The Miami police department and crime scene analysts have launched a citywide manhunt but are literally without a clue. They would be surprised to learn that there is not one, but two killers stalking their city’s neon pastel streets and even more surprised to learn that one of them walks in their halls every day.

Meet Dexter Morgan, an extremely likable and charming forensics consultant for Miami PD. He regularly brings doughnuts to his co-workers, has a compulsion for neatness, and wiles away Sundays relaxing on his boat, the “Slice of Life”. But hiding beneath the mundane exterior hides a different Dexter, a dark and dangerous Dexter, one with an insatiable desire to kill.

Dexter is not your ordinary serial killer though. Adopted at a young age by a hardened, streetwise cop, Harry Morgan, Dexter’s foster father spotted his developing homicidal urges and tried to channel them. He conditioned young Dexter with a code that would not only hide him from the police but also ensure that by killing only those who deserved to be killed, some kind of justice would come from Dexter’s murderous needs.

So by day Dexter Morgan is the kindly if slightly quirky forensic scientist, brother to his dysfunctional cop sister, boyfriend to the fragile and emotionally scarred Rita, professional foil to the belligerent Sgt Doakes and amiable Angel Batista. But by night, when Dexter’s dark passenger takes hold, he is the serial killers’ serial killer. You’ll like him.

Wednesday 27 February 2008 10:35pm – 11:35pm on ITV1.