The third season of Dexter premiered on September 28, 2008, and ended on December 14, 2008. "Our Father", the season premiere, attracted 1.22 million viewers in the United States, making it Showtime's highest-rated drama season premiere since Nielsen Media Research began compiling ratings in 2004. The season's finale, "Do You Take Dexter Morgan?" attracted 1.5 million viewers. Season three was watched by an average of 1.1 million viewers a week. It received largely positive reviews from critics, which ranged from being praised as "truly and incredibly exciting television" in the San Francisco Chronicle, to "lack[ing] the crackling tension the drama had supplied in previous years" by the Chicago Tribune; the aggregate site Metacritic scored the season at 78 out of 100 based on 13 reviews. Smits and Hall received Emmy nominations for their roles as Miguel Prado and Dexter Morgan respectively, while the show as a whole also received a Best Drama Emmy nomination.