Hannibal is in parts,, a visual treat in production and editing, but all that cannot mask a story stretched beyond its natural limits. By the middle of S02, you realise the female characters, apart from that icy detachment of Gillian Andersons Dr Du Maurier, are just cardboard cutouts, swinging from belief to unbelief in the most unbelievable ways, or dropping their clothes to provide a one lighter moments. The sick wife appears and disappears so swiftly, you could almost imagine she never existed. The three male leads do a fairly admirable job, with Mads cruising all the. Way through in one gear.

When a story overstays, you start to see the structure and it's limitations, flaws and compromises. The secondary serial killers have all the importance of an entree or dessert, just there to space out the primary 'romance'. Moments of relief almost. The perennial problem with TV series, is hanging around long after the ovations echoes have faded. Hannibal is solid entertainment, but it is overly long, letting the dread and tension give way to an exhausting wait for the inevitable denouement.