TV-14, 12 43-min. episodes
Creator: Bryan Fuller,
Thomas Harris (novel “Red Dragon”)
Directors: David Slade, Michael
Rymer, Guillermo Navarro, James Foley, Tim Hunter, John Dahl
Writers: Bryan Fuller, Thomas
Harris (characters), Jim Danger Gray, David Fury, Chris Brancato, Scott
Nimerfro, Kai Yu Wu, Jesse Alexander, Jennifer Schuur, Steve Lightfoot, Andy
Black
Starring: Hugh Dancy, Mads
Mikkelsen, Laurence Fishburne, Caroline Dhavernas, Hettienne Park, Scott
Thompson, Aaron Abrams
Guest starring: Kacey Rohl, Vladimir
Jon Cubrt, Lara Jean Chorostecki, Mark Rendall, Torianna Lee, Gina Torres,
Eddie Izzard, Raul Esparza, Anna Chlumsky, Gillian Anderson, Dan Fogler, Demore
Barnes, Lance Henriksen, Ellen Muth, John Benjamin Hickey
“Hannibal” is the rare
example of a television series from another source that actually transcends its
source material. Ever since most film audiences were introduced to the
character of Dr. Hannibal Lecter in Jonathan Demme’s “The Silence of the Lambs”
we have been fascinated with this sometimes-charming and highly intelligent man,
diabolical gamesman, and outright cannibal.
He originated as a
supporting character in Thomas Harris’s second and third novels “Red Dragon”
and “The Silence of the Lambs”, where he helped FBI Special Agents Will Graham
and Clarice Starling hunt serial killers from behind the bars where he was
placed by Graham and Agent-in-Charge of Behavioral Science Division Jack Crawford.
Neither of those stories are about Hannibal, however. Both are better stories
than Harris’s follow up novels “Hannibal” and “Hannibal Rising”, which feature
Hannibal as the main character.
Bryan Fuller’s new
television series “Hannibal” takes a queue from Harris’s mistake and focuses
its spotlight on Will Graham instead of Hannibal. Although Hannibal plays a
much larger role here, as a consultant to the FBI on Graham’s mental state,
this is squarely Graham’s story. Taking place before Graham and Crawford take
down the noted psychiatrist as the Chesapeake Bay Ripper, it takes its premise
from the peculiar way in which Graham works as an investigator. Described as having a condition
something akin to Asperger’s, Crawford pulls Graham out of the classroom as a
teacher of new recruits for his help finding a killer that continues to elude
the FBI. To be sure that Graham doesn’t snap under the pressure, Jack employs
Hannibal to keep an eye on Graham’s mental state.
Jack has also had a long
history trying to find the Chesapeake Bay Ripper, which unbeknownst to him is
the man, in whose care he has just placed his best profiler. Hannibal sees a
game to play with Graham’s state of mind. And so a new and ultimately
fascinating and depraved experiment begins for Hannibal.
Graham has been depicted
twice before in the two film adaptations of Harris’s novel “Red Dragon”. In the
first, “Manhunter”, William Petersen portrayed him. Later, the novel was remade
under its original title with Edward Norton in the role. I think the version
here holds most of its inspiration from the first crime scene depicted in “Manhunter”
where Petersen seems to disappear into the crime that he is investigating.
Here, Hugh Dancy takes this notion to new levels as he relives the crimes he
investigates as if he is the killer. His condition worsens as he helps Crawford
solve a series of very unusual murders, the types that would make the “CSI: Las
Vegas” team sick to their stomachs.
Graham is haunted by strange
dreams and soon finds that he is “losing time.” He’ll be at a crime scene and
wake up back at Quantico without any memory of how he got there or anyone else
noticing that anything had happened with him. Hannibal uses his position as
Graham’s psychoanalyst to begin to manipulate these symptoms of Graham’s into a
twisted experiment where he can act as a copycat killer to the murders that
Graham investigates and frame Graham in the process. The whole thing is very
dark and twisted and unlike anything I’ve ever seen on network television
before.
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