Hannibal Is One of the Best Shows on TV You Aren't Watching
This Friday, the very best thriller on television returns. Hannibal premiered last year to stellar reviews but middling ratings. It told a familiar story in an unfamiliar way. The first season detailed the first meeting between FBI profiler Will Graham and psychologist/cannibal Hannibal Lecter. Will is cursed with pure empathy, which means that he can walk in the shoes of psychopaths, but the crux of the show is how this affects Will's psyche. In the finale, Hannibal has framed Will for four murders that he commited and Will is sent to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. The final scene is reminiscent of Clarice Starling's first meeting with Lecter, but with Lecter outside and Will inside. This sets up a second season of Will trying to convince everyone that it's Hannibal who is the murderer while Hannibal takes Will's place helping the FBI. So, why should you start watching Hannibal? Hit the jump for five compelling reasons.
1. Bryan Fuller Bryan Fuller is the creator and executive producer of Hannibal. He is also the bee's knees. Fuller has sheperded amazing shows that sadly have barely made it past a first season. Here is a list of the shows that Fuller has created: Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, and Pushing Daisies. They are all brilliant. Phenomenal. Bright spots in a sea of dark, inane procedurals. Fuller has always been ahead of the times. It seems that people just weren't ready for a show about reapers or a sardonic girl who talks to tchotchkes or a pie maker that can bring people back from the dead with a touch. We'll just forget that Fuller had anything to do with Heroes. I mean, he's amazing, but he isn't Jesus.
2. Hugh Dancy & Mads Mikkelsen You may think that no actor could step into Anthony Hopkins shoes, but you would be incorrect. The Danish born Mikkelsen makes the character of Hannibal Lecter his own and doesn't try to ape Anthony Hopkins. He's perfected this genial mask that he shows to the world, and when the real Lecter shows himself, it surprises you. You don't expect it. You have to keep telling yourself that this is a horrible guy and the fact that you are able to forget it at all is a testament to the dynamic Mikkelsen. Dancy's role is the less show-y role, but that makes it the harder of the two. Will is the cop. The straight man. He's troubled and Dancy knocks it out of the park. He's able to make Will charming one minute and abrasive the next. He's loveable but hard to love. Just like Mikkelsen, Dancy walks a tight rope and he does a great job.
3. The supporting players There is one good thing about Fuller having so many failed shows. He has built up a cache of actors that he can call on and they are good. Caroline Dhavernas, from the failed Wonderfalls, plays Dr. Alanna Bloom. She is a potential love interest for Will and Lecter is her mentor. Fuller also tapped Dead Like Me actor, Ellen Muth, to play one of the killers of the week. She was Georgia, a mentally ill woman who couldn't see people's faces and thought she was dead. Her character was a nod to George, the reaper she played on Fuller's first series. It's not just his past actors that Fuller calls on, Hannibal boasts some of the best guest stars on television. Eddie Izzard as a surgeon turned serial killer, Molly Shannon as an unhinged woman trying to create her own tribe of lost boys and the effervescent Gillian Anderson as Hannibal's off the books shrink, Bedelia Du Maurier. This season continues the string of great guest stars with Cynthia Nixon showing up to play an investigator for the Inspector General who isn't convinced that Will is the man they're looking for. Also, Katharine Isabelle and Michael Pitt will be playing the Verger siblings and if you've seen the movie version of Hannibal or read the book you should be excited.
4. The crime scenes Hannibal is a procedural in some ways and each week viewers are introduced to a gruesome crime scene. What separates Hannibal scenes from scenes like this on other shows, is the way that the scenes are filmed. There is a great juxtapisition of the gorgeous and the macabre. You can see this in a particularly awesome scene from late in the first season, where Will and Jack Crawford (Lawrence Fisburne) are walking down a serene West Virginia beach in winter when they stumble across a totem pole made entirely out of human body parts! It's awesome and twisted, it's also tasteful in a weird way.
5. This season looks to be better than the first Hannibal had one of the best debut seasons of television I have ever seen. There wasn't a dud in the bunch. Each epsiode was better than the last. From what I've read about season two, the show seems poised to vault over the already high bar it had set for itself. It'll be interesting to see Will try to convince people that he is sane and the seemingly unflappable Dr. Lecter has put him where he is. All the while, Hannibal will be single white female-ing Graham and doing his job for the FBI. Shows run into trouble when the protagonist is incarcerated for any amount of time, it can sometimes cause the season to lose momentum, but if any series can pull off this tricky high wire act, it's Hannibal.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "Eric, you've given us five compelling reasons to watch, and I'm interested, but I haven't watched season 1 and I'm afraid I won't be able to follow." Au contraire! I have already thought of this. You'll find a video embedded below that is a handy dandy 7 minute recap of season one that will give you all the information you need until you can watch the first season episodes in full.
So, are you excited? Have I enticed you to at least check out the premiere? Let me know in the comments.
Oh, Hannibal returns tonight at 9/8c on NBC.
No comments:
Post a Comment