Jack Alcott, Kadia Saraf, Marcos Siega, Clyde Phillips, Michael C. Hall, James Remar, Uma Thurman, Bokeem Woodbine, and Scott Reynolds attend Dexter: Resurrection & 20th Anniversary of Dexter at PaleyFest NY at The Paley Museum in New York City on October 9.

Dexter Cast and EPs_Panel

Michael C. Hall, Uma Thurman and the cast of Dexter: Resurrection bring a little delicious darkness to The Paley Center for Media.

Michael C. Hall

Twenty years, countless victims and more lives than the proverbial cat. Television’s most compelling serial killer is still making audiences root for the man they should probably be running from. On Friday evening, The Paley Center for Media embraced the darker side of television with a sold-out PaleyFest NY celebration marking the 20th anniversary of Dexter and offering a tantalizing look at the second season of Dexter: Resurrection.

Uma Thurman

The evening, presented with support from Citi, brought a decidedly glamorous collection of television’s morally compromised to the red carpet. Michael C. Hall, the man who made Dexter Morgan an unlikely cultural icon, was joined by Uma Thurman, James Remar, Jack Alcott, Bokeem Woodbine and Kadia Saraf, along with showrunner Clyde Phillips and executive producers Scott Reynolds and Marcos Siega.

EPs_Marcos Siega_Michael C. Hall_Clyde Phillips_Scott Reynolds

Inside the Bennack Theater, fans were treated to an advance screening of the Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 premiere, followed by a conversation moderated by Deadline Associate TV Editor Rosy Cordero. The celebration was also part of a milestone year for PaleyFest NY, which introduced the inaugural PaleyFest Award, recognizing excellence in media and entertainment among its participating programs.

Bokeem Woodbine

For Hall, the enduring fascination with Dexter remains something of a surprise. “Twenty years later it’s mind blowing,” he admitted. “I had no anticipation it would be as broadly appealing.”

Jack Alcott

Yet the appeal is hardly mysterious. Dexter accomplished something few television series dare attempt: it invited audiences into the mind of a murderer and made them care about his survival. Beneath the blood, the carefully controlled rituals and the infamous code lies a character perpetually wrestling with identity, inheritance and the uncomfortable distance between what people are and what they pretend to be.

James Remar

Remar, who plays Dexter’s father Harry Morgan, offered a succinct explanation for the show’s longevity. “It’s complex but it’s believable,” he observed. “There’s a reason why we’re sitting here so fully engaged with these characters.”

Kadia Saraf

That complexity is no accident. Phillips acknowledged that the writers deliberately create seemingly impossible situations, explaining, “We paint ourselves into a corner on purpose.” The objective, naturally, is to keep viewers perpetually off balance. Woodbine credited the writing itself, noting that “what appeals to people is the level of intelligence of the script.”

While murder may provide the spectacle, family remains the franchise’s most intriguing psychological battlefield. Reynolds suggested that each season explores something fundamentally relatable, and Phillips revealed that the new chapter places particular emphasis on the father-son relationship between Dexter and Harrison.

Alcott, who portrays Harrison, sees a young man grappling with an inheritance considerably more disturbing than an awkward family resemblance. Harrison has “got a propensity for violence,” he explained. “He’s nowhere near his father, but there’s something there.”

It is a fascinating premise. Can a father’s darkness become a son’s destiny, or is recognizing that darkness the first opportunity to escape it? For a franchise built around a killer’s elaborate moral code, the question of what passes from one generation to the next feels especially appropriate.

The new season also promises complications for the characters surrounding Dexter. Woodbine hinted at unexplored dimensions of Captain Mixon, acknowledging a darkness within the character that he has yet to fully understand. Saraf, who portrays Detective Claudette Wallace, promised considerably heightened stakes and a season that would be both compelling and unexpectedly affecting.

Thurman, meanwhile, brings her formidable screen presence to Charley Brown, a woman whose conscience may prove as troublesome as her decisions. “Charley is burned by having a conscience and she’s made compromises that she thought she could square away,” she explained, describing the character as “exciting” and “morally ambiguous.”

Morally ambiguous, of course, might as well be the official dress code of the Dexter universe.

