Dexter: Original Sin Showrunner Slams Paramount Over Shock Prequel Cancellation
Renewed, then axed: Paramount gave Dexter: Original Sin a second season before canceling the prequel months later—and showrunner Clyde Phillips is not happy with how it went down.
Paramount just did the classic one step forward, two steps back with Dexter. After renewing Dexter: Original Sin for Season 2 in April, the studio turned around last month and scrapped the prequel altogether so it could push ahead with another season of Dexter: Resurrection. Smooth.
Showrunner Clyde Phillips is not thrilled
On the Dissecting Dexter podcast, Original Sin showrunner Clyde Phillips laid out how messy the reversal felt from his side. He says he got the call after the renewal was already public and he had told everyone to get to work.
They picked up the show, I informed the writers and the actors, and then they un-picked it up. It wasn’t handled well, and I’m not happy about it.
What Original Sin had banked
Phillips says the writers room had a couple of years mapped out, not just a one-and-done. The plan was to gradually steer the prequel right up to the doorstep of the original Dexter and end there. Along the way, they would have rolled in younger versions of familiar faces and dug into some key relationships that shaped who Dexter became.
- Younger James Doakes and Captain Matthews were set to enter the story in later seasons.
- The show would have explored Dexter’s bond with his biological brother, Brian (the big presence from Dexter Season 1), and kept fleshing that out until the prequel merged into the timeline of the original series.
The Trinity prequel is probably going nowhere
There’s also a Trinity Killer prequel sitting in development, with John Lithgow actually lined up to voice the inner monologue of his younger self. Cool idea, but Phillips does not think it will stick.
His read: if Paramount pulled the plug on Original Sin, which he considers a built-in hit, the odds they suddenly greenlight a Trinity spinoff feel slim. He’d love to be wrong, but he’s not betting on it.
Why this happened (and how it feels)
I get why Paramount wants to stick close to Michael C. Hall’s Dexter. He’s the brand. He’s why most people tune in. From a business angle, doubling down on Resurrection makes sense.
Still, the way Original Sin was handled reads as pretty rough. The first season wasn’t top-tier Dexter, but it grew on me as it went, and the roadmap Phillips described actually sounds like a satisfying way to tie the prequel into the main show. Now, unless someone at Paramount has another change of heart, Season 1 is also the series finale.