Scott Meyers @GointotheStory tweeted a vulture interview with Chris Terrio on the toughest scene he had to write in ARGO.

In the interview Terrio references Paddy Chayefsky, whose wiki page states:

Chayefsky was considered one of the most renowned dramatists of the so-called Golden Age of Television. His intimate, realistic scripts provided a naturalistic style of television drama for the 1950s, and he was regarded as the central figure in the “kitchen sink realism” movement of American television. He was a successful writer, the most successful graduate of television’s slice of life school of naturalism.”

Slice of Life made me automatically think of Dexter’s boat.

Could this be coincidence ? Clicking on the wiki link to this school of naturalism we find a further definition:

Slice of life is a phrase describing the use of mundane realism depicting everyday experiences in art and entertainment.

During the 1950s, the phrase had common critical usage in reviews of live television dramas, notably teleplays by Paddy Chayefsky.

The literary term refers to a storytelling technique that presents a seemingly arbitrary sample of a character’s life, which often lacks a coherent plot, conflict, or ending.

In anime and manga, “slice of life” is a genre that often parallels teen melodrama in addition to using slice-of-life narrative techniques.

Oh the irony!

So, the answer to the question ‘What do Dexter and Chayefsky have in common?’ is:

A Slice of Life !