I never thought I'd say this, but I kind of miss the sound of Dexter Morgan chewing on his breakfast meat. Dexter: New Blood doesn't have the Dexter opening credits — it doesn't even have the music — and it's not OK with me. Instead, the Dexter reboot just has a creepy title card followed by a quick succession of shots teasing what will happen in the episode.

It's disappointing, to say the least. The Dexter opening credits were brilliant. They set the perfect tone for the show, while telling you exactly who Dexter Morgan is: a serial killer who could can make even the casual practice of cracking eggs threatening, but also loves brunch. Without those credits, I don't know who Dexter has become. And that's kind of the point.

The complete departure from the beloved Dexter opening credits was absolutely purposeful, per showrunner and executive producer Clyde Phillips. He told journalists in August that New Blood opted to change it up to reflect the more serious tone of the revival. "It will not resemble the cheekiness of what we had before, the jauntiness of what we had before," he said, per CheatSheet, teasing the new opening segment. "Again, it's all part of [the fact that] this is a different show." Well, the opening credits of New Blood are many things, but one thing they absolutely aren't is "jaunty."

The only image that even remotely resembled the O.G. Dexter opening credits was a quick shot of a slice of Canadian bacon with red hot sauce drizzled on top. The shot appeared for barely a second in between shots of a giant butcher knife and some rope, so if you blinked, you definitely missed it, though it reappears later in the episode, when Dexter is making breakfast. Dexter isn't killing anymore, but some parts of his routine — like starting the day with a hearty breakfast — remain sacred.

Unfortunately, it looks like fans won't be seeing the old Dexter opening credits at all in the reboot. But, the opening credit's won't always be the same as they were in the premiere. "The viewer should expect that the title sequence, the titleage will be very different from what they've seen before," Phillips teased. According to CheatSheet, Phillips was talking about the specific title card.

In the premiere, the title card featured the title written in giant ice letters dipped in blood, with ice cracking in the background, which I assume is meant to reflect Dexter's killing sobriety cracking under pressure. Maybe now that he's gone back to killing, he'll work his way back to a breakfast montage. A girl can dream.

Image: Seacia Pavao/SHOWTIME