Despite the abused source material, "Hannibal" manages to create its own peculiar atmosphere and surprise its audience with a whole new approach to the same old story. The first season works as some kind of prequel entirely focused on Hannibal and Will Graham's ambiguous relationship, while the other two seasons freely rearrange events from Thomas Harris' books to fit Bryan Fuller's vision. Even the characters directly taken from the novels tend to be gender-bent, have completely different personalities or new roles in the story. Compared with Anthony Hopkins' somewhat campy portrayal of Hannibal Lecter, Mads Mikkelsen's performance feels much more sober, elegant, and charming in its own way.

I liked how the show attempts to take us inside the killers' minds and capture the twisted beauty of their "designs". It requires suspension of disbelief on many occasions but ultimately pays off with sophisticated visuals, a consistently intense atmosphere, and hours of wicked mind games. Hannibal Lecter's character is obviously what makes the show so engaging to watch, but his superior intellect tends to be emphasized a little too much at times. In particular, things start to get a little repetitive from the second half of the second season. It was interesting to see Will Graham fight his way out of prison and at the same time work new series of murders from behind bars, but once he gets out and starts his new "therapy", the same old cat and mouse game begins again. Still, the level stays pretty high and gets even higher for the sumptuous season finale.

The third and last season is overall satisfying, even though a bit too disjointed in pacing. It starts with a series of classy yet tediously slow and pretentious episodes set in Florence and inspired by the "Hannibal" novel and film. Then, Mason Verger's campy revenge story kicks in to serve as a memorable climax for the whole series. The second half revisits the "Red Dragon" story arc but felt a little dull in comparison. Still, it's heartbreaking to see this show end so abruptly. At least we got the long-debated homoerotic subtext officially celebrated in the season finale.

On a side note, I can't believe that so many characters kept coming back from the dead, though. I understand that they were trying to keep the main cast alive for a long as possible, but every time someone gets stabbed or supposedly killed, you already know that most likely they are going to make it as usual.