Hannibal

Harmsway wrote:

The White Tuxedo wrote:

This should be on HBO or something.

It almost feels like it could be. It's very dark, very grim, very violent. Unprecedentedly so for a broadcast network American TV show. You can get a taste of the show's tone with the trailer, here.

I'm not sure the show itself is altogether very good. But once Mikkelsen showed up, the show caught my interest. I'll be sticking with it, since the critics (many of which responded quite positively to the show) said that HANNIBAL picks up a few episodes in, and because I think Mikkelsen is doing terrific work here as Lecter.

I see what you mean, Harms ... looks like it's kinda at the outer edges of what's 'acceptable' on mainstream US television.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Python wrote:

The pilot is available for free on iTunes, and in HD. Tux, get it while you can.

Doin' it.

The pilot is up at Hulu, too.

Here's the season preview, where you can catch a glimpse of Eddie Izzard's role:

Harmsway wrote:

The White Tuxedo wrote:

This should be on HBO or something.

It almost feels like it could be. It's very dark, very grim, very violent. Unprecedentedly so for a broadcast network American TV show. You can get a taste of the show's tone with the trailer, here.

Looks much bloodier and more cinematic than expected, although on the evidence of this trailer some of the dialogue is pretty cringeworthy. While I note all the raves for Mikkelsen, I'm not sure I buy him as Lecter (yet). I know that there's more than one way to play a role (look at the Bond franchise as a prime example - Moore and Craig are somewhat different), but Mikkelsen's Hannibal is disappointingly, well, unHopkinsish. And a middle-aged Lecter with a foreign accent doesn't quite ring true. Neither does Mikkelsen seem sufficiently cultured, self-possessed or charming (Damian Lewis might have been a fine choice).

Loomster, just wait until you watch a full episode. Mikkelsen's super-subtle performance doesn't come through in clips.

Indeed. Looking at that trailer, "super-subtle" is the last thing I'd call Mikkelsen's performance (or indeed the show as a whole, although that said the show does in some ways seem rather better than expected). Still, as you suggest, one needs to actually watch a full episode before casting a verdict.

The subtlety of Mikkelsen's performance is that it all comes through in small gestures and eye movements. Unlike Hopkins (or Cox, for that matter), Mikkelsen doesn't relish his dialogue, and so his most effective moments don't involve him speaking.

I'll say this: when I re-read Harris' novels, I'll now be picturing Mikkelsen as Lecter.

I've been meaning to re-read HANNIBAL for a while now (BTW, just finishing up a re-read of John Fowles' frustrating but fascinating DANIEL MARTIN, which if nothing else has put me in the mood for yet another crack at THE MAGUS) - dunno whether I want to revisit the other Lecter novels (with the possible exception of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS), but I wouldn't mind a bit of HANNIBAL right about now (come to think of it, I wouldn't mind another viewing of the film as well).

I'm gonna give this a try.

EDIT: So I just watched the series premiere. I like it -- it's got a bit more flair to it, as it should for something in the Hannibal canon, than shows like The Following. I like Mikkelsen well enough so far, even if he's not quite what my mind pinpointed as "Hannibal Lecter," but I'm not quite sure about the guy who plays Graham. Granted it's just the pilot, but he just seems kind of, I dunno, forgettable, so far, though I really do like those glimpses into his mind-of-a-killer mode or whatever.

I think I'm gonna stick with this.

I'm very glad Mikkelsen is not trying to mimic Hopkins. He's making the character his own in a way that makes it easier for me to accept, much like the actors for Bond did.

There's sort of a caveat emptor with this show: Even if you dig the pilot, or hell, dig the rest of it, it's on NBC (it's also on its comedy night, no less), so chances are it's not going to survive very long. Better get your Kickstarter and emails to Netflix ready.

Like I said on the other page, I wouldn't be surprise if NBC finds a way to cancel it one way or another. Putting it on a comedy night really shows where their minds are on this show.

Jack Wade wrote:

There's sort of a caveat emptor with this show: Even if you dig the pilot, or hell, dig the rest of it, it's on NBC (it's also on its comedy night, no less), so chances are it's not going to survive very long. Better get your Kickstarter and emails to Netflix ready.

The full first season was completed a while back (NBC ordered 13 episodes from the get-go, without having seen a pilot). And all of it should air, since NBC has literally nothing else to fill its slot.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if HANNIBAL doesn't last too long. Maybe to a second season, just because NBC should be scrambling for programming for next year. But the ratings for the premiere of HANNIBAL were nothing special, so this doesn't seem poised to be a runaway hit for the network.

Jack Wade wrote:

I'm not quite sure about the guy who plays Graham. Granted it's just the pilot, but he just seems kind of, I dunno, forgettable, so far, though I really do like those glimpses into his mind-of-a-killer mode or whatever.

William Peterson and Ed Norton will always be tough acts to beat.

At this rate, Hannibal will last two seasons because the critics love it -- at least for now. I don't see much of NBC's current lineup surviving long (apart from Parks), especially if the rest of Hannibal is plotted as slowly as the pilot. But apparently it won't be, so that's good.

I like slow plotting. I have yet to watch the pilot. I shall do that soon.

