Hannibal

Damn.

Though it's not about graphic stuff. It's about NBC execs freaking out and wanting something family friendly or otherwise stupid. But hey, their network is getting trashed in the ratings, right? Maybe they're trying to go for something different after all.

Can't wait to catch up with this week's episode. I saw that the ratings were pretty good so that bodes well.

The second episode rated better than the premiere:

Quote :

Looks like NBC’s Hannibal has some teeth. Final numbers for last night have the network’s new drama rising up over last week’s premiere in both ratings and viewers. Hannibal rose from 1.6/5 on April 4 to 1.7/5 on Thursday. Its total viewership rose to 4.376 million from the 4.360 who watched last week. Now the premiere of Hannibal was soft to begin with but up is still up. Maybe it was the promoted April 10 repeat of the pilot after Law & Order: SVU encore. Maybe it was the fact that last night’s Hannibal was up against all repeats in its 10 PM slot as opposed to originals like it was last week. Either way Hannibal is just the second new drama on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox after The Following to improve its ratings in its second week over its premiere. It is the only drama to grow in viewers in the second week. The result is not Voice numbers but it’s not bad news for the struggling NBC. In fact, with the exception of sports and live news events, last night’s Hannibal gave NBC its best result in the time slot in over a year. The last time it hit such a number was on March 1, 2012 with the premiere of the short-lived procedural Awake.

Even if it was up against repeats, with NBC's ratings as dire as they are, a second season is pretty much guaranteed with those numbers.

I checked out episode two last night. Good stuff. The mushroom people were very freaky.

The White Tuxedo wrote:

Sounds interesting. I still wish this were on cable.

If NBC lets go of the show, I hope it transfers to USA Network.

Watched the second episode, that was an improvement over the pilot. I actually liked Dancy for once, it's nice to see that he toned down his twicthiness which was something I found irritating in the pilot. He comes off more like a person this time than a caricature. Mads is still excellent as Dr. Lector, I could just watch this show for him.

Due to recent events, they're pulling the fourth episode out of circulation for the US market:

http://variety.com/2013/tv/news/nbc-pulls-episode-4-of-hannibal-in-wake-of-newtown-boston-bombings-1200390579/

We still see war movies released during war, why can't we see TV episodes that nothing to do with a bombing? How is seeing an episode about children killing children is any more disturbing now than at any other time?

Pretty stupid reasoning, as you point out Tux that current wars don't stop the production of war flicks. We're all grow ups, and every episode begins with a discretion.

I have no problem pulling an episode that draws obvious parallels to a national tragedy, but based on the synopsis of the episode, I don't really see what's so offensive or whatever about it. I guess we really are as overly sensitive as everyone says.

Anyway, I really liked this week's episode so I'm a little bummed about being forced to skip the next one, even if it supposedly doesn't really affect the arc very much. I did, however, see the ratings dipped a little bit. Guess we better pencil this show into Fridays for next season. It's a natural fit next to Grimm, assuming NBC doesn't keep it on Tuesday, and the freedom of Fridays will probably allow the showrunners to get a little darker or weirder if they so choose.

Yeah, the ratings did dip. Of course, I didn't think the episode was quite as strong as the first two (though I'm guessing it's setting up narrative material that the later episodes will build on).

I'm somewhat bummed that we'll miss the fourth episode, but if it didn't *really* add that much to the ongoing arc, then perhaps it's best we skip to episode five, which, by most accounts, kicks this season of HANNIBAL into high-gear.

I have to say I am enjoying Hannibal - adoring everyone though I feel like the Gina Torres/Fishburn thing was out of place in in episode 5 - I just didn't really care I suppose and the entire crime in there lacked urgency. At the moment I am really watching for the character development and arcs and not the crimes which aren't grabbing me - I feel this happens to lots of crime shows which is why I sometimes tend to lose interest. Hopefully it picks up. But it was nice to see how Hannibal is slowly getting his claws into everyone. On the note the fourth episode being pulled - if you go on the NBC website you can watch a series of clips from it that help continue developing the whole Abigail Hobb's subplot.

Hopefully Hannibal lasts until it's Red Dragon - I am really digging Hugh Dancy.