Hall offered an equally intriguing glimpse into his character’s evolution. When audiences first encounter Dexter in Resurrection, he explained, the character has recommitted himself to the code that has governed his actions for so long. Unfortunately, “that doesn’t prove to be enough.”

For a man who has spent two decades attempting to impose rules upon his darkest impulses, that admission suggests the most dangerous confrontation may not be with another killer, but with the limitations of his own carefully constructed morality.

There is also a new leading character in the franchise: New York City itself. Siega explained that the creative team wanted to embrace the city’s visual character, declaring there was no “better place to shoot.” With its shadowy streets, restless energy and endless possibilities for disappearing into a crowd, New York provides a particularly seductive playground for a character who has always depended upon remaining unnoticed.

What makes Dexter such an enduring television phenomenon is not simply its willingness to explore violence, but its understanding of the contradictions that make human beings fascinating. Its characters are capable of affection and brutality, loyalty and betrayal, conscience and calculated cruelty. The audience is continually asked to reconsider whom it trusts, whom it condemns and why.

Twenty years after Dexter Morgan first appeared on television, those questions remain disturbingly entertaining. The blood may be fictional, but the moral dilemmas have never been entirely comfortable.

Cordero concluded the evening by congratulating the team on its latest incarnation, apologizing in advance for the inevitable pun: “I’m sorry for the pun but, you’ve killed it.”

For once, nobody needed to investigate the confession.

And judging by the enthusiasm inside the Bennack Theater, Dexter Morgan’s next resurrection may be his most deliciously complicated yet.

G.H. Harding

THE TRIAL OF ALEC BALDWIN — The wattage on Alec Baldwin has definitely simmered down. I saw him a few weeks back in the Hamptons, but other than that, he’s been under the radar. The film Rust, which interrupted everything is out; was minimally shown in May in about 115 theaters and was released on various on-demands. But the powers that be have kept it basically under wraps. Ironically, the few reviews I read noted how good it looked, rather than dwell on the tragic incidents that occurred.

Now, from documentarian-Rory Kennedy comes the film The Trial of Alec Baldwin. Both stories which I’ve posted below say the very first thing you see is a statement saying that Baldwin had no input into the making of the film. I haven’t seen it, but I think everything I need to know has always been disclosed.

Baldwin made himself a target and whatever did really happen; he was in the bulls-eye for certain. I’m sure I’ve relayed this story before, but I had an unfortunate incident with him, but several months later had a conversation with him, at his El Dorado Films, and he couldn’t have been more receptive. Acting? Who knows, but I was suitably charmed.

Don’t forgot, Baldwin is one hell of an actor. Check out his astonishing scene in Glengarry GlenRoss:

What happened was awful, but awful things happen every day, and the truth remains perhaps we’ll never know the truth.

ttps://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-trial-of-alec-baldwin-review-rory-kennedy-documentary-1236723653/

TCM LIVES — Turns out that so far there’s one golden-nugget from the Skydance takeover and that’s is the fact that the TCM channel will remain. Spielberg and Scorsese jumped onboard the channel a few years back and they’ll stay very much involved along with Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t watch everything on TCM, but more often than not they’ll have a gem on.

Clearly Ellison didn’t want tor rattle-the-cages too soon. I’m sure that will come, but just not now. Take a read from Deadline on the story: https://deadline.com/2026/10/turner-classic-movies-skydance-film-group-1237150281/

actor Michael Douglas promo image from his Netflix show The Komisky Method

SHORT TAKES — The Michael Douglas book PR-engine moves ever forward. I just checked Facebook and there were 3 postings from Douglas and his pub-company Grand Central Publishing. As I said last column, I think you can save $46.00 buying the book and just read and listen to everything that’s out. He did Diane Sawyer for ABC; The View; Morning Joe; Jimmy Kimmel; the 92 Street Y; CBS Sunday Morning; LA Times; andDeadline (where ghost-writer Mike Fleming, Jr. in an editor) … what else is left? Actually, as I was leaving my apartment I turned on the Today Show to see Catherine Zeta-Jones plugging her latest TV-movie (Killing Jackie)and she plainly said, she had no plans to read the book. Smart gal …

David Zaslav

David Zaslav, aka Zaz The Butcher, will receives about $600 million, for the Warner Bros sale.

