Intro: I had never seen The Silence of the Lambs or Hannibal (film) before seeing this show. I did see Red Dragon (2002), however, and it was pretty good.

The promo for the show definitely interested me in the show. However, I had no idea what kind of show I was going to get myself into.

First Season: The first five episodes follow an almost generic case of the week format, making it entertaining enough, but definitely lacking in making it truly great. However, this all changes by the sixth episode where the series becomes so intense and so riveting that I would give put the season up there right with Dexter's first season. The first season of Dexter almost followed the same format as well and took about the same time to gel, but when it did, it was absolutely mind-blowing.

10/10

Second Season: Now that we are in the second season, the show continues to be extremely creative and risk-taking in its story and gore. There have been three cases of the week over seven episodes (one lasting two, one lasting one, and one lasting 3 and all in the first 5 episodes). However, the difference here is that the cases serve the story rather than being the main focus. It's just completely insane how good this show is and that nobody watches it. I'd never felt so giddy about a show since the last eight episodes of Breaking Bad. And before that maybe Season 4 of Dexter. The remaining episodes of the season were not as smooth as the what preceded it. However, they were still pretty interesting.

1st half of Season 2: 10/10 2nd half of Season 2: 8/10

Why Nobody Watches It: 1) It's the goriest show ever made (yes, more so than Dexter) 2) It's really dark 3) It's a story-driven show which isn't very suiting for a network TV show.

Mikkelsen vs. Hopkins: There's no debate here actually. Even though Hopkins won an Oscar for his portrayal of Hannibal Lecter, Mikkelsen redefines the character in such a way that he is far more interesting than Hopkins ever was. A lot of that has to do with the writing team too behind the show as they are improving upon the source material and making their own stories with these characters.