I just started S1E1. I’ve seen that many critics are very positive on the show, and several of my friends love it.
So far I’m finding it a bit eye-rolley. But hey it’s just the first episode of the series. My main concern is the constant “magically empathetic-verging-on-psychic” detective thing. Does that continue?
That he’s “got his horse hitched to the post nearest to the area of aspbergers, autism, narcissism and psychopathy” (or however he put it) doesn’t give me much confidence either. Do they hammer much on this angle as well?
The “magic beam” thing is used, but Will can think like a psycho as in the novel.
His being unstable comes into play much later in the series and is manipulated by Hannibal.
We have enjoyed it all so far.
It took me a couple of episodes to get into it. I wasn’t sure about the actor who plays Will— some of his mannerisms seemed to border on scenery-chewing, which I found distracting. It did draw me in eventually, but there remains a suspension-of-disbelief requirement.
It’s almost relentlessly dark— not much in the way of comic relief— and definitely the goriest show I’ve ever seen on network TV. Which isn’t a bad thing. Mads Mikkelsen makes an interesting Lecter, although the accent gets pretty thick at times.
IMO if you don’t like it by episode 3, chances are it’s not for you.
It starts off as a procedural but about midway through the first season really ramps up the serial-ness and gets incredibly tense. This show fucks with your brain unlike anything else ever on TV. It’s so dreamlike and surreal, and it plays so much with your expectations and morality and what you root for and what horrifies you, where you draw the line…it really is a unique viewing experience.
You just have to suspend a ton of disbelief to get into it. Just think of it as based on the logic of dreams. If you’re looking for scientific or legal accuracy, you’re watching the wrong show.
I had similar misgivings from the start…and I wish I hadn’t bothered with the rest of the first season.
Hannibal has some things going for it. It’s (mostly) well-written, well-acted, and well-shot. It just didn’t hold up for me. It’s a show that seems to take itself too seriously, but just doesn’t earn it.
Week after week, Will is investigating cartoonishly ghastly, epic-in-scope serial killers. It completely undermines the realism, and takes away the stakes of the investigations. The body count is so high it becomes hard to care.
And Hannibal himself is too cartoonishly perfect. He’s played like a caricature of Satan. He’s too unbelievable to be menacing. He’s not merely a criminal genius here, he’s an unrelatable, uninteristing, flawless (aside from the obvious), inhuman, polymath supervillain.
It had just enough good moments to keep me going, but I feel like it was ultimately unrewarding and never as suspenseful as I was hoping for.
It feels a lot like a midpoint between Dexter and True Detective, but I think you’d be better off just watching Dexter and True Detective.
I haven’t seen “Hannibal”, but Lecter of the first two books and the first Hopkins film isn’t ‘perfect’.
He can recognize that Barney is a professional doing his job, but can’t get over being caught by Will . His actions in Red Dragon are just petty.
And before Hopkins became a caricature of himself, he REALLY gives Lecter a multi-layered performance in “Silence…”. The slamming of the sliding shelf in the first scene, how his eyes just barely light up when the offer of new living quarters is made.
Nope. Only seen the film adaptations. While Lector was certainly portrayed as brilliant, he also seemed, well, like a psychopath.
The series just makes him too plastic-y flawless. Part of it is the way others react to him – he SEEMS like a creepy, arrogant, inhuman monster, but everybody reacts like he’s a delight.
I gave up on it a few episodes ago, mainly because they never give the title character much of a…well, character. He basically just randomly fucks with the other protagonists with no rhyme or reason other then to transparently move the plot along. Even a cannibalistic anti-hero needs some sort of motivation for the audience to understand whats going on. But other then keeping his larder stocked, the show never really gives Hannibal a goal or purpose.
I didn’t last more than a few episodes. The now-stereotypical “detective goes into a trance at crime scene - sees exactly how crime occurred” got tiresome, especially when compared to the real-life John Edward Douglas (the inspiration for the fictional Jack Crawford), a pioneering FBI profiler who did his analyses based on research and experience.
I was hoping a thread would open on this. I didn’t realize that three new episodes have aired since the end of February so I caught them all a couple of days ago. The first episode starts with a fierce end-of-season fight in … someone’s kitchen but before you see how it concludes, the next scene is “Twelve Weeks Earlier”. It worked to hook me in!
To the OP question, yes, the second season continues the same tropes. If you didn’t like them then, you won’t like them now. Fortunately, I can dig it.
Counterpoint: Nancy Grace
I think “Hannibal” is better than most network shows. It does rely heavily on certain tropes - the somewhat off profiler who may get too close to the darkness he hunts; that serial-killers are abundant and have grand motifs or plans (like a human quilt).
And there are definitely significant details that are glossed over. Hiding a bloody body can’t be that easy, especially given the context of the situation Hannibal was in.
But I like the pacing and style of the show, so far. I worry they won’t be able to keep it up, but I’ll keep watching for now.
Yeah, I decided I just had to spend my suspension-of-disbelief on that. Basically every week there is a crime that, in the real world, would be the most gruesome and famous crime in the history of the world. Just go with it.
I do think it takes itself a bit too seriously, and frankly I fairly often feel like I must be missing about 8 layers of point, but it’s so sumptuous in detail and creativity and so well acted that I enjoy it anyhow. And I think Mads Mikkleson’s performance as Hannibal is fantastic.
Well, count me as wrong if that piece of pure evil escaped from Time Bandits and is still out there doing her schtick. That woman is like Fred Phelps and Sean Hannity wrapped into one and dipped in Joe McCarthy.
I don’t actually remember the episodes all that well, but I think in terms of goals, Hannibal is much like many people. He doesn’t have an overarching grand scheme but is looking for entertainment, things that pass the time. One of his favourite pastimes in the books, if I remember rightly, was fucking with Jack Crawford. In the series, he’s doing the same thing - seeing how far he can push Crawford towards insanity, while at the same time getting a thrill out of his own audacity. How much can he dangle in front of the people who know him before they realize who he is?
However, there were a few times when I thought the show seems like it has been made by someone who really likes the characters and the style of the books and films, but forgets about using them in a story. It’s a little as if Michael Bay grew up obsessed with the classy psychopath trope, rather than stuff exploding.