/ side note: Crawford. Eh, I really enjoyed Graham calling him out in the fifth episode. Mostly because I've found him to be rather useless so far.

Ratings dropped for the second episode in a row. It's looking more and more like HANNIBAL might not be renewed for a second season.

But I hope it gets a second season, just so this can happen:

Bryan Fuller Dream Casts David Bowie as Hannibal Lecter’s Uncle For Hannibal: Season 2

Well at least the first season will air completely ... STILL ... I wish sometimes I lived in the States so I could help improve the ratings over there. Or at least watch it on Hulu.com to help out. BUT NO IT'S REGION LOCKED.

Good to hear. I haven't caught up with the latest episode yet, but I'm glad to hear NBC isn't pulling the plug on this. I do hope they don't sanitize it.

I can imagine people never eating mushrooms again after episode 2 :pale: .

Python wrote:

Good to hear. I haven't caught up with the latest episode yet, but I'm glad to hear NBC isn't pulling the plug on this. I do hope they don't sanitize it.

Yeah, I hope there isn't NBC pressure to make it more commercial by softening it. But given the way the show is financed, I don't think NBC has a lot of leverage.

So season one has come to a close. The finale was just okay, I thought. Still, an impressive, ambitious show. Bring on season two.

Harmsway wrote:

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.

Interesting. Not overjoyed at the prospect of a third screen adaptation of RED DRAGON, and good luck to anyone attempting to better Demme's THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. However, a more faithful rendering of Harris' HANNIBAL might be worthwhile, and especially if it retained Harris' ending. Perhaps the post-HANNIBAL adventures of Clarice and Lecter could then be explored in season seven.

Anyhoo, season one of HANNIBAL has just been released on DVD over here, and I'll hopefully be sitting down to it soon.

Well, I've now seen the first two episodes. Watchable stuff but undermined by hackneyed and stilted dialogue and moments of wild implausibility.

Dancy and Fishburne are excellent but I'm still not sold (although it's early days yet) on Mikkelsen's Lecter, who to my mind lacks the charm and wit of Hopkins', as well as his scariness. I know - as after all any Bond fan should! - that there's more than one way to play a character, and an attempt to mimic Hopkins would probably have been disastrous, but so far I'm not all that taken with Mikkelsen's spin on the good doctor.

I'm yet to feel any real screen presence. He just seems like a standard-issue and too-blatantly-creepy European baddie of the sort that could just as easily be found at the receiving end of some Bruce Willis quips in a DIE HARD sequel. There's no real spark here, no sense of a larger-than-life villain both horrifying and alluring, an iconic character of the sort we haven't really seen before (as was the case when Hopkins' Lecter was unleashed back in 1991).

Early days yet, though - this Hannibal currently seems to be playing a supporting role in his own show (which so far might as well have been titled WILL GRAHAM). I assume that he has more screentime and more to do as the season progresses.

Loomis wrote:

Watchable stuff but undermined by hackneyed and stilted dialogue and moments of wild implausibility.

The stilted dialogue and wild implausibility doesn't go away (in fact, the show gets more and more outrageous as it goes on), but it all works, somehow, in a dream logic sort of way. This show's strength is its vivid nightmare imagery.

Loomis wrote:

There's no real spark here, no sense of a larger-than-life villain both horrifying and alluring, an iconic character of the sort we haven't really seen before (as was the case when Hopkins' Lecter was unleashed back in 1991).

This is a Lecter who is still camouflaged, yet to be exposed to the world, not a Lecter who has been labeled "Hannibal the Cannibal" and has embraced his notoriety. So, on that level, the near-camp of Hopkins' interpretation would be almost inappropriate at this place in the character's history. One of the pleasures of the show is seeing Lecter's motives and behavior gradually come into focus, bit by bit.

If the show lasts long enough to get to that point, I'll be very interested to see how Mikkelsen approaches the exposed, captive, angry Lecter of the RED DRAGON/SILENCE OF THE LAMBS time period.

Harmsway wrote:

This is a Lecter who is still camouflaged, yet to be exposed to the world, not a Lecter who has been labeled "Hannibal the Cannibal" and has embraced his notoriety. So, on that level, the near-camp of Hopkins' interpretation would be almost inappropriate at this place in the character's history.

