Showtime's new Sunday-night drama "Dexter" makes even the grisliest forensic images on "CSI" look quaint.

Michael C. Hall, who grew up in Raleigh and became famous playing high-strung funeral director David Fisher on HBO's "Six Feet Under"), stars as Dexter Morgan, a serial killer working as a blood-spatter expert for the Miami Police.

You read that right -- serial killer. When he's done with his honest day's work for the police, he hunts down other serial killers at night, then straps them to a table and dismembers them.

Let's see Dr. Gil Grissom of "CSI" top that.

"I guess [the show] does present a kind of moral ambiguity that hopefully some viewers will find appealing," Hall says. "You find yourself, perhaps, identifying with this person, who, on paper, is doing reprehensible things, and is arguably without some fundamental human traits."

Hall, 35, spoke by phone from Los Angeles about the new show, leaving "Six Feet Under" and growing up in Raleigh. He was finishing work on the 10th episode and enjoying a visit from his mother, Janice, who lives in Wake Forest.

Q- How did this part come to your attention, and why do you think you were considered for it?

A- I was contacted by my manager that Showtime was potentially doing a pilot. Ultimately, it was just the role itself that sealed the deal for me. I didn't necessarily anticipate doing another television show so soon after "Six Feet Under" ending. But that was before having encountered this particular character.

Q- David Fisher, your character on "Six Feet Under," was so well-loved by fans. Did you worry that you'd never do another role as popular as that again?

A- I was certainly aware that that show had a presence -- that those characters were dear to the audience that enjoyed the show. But there's nothing much I can do about that, you know. I just had to try to move forward, and this opportunity, when it presented itself, seemed a good way to do that.

Q- Did it ever cross your mind that this is a good way to get people to forget about David Fisher?

A- Well, you know, I certainly wasn't looking to play another mortician. [Laughs] I did recognize that this character would allow me to play someone who didn't wear his heart on his sleeve, certainly, and perhaps was a bit more proactive in his life.

Q- What kind of research did you do?

A- I read quite a bit -- both interviews with serial killers and books by FBI profilers who dedicated their careers to trying to pinpoint and apprehend serial killers. I also spent some time with the head blood-spatter expert at the precinct in Miami, where we actually shot the pilot. He was able to give me a sense of the logistical side of his job and also talk to me about what it's like to be a civilian forensics guy in a police department, and surrounded by sworn-in police officers -- the sort of interoffice politics that go along with that.

I imagined as far as the reading in serial killers that I did, those would be things that Dexter would have familiarized himself with. He's very much committed to not fitting any profile that might exist.

Q- What surprised you most in your research about serial killers?

A- Just the remarkable ways that some of these guys operate in terms of what they do, and just how complex the ritualization of killing is, at times, for them. And that the closer they get to the nugget of what they've done in terms of the interviews -- there's more of a lack of remorse, a genuine lack of remorse. Dexter is singularly unique, even among serial killers, in that he has, through his foster father [who was a cop], a code of sorts that results in his being discriminate, in a way that makes it morally ambiguous for an audience to consider him. Because he is killing people who, arguably, deserve to die.

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