On June 23 2015 08:18 Sent. wrote: I dont get why would they announce the cancellation so early, it's like they know the rest of s3 is hopelessly bad
It's not that it's probably bad, it's that the ratings have been so low up to this point that they probably don't see any reason to play games and are just going to outright cancel it.
I won't lie, I didn't watch episode three yet because I haven't had the chance. I'm very disappointed, although not at all surprised, that NBC is cancelling it, but I hope it gets picked up by Netflix (although Hulu seems more likely). I feel like Bryan Fuller picked the worst possible way to open up season three. Artsy episodes are great and all, but they're awful for attracting new viewers and can possibly even turn casual viewers away from the show. Poor move on his part, although he may have already known it would be cancelled and wanted to get to play around with more stylistic episodes before the show ended.
I just recently finished season 2 and started season 3, and this show is simply outstanding. It's exactly what I want: a slow, psychological drama with matchless cinematography.
I do hope it gets picked up. It's well-loved by the fanbase and universally praised as a great show, so no reason not to. But we never know...
It can be for various reasons. Maybe they did want to cancel it so the scenario can be tight. Maybe the main actor don't want to continue anymore. Dexter would have been better cancelled quite early too.
It's hard to make the suspension of disbelief work over the years, sitcoms rely less on that and cost less.
On June 23 2015 08:18 Sent. wrote: I dont get why would they announce the cancellation so early, it's like they know the rest of s3 is hopelessly bad
Something i read on Reddit, which makes sense.
Here is why I believe this move was made now: television contracts for cancelled shows expire on June 30 every year. Assuming Hannibal is on the same cycle as normal fall/spring shows, NBC made this move now instead of in Aigust at the end of the season to allow Hannibal to find a new home before the cast contracts expire. Remember when Community was picked up on June 30 last year by Yahoo? That was as last minute as it gets. Hannibal is now on the clock.
I'm not in the slightest worry at all, maybe i would if this was a couple years back but the industry works differently now with online streaming, hope Netflix snatched it already
I watched some of this show and felt compelled to post a good/bad/ugly list:
The good:
Whatever chef(s) are consulting for this show, the decisions he/she/they are making, and all of the food scenes. This is the best and scariest part of the show. I read a blog somewhere that goes into detail about the decisions that were made with the food scenes and it was awesome.
Mads Mikkhelsen. Hannibal is the only consistently good and likeable character in the show imo. I don't think Mads's performance could have been better.
Wardrobes.
There is good cinematography in this show at points.
Casting Lawrence Fishburne and Gina Torres as husband and wife in the series (they are husband and wife irl).
The bad:
Pretty much everything else unfortunately.
The ugly:
Dialog. The dialog in this show is bad and poorly paced. Mads Mikkhelsen is an exception; he is a talented performer and makes his lines compelling in spite of how awful they would otherwise be without him. Lawrence Fishburne is also a talented performer and has his moments in the show. Guest star Eddie Izzard is good too.
The protagonist, Will Graham. Terrible nonsense character. Why. Does. He. Talk. So. Slow? This character almost ruins the show for me. He (1) is a professor (2) is an FBI consultant/criminal profiler (3) an avid fly fisherman (4) has ~10 stray dogs, all different breeds (5) has severe mental health problems. Any one of those things is a full time job. Will Graham is trying to be 5 different characters, more if you count his "empathic abilities" (lazy writing), and the result is still somehow boring.
The show needed better medical and forensics consulting. There are people in this show who we are supposed to believe are doctors frequently using words like "sociopath," "psychopath," etc. Will Graham could have been an awesome character if instead of "empathic abilities" he was just highly dedicated to his field of study and spent all of his free time pursuing it instead of e.g. teaching classes or taking care of 10 stray dogs.
The good in this show is really good btw, but the ugly is really, really ugly. I wish the dialog had better pacing and less. talking. like. this. trying. to. be. dramatic. I wish Will Graham was written completely differently. No human being has time for 5 full time jobs much less someone suffering from autism/aspergers/whatever mental illness Will Graham is supposed to have.
On June 26 2015 07:18 batsnacks wrote: I watched some of this show and felt compelled to post a good/bad/ugly list:
The good:
Whatever chef(s) are consulting for this show, the decisions he/she/they are making, and all of the food scenes. This is the best and scariest part of the show. I read a blog somewhere that goes into detail about the decisions that were made with the food scenes and it was awesome.
Mads Mikkhelsen. Hannibal is the only consistently good and likeable character in the show imo. I don't think Mads's performance could have been better.
Wardrobes.
There is good cinematography in this show at points.
Casting Lawrence Fishburne and Gina Torres as husband and wife in the series (they are husband and wife irl).
The bad:
Pretty much everything else unfortunately.