Mandy Patinkin

Amazing …  (Via Deadline) Mandy Patinkin really digs Digger. In an effusive video message, posted soon after watching Digger in a theater, the Homeland star implored his followers to ignore the haters and watch Tom Cruise’s ecological disaster movie. Patinkin described Alejandro G. Iñárritu-directed Digger as an “instant classic” and said it was “one of the greatest pieces of film I have ever seen in my entire life.” “This is an incredible piece of work. It puts the heart and soul back into the cinema. Everything we all love about cinema, this is it. Please, please, please, run! Don’t walk, run, and see this film,” he continued. You just know, the tide will turn .. Just in: Pershing Square bar at Grand Central in NYC will close after 3 decades in business. Sad as it was a great spot to wait for Metro North! … Who hasn’t spent time in a good, old-fashioned diner? 200 have closed in the metropolitan area so far. Check out this article on them from the New York Post: https://nypost.com/2026/10/08/lifestyle/nycs-evolving-love-affair-with-diners-enters-a-new-era/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nypost_trending&fbclid=IwY2xjawU15FlleHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mBWJyaWQRMURwUUx2UHRmME9oT05xeTBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeDhyVr1Rp_BbBfebFdI2ovl87xm3BGk7uwgnerZv-kSYKIYz3gK6c5kDqN90_aem_az9ap3hQOvpiIueQ9aC-Vg

NAMES IN THE NEWS — Shane Salerno; Andrew Sandoval; Piper Smite; Tony King; John Hughes; Tony Seidel; Bruce Haring; Jane Blunkell; George Harrison; Mal Evans; Dan Zelinski; Steve Walter; Eppy; Tom & Lisa Cuddy; Peter Bart; Judd Bernard; Lush Ice; Chuck Taylor; Elizabeth Neff; and BELLA!

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More than 75 original works celebrate the extraordinary career of an artist who has made caricature an art form all its own.

Some artists capture a likeness. Others capture a personality. Ken Fallin does something considerably more remarkable: he captures the entire performance of being someone, often with nothing more than a few beautifully placed strokes of pen and ink.

At Gallery New World Stages, located at 343 West 49th Street, ABOUT FACE: THE ART OF KEN FALLIN brought together more than 75 original works celebrating one of the most distinctive artistic voices in American entertainment. Curated by Bernard Stote, the exhibition offered a fascinating journey through Broadway, Hollywood, politics and Wall Street, with a collection of famous faces transformed by Fallin’s unmistakable wit, elegance and extraordinary eye for character.For those of us who have spent our lives in and around the theatre, Ken Fallin’s drawings are more than illustrations. They are part of Broadway’s visual vocabulary. His subjects may be actors, politicians, business leaders or cultural icons, but his genius lies in recognizing the detail that makes each individual unmistakably themselves. A raised eyebrow, an extravagant hairstyle, the angle of a chin or the particular way someone carries their importance becomes, in Fallin’s hands, an entire biography.

There is a wonderful theatricality to his work. He understands that a face is never simply a collection of features. It is an expression of ambition, vulnerability, humor, vanity, intelligence and sometimes magnificent absurdity. His drawings can be affectionate without becoming sentimental, pointed without becoming cruel and exaggerated without ever losing their essential truth. That balance is considerably harder to achieve than it looks.

Fallin’s career began with the wonderfully irreverent Forbidden Broadway, where he created advertising campaigns and posters for the legendary theatrical revue. Inspired by the incomparable Al Hirschfeld, Fallin developed his own distinctive approach to capturing the larger-than-life personalities who inhabit the entertainment world. It was an ideal artistic marriage: a show that lovingly skewered Broadway’s biggest stars and an illustrator who could reveal an entire theatrical personality in a handful of lines.

Jim Kierstead, Richard Hillman, Lorna Dallas, Sal Viviano

What followed was a career that extended far beyond the footlights. A five-year association with the Sunday edition of the Boston Herald established him as a regular presence in arts journalism, while national advertising campaigns for American Express, Belvedere Vodka and CNBC’s Squawk Box demonstrated that his visual wit could travel effortlessly between entertainment, commerce and the financial world.