Looks like gritty reboots of literary detectives into a one-hour police procedural that undermines the character are in vogue. First "Elementary", now "Hannibal".

This gives me an idea. Somebody call all of the producers: I'm going to do a dark and gritty reboot of Inspector Clouseau.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

Looks like gritty reboots of literary detectives into a one-hour police procedural that undermines the character are in vogue. First "Elementary", now "Hannibal".

This gives me an idea. Somebody call all of the producers: I'm going to do a dark and gritty reboot of Inspector Clouseau.

To be fair, "Elementary" is a "Sherlock" rip-off, and "Hannibal" is more of a "Dexter" rip-off.

Perhaps, but what they have in common is a character from literature as the selling point. They probably wouldn't be able to survive on their own were it not for the presence of that character. The problem is that they go a long way towards undermining that character. Johnny Lee Miller is not Sherlock Holmes - he's a know-it-all whose knowledge simply fills in the blanks of whatever the police need to know to solve the crime (which is usually everything).

Likewise, Mads Mikkelsen isn't Hannibal Lecter, because Lecter's appeal lies in the way he is presented as a consultant of last resort for a crime so extreme that only a criminally-insane individual could offer any useful insight, but when we first meet him, he is a perfect gentleman. Thomas Harris' Lecter killed and ate his victims in a refined way so as to prove himself better than the people who killed and ate his sister in a barbaric way. But here, Will Graham characterises him - I'm assuming it's him - as "wanting to consume women", which dumbs down the character.

Which is why, in my dark-and-gritty "Clouseau", the Inspector isn't going to be incompetent. Rather, he's going to specialise in "the European method", where his antics are a deliberate attempt to destabilise suspects and lure them into incriminating themselves. He is sent to New York to prevent the theft of the Pink Panther diamond in the pilot episode, after which it is never seen or heard of or even referenced again. He will join an elite team of generic crime-fighting experts, including a forensic geek, a computer hacker, an old-school gumshoe and Jason Statham. it will be ratings gold.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

Looks like gritty reboots of literary detectives into a one-hour police procedural that undermines the character are in vogue. First "Elementary", now "Hannibal".

This gives me an idea. Somebody call all of the producers: I'm going to do a dark and gritty reboot of Inspector Clouseau.

To be fair, "Elementary" is a "Sherlock" rip-off, and "Hannibal" is more of a "Dexter" rip-off.

Hannibal has a lot more upside than Dexter does right now.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

Perhaps, but what they have in common is a character from literature as the selling point. They probably wouldn't be able to survive on their own were it not for the presence of that character. The problem is that they go a long way towards undermining that character. Johnny Lee Miller is not Sherlock Holmes - he's a know-it-all whose knowledge simply fills in the blanks of whatever the police need to know to solve the crime (which is usually everything).

Likewise, Mads Mikkelsen isn't Hannibal Lecter, because Lecter's appeal lies in the way he is presented as a consultant of last resort for a crime so extreme that only a criminally-insane individual could offer any useful insight, but when we first meet him, he is a perfect gentleman. Thomas Harris' Lecter killed and ate his victims in a refined way so as to prove himself better than the people who killed and ate his sister in a barbaric way. But here, Will Graham characterises him - I'm assuming it's him - as "wanting to consume women", which dumbs down the character.

Well, "Elementary" is terrible. But let's not forget that in Harris' novels, Lecter was indeed a consultant to Graham long before they kenw Lecter was criminally-insane. Indeed when Lecter was finally caught he was Graham was consulting him about the very series of crimes Lecter was committting!

So I see nothing about the seres that is undermining the character, just presenting us with a time before he was the man behind the glass.

That being said, I suspect "Hannibal", if it's successful, will have the same problem as most prequels, like "Smallville" of running too long and straining credulity at the amount of time that status quo goes on before Graham realizes Lecter is a murderer as well. Having too many things happen before "Red Dragon."

In a more poifect world. You could get a two season deal like Netflix's HOUSE OF CARDS, which will have a definite end to the series at an appointed time. Season one is pre-RED DRAGON, and season two is basically a longer telling of RED DRAGON itself. Not sure if you could still call it HANNIBAL, though, as Lector's role in RD shouldn't be expanded upon very much.

Indeed, that was one of the problems with Ratner's RED DRAGON, was it was essentially the "Now We Know Hannibal is The Star" edition.

Ratings remained stable for the second episode, so HANNIBAL continues to do pretty well.

HANNIBAL's second episode is a big improvement over the pilot, and it wades into very disturbing territory. The show still wades in and out of cop show cliches, but all the hammy dialogue and clunky plotting aside, HANNIBAL has carved out a unique identity for itself. The way HANNIBAL makes darkness an almost palpable, tangible force is almost Lynchian, and it renders its horrors with a twisted sense of beauty that's almost Dantean.

FWIW, Bryan Fuller has stated that the plan for the series is to adapt RED DRAGON as season 4, and then move on to adapting SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and HANNIBAL.

Sounds interesting. I still wish this were on cable.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Sounds interesting. I still wish this were on cable.

There's apparently an unrated version of the episodes for the DVD release. That said, this show is as graphic as I'd want it to be. Last night's episode gave me nightmares.