NICE TO EAT YOU: Mads Mikkelsen is perfectly cast as the evil Dr. Hannibal Lecter in “Hannibal,” premiering tomorrow night on NBC. (
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What do you get if you mate “Elementary” with “Dexter” — and then start cloning around with “Silence of the Lambs,” “Bates Motel,” “Monk,” and “The Following”?
NBC is hoping you’ll guess a hit. But if you guessed, instead, “Hannibal” — a new series about an Asperger’s-afflicted detective on the hunt for serial murderers, whose investigative partner is a doctor with a taste for human flesh — you’d be 100 percent correct.
The network whose once-great Thursday night is now the dead zone is trying to liven things up — especially after they did themselves some real harm on the “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” takeoff, “Do No Harm.”
They are at it again with yet another stolen-from-classic-material series, in this scary, creepy prequel to “Silence of the Lambs” and “Red Dragon.”
The story centers around disturbed FBI consultant/profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), who is brought aboard by FBI big shot Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) to find a serial killer who kills women by impaling them on deer antlers.
But because the profiler is deeply disturbed himself, Crawford has to make him partner up with a shrink to keep an eye on him and uncover his inner and outer demons.
As luck would have it, the shrink just happens to be Hannibal Lecter (the unsettlingly suave Mads Mikkelsen), who also secretly works with the killers and bad guys each week.
As an extra bonus, there’s Hannibal’s cooking thrown in, and we get to watch him prepare such gourmet treats as something that looks like human lungs in claret sauce, which is gruesome enough to make a vegetarian projectile-vomit.
The series is the most beautifully shot and produced show on network TV, with many scenes simply and literally breathtaking — especially, believe it or not, when they find a field planted with humans to act as mushroom compost.
Thrown into the mix is the requisite tabloid journalist/blogger (a woman, of course, with no scruples) which takes away the show’s authenticity. But I guess they think it will grab the favored younger demographic.
That being said, the thing that does give this show its grounding is the acting. Dancy is a perfect, tortured soul; Fishburne is everyman with a brain; and Mads Mikkelsen is perfectly named. What is lacking, though, is any respite from the darkness. Even the killing machine on “Dexter” (Michael C. Hall) has an absurd sense of humor.
With episodes named for meal courses like “Apéritif,” “Amuse-Bouche,” etc., NBC ordered up a 13-corpse “Hannibal” meal. The only question is whether viewers want to eat that heavy every week.