well season 8 still felt Dexter. it still has Masuka. it still has the department.
I enjoyed seeing Dexter teach the young guy. I enjoyed when debra talked to the doctor lady. I enjoyed a lot of it ( yes the bad guy was ridiculous, but I loved every single scene with Dexter's "mother" the lady that Debra talked to)
I really enjoyed all the talks she has with Dexter.
new blood lacked any cool stuff, lacked interesting side characters. lacked the fun stuff from the earlier
Debra as his voice was terrible. the lady cop wasn't interesting. the villain wasn't that interesting. Harrison wasnt interesting
Masuka took up screentime with that AWFUL daughter/stripper storyline. A complete waste of screentime in what was supposed to be the final season. Quinn and Batista's sister too, were absolutely useless. That Zack guy being a much more annoying retread of that Jeremy kid in season 1 wasted several episodes of story in a boring filler story. Dr Vogel was also absolutely useless, boring and a complete waste of time. Not to mention her very existence was a retcon and took away from the complexity of Harry Morgan's character.
Debra spiraling out of control in the first 4 episodes made sense for the first 4 episodes, and then she just suddenly got over it and was completely back to normal out of nowhere. Terrible writing. Laguerta's death wasn't investigated at all and forgot about almost instantly.
Dexter for some reason wore a pink shirt in almost every scene, and constantly did stupid as hell things like stand right outside of the diner window in a pink shirt staring at the serial killer he was hunting. Then Hannah came back. An absolutely horrendous character who's first sex scene with Dexter in season 7 was Dexter's "jump the shark" moment. Everything about her as a character, and how everyone (especially Dexter) acted around her was incredibly stupid and insulting, because they tried to force this terrible romance on us.
When she comes back we are treated to several episodes of boring terrible ridiculous writing including a long shot of Dexter's ass while they are screwing, Harrison turning into a full grown man when he falls over on a treadmill and Debra making dinner for and sharing a laugh with the serial killer who tried to murder her.
All I can say about the villain is he looked like Ryan Gosling, and he cut people's brains out. That's it. Then Debra gets shot in a REALLY dumb way in the EXACT place she got shot in season 4 and is fine, then suddenly has a blood clot off screen and is a vegetable. Then Dexter kills her and dumps her in the ocean like a bag of garbage. Then he leaves his infant son with a serial killer he's dating and somehow survives driving directly into a hurricane.
And then he's a lumberjack. Worst. Ending. Ever. Nothing about it felt even remotely like a final season. The writing was SO DUMB, SO BAD and just outright BORING. Scott Buck should never work again.
New Blood had a terrible rushed ending but it also had: much better writing than Scott Bucks, a more focused plot, a good villain, far more interesting characters than Hannah and Zack, some classic Dexter moments that even recaptured some of the feel of early seasons, etc.