One of the all-time saddest TV cancellations for horror fans came when NBC pulled the plug on the Bryan Fuller-created “Hannibal” after just three seasons back in 2015, leaving the fates of Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) and Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) quite literally hanging off a cliff. Fuller has been keeping hope alive for the return of “Hannibal” for the past five years, but to date, the series has not been able to come back from the dead.
Our biggest hope has been that Netflix or another streaming service will swoop in for the save, and though that hasn’t actually happened yet, the good news this week is that Netflix will at least be streaming all three seasons of the NBC series next month.
Every episode of “Hannibal” will begin streaming on June 5. And who knows, maybe Netflix will consider ordering up more episodes if viewership is through the roof? Wishful thinking, to be sure, but it certainly couldn’t hurt the cause.
If you haven’t yet taken a bite out of “Hannibal,” the good news is that the three seasons of NBC’s series do tell a complete and fully satisfying story, capped off with what is quite honestly a perfect conclusion to the saga. So if you’re hesitant to jump in because you’re worried the story gets cut short in the end, well, that’s not quite the case. And as much as I’d love to see the series get revived, I can’t complain about the fact that NBC gave us three blood-soaked seasons of one of the most brilliant horror shows to ever grace the small screen.
On a related note, CBS just handed a series order to “Clarice,” which will be set one year after the events of The Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lecter is not expected to appear in the series, and it likely won’t impact whether or not Fuller’s take on Thomas Harris’ novels finds new life outside of NBC. Fuller had tweeted early this year, “Martha [De Laurentiis] & I tried many times to work with MGM to include Clarice into our Hannibal story. They ultimately told us they had their own plans for Clarice and they didn’t need Hannibal to tell her story. Don’t think this impacts a potential Hannibal S4 as we never had Clarice rights.”
Could this be the beginning of a beautiful relationship between Netflix and “Hannibal”? Only time will tell…
