In the US: Thursdays, 10/9c, NBC
In the UK: Acquired by Sky Living
In Canada: Thursdays, 10pm, CityTV
Serial killers, the doyennes of 90s cinema and TV largely thanks to a little known movie, Silence of the Lambs, that featured an equally little known character called Hannibal Lecter, are back with a vengeance this year. Although Criminal Minds has been chugging along for God knows how long, giving us deranged, implausible serial killer after deranged, implausible serial killer, and obviously Dexter has now been doing his thing for eight seasons, apparently this isn’t enough serial killing for TV because this year we’ve already had the debuts of The Following, Cult, and Bates Motel, a prequel to 1960s horror classic and original serial killer movie, Psycho.
And I’ve been wondering why, because largely they’ve had very little to offer that’s new, beyond more gore than was allowed 10-20 years ago. Lots of women getting raped and hacked up, with the writers having as much regard for the victims as their fictional sociopaths do – is this some kind of Faludi-esque backlash, a symptom of the resurgence of rape culture in society or simply a fashion, these things going in cycles?
So leave it to not quite the original but certainly one of the best serial killers to show us that there is room creatively for such shows and that they can still thrill and challenge without being exploitative. Because Hannibal Lecter is back, this time played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, in a prequel of sorts to one of my favourite movies, the much neglected cult favourite Manhunter based on Lecter creator Thomas Harris’s original book Red Dragon.
The show, written by Pushing Daisies creator and Heroes saviour Bryan Fuller, looks at Manhunter‘s Will Graham (played in the movie by CSI‘s William Petersen) and his early career, putting front and centre the man with “the mind of a psychopath”, who can empathise with and recreate the thoughts of serial killers in his mind. Importantly, it also expands on, changes and builds up how he first meets the man who would end up driving him crazy, whom he ultimately incarcerates and who in a sense defines him: Lecter himself. And they’re going to end up working together, even if Hannibal has a little secret that he’s keeping from Graham and the FBI.
Featuring a roster of fabulous actors as well as Thomas Harris characters familiar to any fan, it’s also absolutely fantastic.
Here’s a trailer.