The ugly:
Dialog. The dialog in this show is bad and poorly paced. Mads Mikkhelsen is an exception; he is a talented performer and makes his lines compelling in spite of how awful they would otherwise be without him. Lawrence Fishburne is also a talented performer and has his moments in the show. Guest star Eddie Izzard is good too.
The protagonist, Will Graham. Terrible nonsense character. Why. Does. He. Talk. So. Slow? This character almost ruins the show for me. He (1) is a professor (2) is an FBI consultant/criminal profiler (3) an avid fly fisherman (4) has ~10 stray dogs, all different breeds (5) has severe mental health problems. Any one of those things is a full time job. Will Graham is trying to be 5 different characters, more if you count his "empathic abilities" (lazy writing), and the result is still somehow boring.
The show needed better medical and forensics consulting. There are people in this show who we are supposed to believe are doctors frequently using words like "sociopath," "psychopath," etc. Will Graham could have been an awesome character if instead of "empathic abilities" he was just highly dedicated to his field of study and spent all of his free time pursuing it instead of e.g. teaching classes or taking care of 10 stray dogs.
The good in this show is really good btw, but the ugly is really, really ugly. I wish the dialog had better pacing and less. talking. like. this. trying. to. be. dramatic. I wish Will Graham was written completely differently. No human being has time for 5 full time jobs much less someone suffering from autism/aspergers/whatever mental illness Will Graham is supposed to have.
I would like to say that you should remember this is based on novels that have already been written and characters that already existed. The writers didn't choose who Will Graham is and create the world that he's in, They are simply portraying him and how they think he should be.
I disagree with your analysis of Will's abilities, however. Without his "gift" he wouldn't really be able to get into the mind of his killers, which is one of the most important aspects of the show. It's one of the main reasons that he's a suspect in the first season and it's why he feels such a deep connection to Hannibal and his murders.
I am not sure why you think Will Graham has too many aspects. It's not really uncommon for people who are world renowned in their field to also be working as consultants, and the dogs help show that he has a hard time relating to other people and prefers the company of his stray dogs. I don't think either of those are complete nonsense. The fishing is somewhat unnecessary, but it's used in a lot of dreamlike scenes for symbolism and is more of a recurring theme than an overarching plot line. The show could probably do without it, but it's not awful. Maybe it's a lot to juggle for a TV character, but I don't think the dogs and the fishing are meant to be really significant plot devices. They're just minor aspects of Will that help develop him and his personality.
I agree that some of the dialog is kind of belabored and a lot of the show (especially in the third season, if you're up to that) is self-indulgent. I don't think that the show has the most realistic characters or even tries to make them realistic, but I can understand that it would frustrate some people.
On June 26 2015 07:18 batsnacks wrote: I watched some of this show and felt compelled to post a good/bad/ugly list:
The good:
Whatever chef(s) are consulting for this show, the decisions he/she/they are making, and all of the food scenes. This is the best and scariest part of the show. I read a blog somewhere that goes into detail about the decisions that were made with the food scenes and it was awesome.
Mads Mikkhelsen. Hannibal is the only consistently good and likeable character in the show imo. I don't think Mads's performance could have been better.
Wardrobes.
There is good cinematography in this show at points.
Casting Lawrence Fishburne and Gina Torres as husband and wife in the series (they are husband and wife irl).
The bad:
Pretty much everything else unfortunately.
The ugly:
Dialog. The dialog in this show is bad and poorly paced. Mads Mikkhelsen is an exception; he is a talented performer and makes his lines compelling in spite of how awful they would otherwise be without him. Lawrence Fishburne is also a talented performer and has his moments in the show. Guest star Eddie Izzard is good too.
The protagonist, Will Graham. Terrible nonsense character. Why. Does. He. Talk. So. Slow? This character almost ruins the show for me. He (1) is a professor (2) is an FBI consultant/criminal profiler (3) an avid fly fisherman (4) has ~10 stray dogs, all different breeds (5) has severe mental health problems. Any one of those things is a full time job. Will Graham is trying to be 5 different characters, more if you count his "empathic abilities" (lazy writing), and the result is still somehow boring.
The show needed better medical and forensics consulting. There are people in this show who we are supposed to believe are doctors frequently using words like "sociopath," "psychopath," etc. Will Graham could have been an awesome character if instead of "empathic abilities" he was just highly dedicated to his field of study and spent all of his free time pursuing it instead of e.g. teaching classes or taking care of 10 stray dogs.
The good in this show is really good btw, but the ugly is really, really ugly. I wish the dialog had better pacing and less. talking. like. this. trying. to. be. dramatic. I wish Will Graham was written completely differently. No human being has time for 5 full time jobs much less someone suffering from autism/aspergers/whatever mental illness Will Graham is supposed to have.
