim or Hank's (David Duchovny) exchanging other bodily fluids with a series of women so incredible he makes Wilt Chamberlain look like one of the Jonas Brothers, both shows' secrets are in their excess.

"Your father has to understand that there are consequences to his actions," Hank's longtime love, Karen (Natascha McElhone), tells their daughter while he's spending the night in jail for taking a swing at a cop. "He can't just go around saying and doing exactly what he wants at all times." Of course he can. Otherwise there wouldn't be a show.

Dysfunctional writer Hank comes across as Id Vicious, a wrecking ball with legs who can be counted on to insult or sleep with -- sometimes both -- anyone who wanders near, while he fires off non sequiturs of the "Rectum? Damn near killed 'em!" variety.

The problem is, "Californication" is in danger of succumbing to Tommie Gavin Syndrome (named after Denis Leary's somehow irresistible "Rescue Me" character). Women can't wait to get into bed with Hank. Prostitutes fall in love with him. He even gets hit on by the nurse during his vasectomy. Honestly, it's like he's got a tractor beam in his pants.

In season two, though, Hank's at least trying to clean up his act, and he's no longer the least responsible person on the show. He's moved in with rock icon Lew Ashby (Callum Keith Rennie), who manages to out-drink, out-sex and out-embarrass him. Even Hank's vanilla-looking friends Charlie and Marcy Runkle (Evan Handler and Pamela Adlon) have gone on a coke-and-lobster binge and dropped E before a dinner party, to say nothing of their involvement in an epic, noir porn movie set in 1930s L.A. named, wait for it, "Vaginatown."

Dexter also seems to be growing up during this, the show's third season.

He proposed to his girlfriend, single mom Rita (Julie Benz), who's pregnant with his child. "I'm not in the business of giving life," a stunned Dexter says in one of his ongoing voice-overs. Throw in her two young kids -- there was something awkwardly touching about the way he explained the intricacies of his job as a Miami police blood spatter expert to a bored grade school class -- and Dexter's on the verge of having a ready-made family.

He's even fallen into his first real friendship. Assistant District Attorney Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits) is the first person other than Dexter's father to see him for the monster he is, and he's started steering Dexter to victims that meet his code for killing: namely lowlifes who've gotten away with murder. (That relationship is doomed to fail, though, as soon as Prado discovers his little brother was accidentally killed by Dexter.)

And serial killing aside, Dexter's easier to root for than he was last season, when he spent several episodes cruelly holding Sergeant Doakes (Erik King) captive.

But the most remarkable thing about Hank and Dexter is that even though they seem to have missed a rung or three on the evolutionary ladder, they remain utterly likable, despite the fact that neither actor tries to make them that way.

"I think that if you're an actor and you start to think whether you're likable or not, you're pretty unlikable right away," Duchovny says. "The key for me was, if this guy says what he feels and does what he feels, you're gonna love him in a way just because he's completely free in that way."

"I think a lot of the likability as far as Dexter goes is taken care of by the way he's presented," Hall says, "in terms of the voice-over element, the fact that we're sort of complicit in what he's doing just by watching him, because we're seeing things from his perspective. And, you know, he is way outside the box in terms of morality, but he does have a code that he adheres to, and I think that's admirable in its way."

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.