Opening Credits: Dexter

Dexter is an American television crime drama mystery series. Set in Miami, the series centres on Dexter Morgan (Michael C.Hall), a blood splatter pattern analyst for the fictional Miami Metro Police Department who also leads a secret life as a serial killer, hunting down murderers who have slipped through the cracks of the justice system.

Denotation	Connotation
Mosquito slapping	Immoral elimination of a life by a swift, careless movement - callous manner, strong insensitive mind
Shaving and soaking up blood	Attempt to clean up the disordered things in life - hidden secret, guilty conscience
Cutting up meat/eggs	Murder of innocent beings - indifference to causing pain or suffering
Slicing an orange	Exposure of lurid acidity and harsh realism in the world - enduring the things people usually look away from
Flossing	The cutting off of blood or breathing - indicates the desire to kill and evokes an uncomfortable, pushed-to-the-edge feeling in the audience
Tying Shoelaces	Friction causes unease and represents rough, brutal work or pragmatism
Putting on shirt	A momentary lapse of the pathway to oxygen and life - symbolises the fragility of death and how close humans are to it (separated by a mere piece of cloth)

• The non-diegetic music is a rather happy one, with an upbeat tempo and minimal, tinny sounds.  This is, however, incongruous to the extreme close-up of the mosquito which is deemed as an infectious, nasty creature to humans. The negativity is nurtured forward by the sudden slap of a hand which is accompanied by an amplified, violent diegetic noise. The camera then changes the focus from the mosquito to the face behind the action, which introduces the audience to the main character through a filter of brutality. 

• Rapid cuts between the act of shaving and the dripping blood conceals the movement in between, which causes a sense of unease and curiosity in the audience. The lack of information represents the blank canvas the audience has yet to fill of the perception of the protagonist(?). The extreme close-up of the hairs on the moisturised skin emphasises how dirty the character's mind or outlook is, until he cleans it off with a single swipe of the blade. The sound of the shaver pushing against the skin is disturbing and quite unrealistic.

• The extreme close-up of the raw steak is an effective magnification as it transforms the image of animal meat into human meat. This is followed by the disconcerting sound of the knife slicing into, what is now a part of the human body to the audience's subconscious. The ease with which the character does this is both alarming and unplaceable at the same time. 

• The orange is shot from an unrevealing angle at first. Then as the knife cuts into it, the scene is immediately cut to one which shows the inside of the fruit. This involves highlighting the colour of red and the connotation of death it brings into the picture. 

The use of shapes is relevant in this opening sequence as the symmetrical, orderly shapes are almost always preceded or followed by a shattered, disorderly one. This ominous observation hints at the constant suspense promised in the unfolding of the plot. For example, the messy cuts of the meat and cracks of the egg are soothed by the round shape of the egg yolk. The first drop of blood is complete and circular but it is then immediately splattered. The coffee beans are grinded to destroy the whole pieces into tiny, fragmented ones. The untouched orange is cut and squeezed into an asymmetrical shape that is useless and unpleasant to look at.