Ken Fallin and Lorna Dallas

His illustrations have appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Hollywood Reporter, Chicago Tribune and The New Yorker. Since 1994, his work has been a regular presence in The Wall Street Journal, where his portraits have given personalities from business, politics and culture an unmistakable artistic identity. He has also chronicled the New York theatre scene through his illustrations since 2010, extending a tradition in which the artist becomes an essential witness to theatrical history.

Ken Fallin and Sal Viviano in deep conversation

That is precisely what makes Fallin’s work so important. Photography documents how someone looked at a particular moment. A great caricature tells us how that person occupied the world. It catches the public persona, the private eccentricity and the quality that makes an individual memorable long after a performance has ended or a headline has faded.

Fragrance designer Sue Phillips was also there and showed me her caricature when she was an actress

The comparison with Hirschfeld is inevitable, but Fallin has long since earned his own place in that distinguished artistic tradition. Where a lesser caricaturist might settle for an oversized nose or an exaggerated smile, Fallin understands composition, movement and the almost musical rhythm of a line. His drawings are deceptively economical. Nothing feels accidental, and very little is wasted. Each flourish has a purpose, whether it is revealing a performer’s flamboyance or exposing the carefully cultivated authority of a Wall Street titan.

T2C owner Suzanna Bowling who wrote the books forward and Ken Fallin

His achievements have received recognition well beyond Broadway. In 2010, Fallin earned an Emmy Award nomination for an animated CNBC commercial, and in 2012, his first one-man exhibition, Ken Fallin Draws Hollywood, was presented at the Hamilton Selway Gallery in Los Angeles. His work is included in the permanent collection of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, an extraordinary distinction that places his drawings within one of the world’s great institutions devoted to art and design.

Chita

Then there are the private collectors, a roster that reads like a particularly glamorous opening-night party. Bernadette Peters, Angela Lansbury, Bob Avian, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Sir Patrick Stewart, Marlo Thomas, Helen Hunt and Norbert Leo Butz are among those who own his work. It seems entirely appropriate that performers who have spent their careers interpreting characters should appreciate an artist who can interpret them so brilliantly.

My personal favorite Katherine Hepburn

New World Stages has given this remarkable body of work an ideal theatrical setting. Gallery New World Stages occupies 150 linear feet of exhibition space across two floors of the New World Stages complex, offering audiences an opportunity to encounter Fallin’s work in the heart of the neighborhood that has inspired so much of his career. Surrounded by five theatres and the constant energy of New York’s performing arts community, the gallery provides a fitting home for an artist whose imagination has been so closely intertwined with the stage.

The King is back

There is also something especially satisfying about seeing caricature celebrated in a gallery rather than treated merely as an accompaniment to an article, advertisement or theatrical production. Illustration is too often regarded as a supporting art, even when the image becomes more memorable than the words it was created to accompany. Fallin’s work makes a persuasive argument that a great caricature deserves to be experienced as art in its own right.

Audra as Lady Sings The Blues

For Broadway lovers, the exhibition is an opportunity to revisit the faces that have shaped our theatrical memories. For those interested in Hollywood, politics and popular culture, it offers a reminder that fame is as much about personality as achievement. And for anyone who appreciates extraordinary draftsmanship, it is a chance to study the remarkable precision behind drawings that appear almost effortlessly spontaneous.

What Ken Fallin has accomplished over the course of his career is more than the creation of an impressive collection of portraits. He has developed a visual record of the people who have entertained us, challenged us, influenced us and occasionally made us roll our eyes. His drawings preserve not simply their appearances but something of the cultural moment in which they mattered.

Long after a Broadway marquee goes dark, a television series ends or a political figure leaves the spotlight, Fallin’s lines remain, capturing the wit, extravagance and unmistakable humanity of his subjects.

And that, ultimately, is the magic of ABOUT FACE. We recognize the famous people on the walls, but we also recognize the extraordinary intelligence of the artist who saw them so clearly.

Because in Ken Fallin’s world, everybody has a face. But only a true artist knows which lines tell the story.

ABOUT FACE: THE ART OF KEN FALLIN is presented at Gallery New World Stages, 343 West 49th Street, New York City and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For four days in October, New York becomes a perfectly reasonable place to share a sidewalk with a Jedi, a wizard, three superheroes, an anime warrior and somebody carrying a dragon.

