Dr. Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter, Ph.D.  Never has a villain been so compelling — honestly humane on occasion, yet robotically satanic while indulging in sadistic games of cat and mouse with his prey.  Amongst other seminal antagonists, Dr. Lecter has been widely touted as the “Best Movie Villain of All Time” by entertainment media and countless Gothic horror fans.  Legendary British thespian Anthony Hopkins’s iconic image has always been that of his flawless portrayal of the original character from Thomas Harris’s second novel in the Lecter series, The Silence of the Lambs.

The Lecter mythology has returned in a new NBC show that premiered April 2013, and has really set the bar high for Harris’ characters — this time in a modern context.  The characters active in this series are the ones from Red Dragon, the debut of the infamous villain (ten or so years prior to the events of Silence of the Lambs).  Compared to the earlier and accurate adaptations of Red Dragon — most notably the 2002 film with Edward Norton (Fight Club, The Incredible Hulk) as detective Will Graham, Ralph Fiennes (Harry Potter, The Constant Gardener) as Francis Dolarhyde, and Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs, Taxi Driver) as Agent Jack Crawford — the series offers different characterizations, and abandons the descriptions of the original characters from the book.

NBC’s Hannibal is a beautifully shot, yet canonically gruesome, and visually stylized reimagining of Harris’ Lecter universe.  British star Hugh Dancy (Ella Enchanted, Confessions of a Shopaholic) plays a Will Graham that is an even more gifted criminal profiler than that of Norton’s portrayal.  Equipped with a flawed conscience, “pure empathy,” and extreme imagination, the journey for Graham and his private team of investigators is all the more challenging — professionally and emotionally. Jack Crawford is played with a more masterful energy than the role’s past actors, by none other than the authoritative Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix, Apocalypse Now).  Even so, the main attraction of this show is Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, The Hunt), and his restrained and subtly spellbinding performance.  As the good doctor and Iron Chef of human remains, he is arguably even better than Hopkins’s delightfully eccentric interpretation of Lecter.

If you’ve been a fan of the Hannibal Lecter canon for a while and are eager to see it be brought to the screen again in a new world of characters and shockingly brutal stories, then NBC’s Hannibal is your salvation.  The characters and storyline that have been established leave much potential for the direction of the show. I definitely recommend checking out season one before season two airs this February 28^th, in order to get the full scoop on what has happened so far in this masterful character study/horror hybrid series.  This is a high quality series for all you psychological suspense fans out there.  Hannibal is available on Amazon Prime, DVD, and nbc.com.  Viewer discretion is advised for disturbing gore and brutal violence.