Pilot Review: Hannibal

Hannibal (NBC)
Premiered April 4 at 10pm

It’s interesting that this show should premiere now, when it bears such obvious comparison to two other new shows, “The Following” and “Bates Motel.” The former is a show about a serial killer that features an excessive amount of gore, while the latter is a prequel to a famous film about the origins of a deranged killer. This show doesn’t much resemble the former, failing to achieve the same gritty feel though currently doing a far superior job of writing its characters and their dialogue. It’s worthy of comparison to the latter, however, since it too tackles a difficult concept, which is to showcase a killer not behind bars for an undetermined amount of time before he is eventually caught. “Hannibal” adjusts the Hannibal Lecter mythology somewhat by turning FBI Agent Will Graham into a complicated character with Asperger’s, limiting his ability to relate to society and therefore increasing the potential for him to bond with Hannibal. By the end of the hour, Will and Hannibal resembled the versions of themselves portrayed by Edward Norton and Anthony Hopkins at the beginning of the excellent film “Red Dragon” than they did at the start of the episode. The fact that Hannibal wasn’t introduced until halfway through this pilot indicates that the show will be as much about Will, whose investigative style is certainly creative but might become tiresome quickly. Hugh Dancy was fantastic in a recurring role as a dying cancer patient on “The Big C,” and he seems more focused and less immediately compelling here. While I do think that Mads Mikkelsen is a great choice to play Hannibal, so far I find him to be less engaging than both Brian Cox and Hopkins were in previous incarnations of the cannibal. I’m glad that creator Bryan Fuller chose to work with Caroline Dhavernas again, but she hardly has a part worthy of comparison to her “Wonderfalls” role. While the last shot of Hannibal and Will sitting with the survivor in the hospital was strong, this show thus far seems like a run-of-the-mill criminal investigation show, one which is sure to run into problems soon once it catches up with its mythology. Will I be watching for now? Yes, but I’m unsure of how long I’ll stick with it.

How will it work as a series? Will and Hannibal are already becoming fast friends, and it’s just a question of how central Hannibal’s cannibal crimes will be, and whether they’ll instead have the opportunity to work on other disturbing cases while Hannibal’s criminal tendencies linger in the background. I’m hoping that it doesn’t try too hard to showcase the Hannibal we know and love, instead opting to create a new character with a different path.
How long will it last? All of creator Bryan Fuller’s previous shows were short-lived, but it looks like this one might have a decent life. Opposite two extremely successful shows, “Elementary” and “Scandal,” the pilot performed decently, and strong reviews for the show point to NBC picking up what may rank as one of its few recent successes for a second season sometime soon.

Pilot grade: B-