Fair enough, although almost no one will be sitting down to this show unaware that its title character is not the good guy he initially he appears to be, so more foreshadowing of the latterday Lecter might not have gone amiss.

Besides, exposed or not, I like my Lecters flamboyant.

Harmsway wrote:

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.

Agreed. And the performances are mostly terrific - and rather better than the material. Even Mikkelsen - while I'm not yet sold on his Lecter, as such, the guy's a fine actor and worth watching.

I know that this is a rather pointless, fanboyish gripe (akin to watching TOMORROW NEVER DIES and enjoying it on its own merits while also complaining about the film's lack of "Fleming's Bond"), but I'll air it anyway: I don't (yet) feel as though I'm watching Harris' Lecter - which is bizarre given that this show seems to recreate the world and feel of his novels extremely well.

Forget Hopkins for a moment (hard though that is) - Mikkelsen's Lecter doesn't really remind me of the guy in the books. Now, whether the makers of this show should have made him more like the guy in the books or whether it's only right and proper for people reviving an established character to boldly go off and do their own thing with him (a blond, nonsmoking Bond, anyone?) is another discussion, but I'm just sayin' that the Hannibal here isn't particularly the Hannibal I recognise.

I find it a bit jarring that the character should in middle age be speaking English with such a pronounced non-American accent. Again, it's entirely legitimate for Lecter to be portrayed this way, just as it would be if the next actor to play Bond gave us a 007 with a Welsh accent. That said, I do find it jarring. And it's been a while since I read Harris' novels (other than HANNIBAL, which I re-read quite recently), but wasn't his Hannibal quite the social butterfly, constantly giving parties for local culture vultures and the great and the good? He had a fuller social diary than Elton John. By contrast, Mikkelsen's Lecter hardly seems to entertain anyone to dinner other than FBI agents. Neither do I think we've seen enough of Lecter's legendary connoisseurship - can't we have him at the opera or something? There's a moment in one episode in which he goes over to a piano and starts playing what sounded to me like "Go West" (although perhaps I misheard it). It won't do.;) 

Mind you, I'm only four episodes in so hopefully more of the good old-fashioned Lecterisms will in due course come together.

Loomis wrote:

Forget Hopkins for a moment (hard though that is) - Mikkelsen's Lecter doesn't really remind me of the guy in the books.

I went back to re-read Harris' novels after watching the show and found it relatively easy to picture Mikkelsen in the part. But either I'm not quite as beholden to Hopkins as you are, or I just enjoy Mikkelsen's take more than you do, but pretty much after the first episode, I'd bought Mikkelsen as Lecter, and I didn't really think of Hopkins much after that.

Indeed, going back to the books, I was struck by how much attention the show pays to Harris (lots of little Easter eggs strewn throughout the season), and how much Mikkelsen's Lecter pulls from the novels.

Loomis wrote:

And it's been a while since I read Harris' novels (other than HANNIBAL, which I re-read quite recently), but wasn't his Hannibal quite the social butterfly, constantly giving parties for local culture vultures and the great and the good? He had a fuller social diary than Elton John. By contrast, Mikkelsen's Lecter hardly seems to entertain anyone to dinner other than FBI agents. Neither do I think we've seen enough of Lecter's legendary connoisseurship - can't we have him at the opera or something? There's a moment in one episode in which he goes over to a piano and starts playing what sounded to me like "Go West" (although perhaps I misheard it). It won't do.;) 

I'm pretty sure it's not "Go West" that he's playing in that scene.  

There's more than one moment with him playing classical music at a piano, and the gourmet entertaining and opera shows up rather prominently in later episodes, as do other moments with Lecter sketching/drawing as he so famously does. Rest assured, all the trademark Lecter elements appear.

Harmsway wrote:

I went back to re-read Harris' novels after watching the show

How would you rank them?

Harmsway wrote:

Indeed, going back to the books, I was struck by how much attention the show pays to Harris (lots of little Easter eggs strewn throughout the season)

Yes, I took the bit where Abigail Hobbs drops the teacup in episode four to be a reference to HANNIBAL. Only someone who'd read the book would be likely to pick up on it (if indeed it was an intentional reference).