In other words, New York Comic Con is back.

As NYCC celebrates its 20th anniversary October 8–11, the Javits Center may be command central, but the fandom is spilling well beyond Eleventh Avenue. In Times Square, House of Spells is turning its first U.S. location into something of a Comic Con clubhouse, with four days of trivia, cosplay, parties, dragons and enough fantasy worlds to make reality seem terribly overrated.

The sprawling W. 42nd Street destination, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, opened earlier this summer after House of Spells established itself in the United Kingdom. Founded by Khaja Hussain and Rafeeque Olikkathodi, it is part store, part immersive playground and part shrine to the gloriously obsessed, bringing more than 60 fandoms under one roof. Marvel, DC, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Stranger Things and Fantastic Beasts are all represented, alongside fantasy, gaming and anime worlds, officially licensed merchandise, collectibles, cinematic environments and enough photo opportunities to keep a phone busy for hours.

During Comic Con, however, House of Spells is turning up the volume.

Four Days of Comic Con at House of Spells

Thursday, October 8 — Fandom Trivia Night, 7–10 p.m.

Marvel, comics, fantasy, television, movies and science fiction collide as fans finally get to put all that gloriously specific knowledge to practical use. First place takes home gift cards, a T-shirt, a trophy and, far more importantly in fandom circles, bragging rights. Suddenly all those hours spent memorizing fictional universes look like excellent life choices.

Tickets for Fandom Trivia Night

Friday, October 9 — Cosplay Mixer & Contest, 8–11 p.m.

Friday night belongs to the cosplayers. Guests are encouraged to arrive as characters from their favorite fandoms and let Comic Con’s alter egos take over Times Square. The grand prize is a ticket to the 2027 New York Comic Con—which means someone can theoretically win next year’s Comic Con simply by dressing exceptionally well for this year’s Comic Con. We approve.

Tickets for the Cosplay Contest & Mixer

Saturday, October 10 — Comic Con Crossroads of the World Afterparty, 8 p.m.–1 a.m.

By Saturday night, even superheroes need a drink. House of Spells joins forces with Times Square neighbor Dallas BBQ for the Saturday-night Comic Con afterparty, complete with a DJ, food and drinks and plenty of opportunity to dissect the day’s panels, costumes, collectibles and adventures with people who will actually understand what you’re talking about. Each ticket includes two drinks.

Tickets for the House of Spells Saturday Night Afterparty

Sunday, October 11 — Adopt a Dragon Day & Family Day, noon–2 p.m.

Sunday gets adorable. In keeping with NYCC’s family-friendly final day, the youngest fantasy fans can adopt their own magical companion and undergo immersive dragon training, complete with accessories and lessons in caring for their newest family member. Frankly, considering the price of veterinary care in New York, a dragon may be the more practical pet.

Tickets for Adopt a Dragon at House of Spells

The fandom doesn’t disappear when Comic Con packs up and leaves town. House of Spells has also introduced free Marvel Monday meetups, giving New Yorkers and visitors a place to gather around shared obsessions from the X-Men to the Avengers. In a city where fandom now stretches across generations, it makes sense that Comic Con culture should have somewhere to live after the convention badges come off.

“New York Comic Con is an incredible adventure that brings the fandom world to life, but at House of Spells we facilitate a Comic Con community every single day with the multi-verse on the doorsteps of Times Square,” said Jaime Vidal, President of USA Operations at House of Spells Times Square. “We invite the world of Comic Con to experience the comic community we are cultivating right here with more than 60 fandom fantasy worlds ready to be conquered.”

And Times Square may be exactly where all of this belongs. This is, after all, a neighborhood where costumed characters already roam the streets, enormous creatures appear on digital billboards and nobody particularly notices if Spider-Man walks past them before lunch.

House of Spells is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. until midnight at W. 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, giving fans considerably more than four days a year to disappear into another universe.

House of Spells

During Comic Con week, however, choosing just one universe seems unnecessarily restrictive.

Bring the cape. Bring the wand. Bring the lightsaber. Just please don’t bring an actual dragon on the subway.