I would like to say that you should remember this is based on novels that have already been written and characters that already existed. The writers didn't choose who Will Graham is and create the world that he's in, They are simply portraying him and how they think he should be.
I disagree with your analysis of Will's abilities, however. Without his "gift" he wouldn't really be able to get into the mind of his killers, which is one of the most important aspects of the show. It's one of the main reasons that he's a suspect in the first season and it's why he feels such a deep connection to Hannibal and his murders.
I am not sure why you think Will Graham has too many aspects. It's not really uncommon for people who are world renowned in their field to also be working as consultants, and the dogs help show that he has a hard time relating to other people and prefers the company of his stray dogs. I don't think either of those are complete nonsense. The fishing is somewhat unnecessary, but it's used in a lot of dreamlike scenes for symbolism and is more of a recurring theme than an overarching plot line. The show could probably do without it, but it's not awful. Maybe it's a lot to juggle for a TV character, but I don't think the dogs and the fishing are meant to be really significant plot devices. They're just minor aspects of Will that help develop him and his personality.
I agree that some of the dialog is kind of belabored and a lot of the show (especially in the third season, if you're up to that) is self-indulgent. I don't think that the show has the most realistic characters or even tries to make them realistic, but I can understand that it would frustrate some people.
The only Thomas Harris novel I've read is Silence of the Lambs so I didn't have any background on Will Graham before going into this show. His "gift" is my biggest problem with the character though, the hobbies are just slightly irritating and seem unnecessary. His gift seems like a really lazy narrative device to me. I can imagine a different version of Will Graham who is a scholar in his field and spends all of his free time immersing himself in medical/forsensic/criminal data; who can also (inadvertently) get too far into the minds of the killers. I think this would be a much more interesting approach to the character because instead of some vague "gift" that allows Will to instantly understand every crime he sees, we get to see logical explanations and motives. I think it's easy to believe that someone who studies crime constantly would have trouble not letting it get to them, especially if they are pushed like Will Graham is.
Actually, that was possibly not fair. The character Will Graham as is could be a good character. The dialog in this show is bad and doesn't allow for this though. As an example:
Situation 1 <no build-up to this scene> Will Graham is talking -very- slowly with long awkward pauses between his words. The audience wonders why he isn't talking normal. Yes he has issues but these issues do not explain why he is annunciating his words like an idiot. Also, he maintains the same slightly furrowed eyebrows facial expression 100% of the time. Why? The audience assumes it is because the actor Hugh Dancy is trying to be dramatic, since there is no logical plot related reason for Will Graham to be talking like an idiot in this way. Will Graham is a highly educated man; Hugh Dancy is an actor wrestling with a bad script. The way he speaks kills my suspension of disbelief.
Situation 2 <immediately prior to this scene Will Graham experienced something highly traumatic> Will Graham is talking -very- slowly with long awkward pauses between his words. This makes sense because prior to this scene Will Graham experienced something highly traumatic.
This show has a lot more of situation 1 than situation 2.
For shows like this, I like to watch the entire season at once, couple episodes per day, instead of waiting weekly for the next feast. Sorry to contribute to the low ratings. I actually forgot it was on. Just like I forgot NBA finals was on. (curse you, dota tournaments!)
Frankly I watch the show for the cinematography, art direction, and mind-fucks more than anything. The food photography especially, the frozen "Beverly slides" etc - sublime eye candy! The classical music too.
I don't see how a bad script has anything to do with slow speech delivery. I'm sure Hugh can read his lines 30% quicker, but for some reason he acts like he has to burn 8000 calories just to speak on this show. Is it the accent? Or perhaps it's the director's decision?
I always got the impression that Will Graham just chooses his words carefully. To use a metaphor, the way he talks reminds me of watching someone wade across a river; every step is chosen carefully and deliberately, while making slow, steady, progress. When he talks, he sort of picks his way across the conversation.
As for other points made, I've always treated the show as some sort of dark surrealist fantasy, so I gloss over a lot of things that wouldn't fit in well if I cared about realism.
Last year I watched the first season for the first time and it was an up & down of emotions. Some of the episodes were pretty great while others were just average but the overall quality was good enough to keep me interested. The second season was way better in my opionion. I liked almost every single episode - especially the last one - and could not wait for season three. After watching the first two episodes of the third season I got to admit that the show became almost unwatchable for me. I have no idea what they are talking about 80% of the time, the dialogues degenerated into random strings of words. Hannibal was always about a rich language and metaphors, yet this season it's way too much for my taste.
MOD EDIT: Put in a spoiler because it was reported as a spoiler and I have no idea if it actually is a spoiler. So it may or may not be a spoiler, click at your own risk
I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but I feel like the dialogue volume is so low and slow, which forces me to turn up my volume, but the background volume is perfectly normal which makes my volume super loud, so I'm constantly adjusting the volume every episode. -.-