FBI agent Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) recruits profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) to return to work on a serial killer case. Will gets counseling from renown psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen). Dr. Alana Bloom (Caroline Dhavernas) is concerned about the effects of the case on her friend Will's psyche. Bryan Fuller brings the characters created by Thomas Harris onto the TV screen.

I love this show from the very beginning. The first season is part police procedural and part disturbing psycho drama. Mads is fearfully intense. Hugh Dancy is compelling damaged goods. It's visually stunning. Dead bodies have never looked so beautiful. That's not to say that everything ran smoothly. The slow moody scenes take some getting used to. I still think the psychotherapy scenes with Hannibal are too static. The dialogue couldn't make up for its slow flat tone. By the second season, the show settles into the beauty of the violence and the darkness of the psychological warfare. The show breaks new ground especially for network TV.