Just finished season one. I haven't seen a psychological thriller quite this good on TV before.
Mads Mikkelsen is terrific as Hannibal. Unflappable and inscrutable, he plays the perfect psychopathic cannibal. I actually prefer him to the Hannibal played by Anthony Hopkins.
The cooking/eating scenes are chilling. I was curious if we were to understand that Hannibal is cooking human flesh and then I read
this interview with the creator of the show, Bryan Fuller.
Quote:Quote:
How much of what Hannibal serves should we assume features human ingredients? All of it? Some of it?
Bryan Fuller: (laughs) I think if there is some kind of meat product on the table, whether it be a broth or an organ of some kind, that that is very likely a human being. But when, for instance, he served Dr. Sutcliffe, and it was very clearly a pig leg, I think that was somebody from the Island of Dr. Moreau. No, not literally. In those cases — when it's visually a piece of chicken bone or something like it that is visually indicative of an animal — then it's the animal. Everything else is people.
So that's what he's been feeding everyone in his FBI circle, as well as his patients.
My only complaint about the show is that they continually use the term "psychiatrist" to mean "psychotherapist." At some point in the show a girl in a hospital sees Dr. Alana Bloom and asks if she's a doctor, and she says yes, but not a medical doctor; a psychiatrist. Everyone on this show that deals with therapy is referred to as a "psychiatrist" when in the real world psychiatrists rarely deal with therapy.
A psychiatrist is a medical doctor, they go to medical school and receive MDs. They tend to deal mostly with prescriptions for mental illness. For such a well-made show that deals with mental issues, this is a glaring error.
Overall a fantastic show, probably will start season 2 later next week.