Is Hannibal (TV show) one of the best examples of good-to-very good show that goes to utter shit very, very quickly?
1st season: Phenomenal.
2.5-3rd season: utter incomprehensible dreck. ....Image masturbation masquerading as elevated, intellectual content. It's mostly unwatchable, but I find myself soldiering through what I hope is just a handful of episodes to get to the Red Dragon stuff....
Going in, I didn't realize that this is actually a re-make of the entire series, not just a complimentary lead-up. I guess you learn that is happening early on, if you're generally familiar with it, when some events are switched around to keep Will Graham as a more involved, show-running protagonist. But whatever.
I'm not aware of the history of this show, but was it canceled and then continued on another network at some point, with different show-runners? It's like the entire 2nd half is created by an entirely new team of self-indulgent assholes. When you think about it, a lot of these episodes are about 5 minutes of new content each, 30 minutes of visual pablum, and 5 minutes of rehashed footage from previous episodes...again and again and again.
I'm not a huge fan of the Hannibal stuff, never read the books, but I do like the movies. Yes, I'm well aware of Manhunter and thoroughly enjoyed that, as I really love Michael Mann. I often wonder what it would have been like if Brian Cox was always Hannibal Lecter, and not just the one time. ....and I really like Mads Mikkelson. I think he's pretty awesome, especially early on this series; but even in the good episodes, there is simply too much time devoted to "Hannibal worship." I think it's the effect of the current popularity of the genre, the established complexity of stuff like Dexter, but here there is this forced desire to humanize Hannibal. ...No one effing needs that, or wants that, really.
Can we get back to Hannibal the actual monster? Some times, we don't really need a history for these people. We don't need to know these things. Why can't they just be the horrible things that they are, and leave the audience to feel the gaps?
Think about what happened to Darth Vader, lol.
so:
Hannibal, season 1: 8/10
season ~2.5 - 3: wtf?/10