Hannibal TV show cancelled - gorgeous and bizarre and gone

Bryan Fuller's utterly insane adaptation of the Hannibal story for NBC has been cancelled - it will finish at the end of its current third season

We've talked about Bryan Fuller's Hannibal quite a bit on these pages, mainly because its a suprisingly original and engaging adaptation of a property which really shouldn't have worked with some great performances. Oh and it's also utterly insane and easily the most gorgeous TV show currently airing.

And now its cancelled.

Rumours have been swirling about cancellation since the very first season of the show but it seems like NBC was on board for the duration, giving Fuller unusually free rein to spin the story out over multiple seasons, with a full 7 planned according to reports. But now it's officially gone, with the currently airing third season to be its last.

And honestly it's not a massive suprise. Hannibal never really felt like a network show, especially with the alarmingly intimate nature of its violence and the seriously dark themes and subject matter it was exploring. It also wasn't always the easiest series to follow, especially as things reached increasingly obscure levels in season 2. There are reports that some rights issues around the character of Clarice Starling may also have put paid to Fuller's future plans for the show.

It's still consistently fascinating stuff, and the third season actually might have earned some new fans with a change of location and some interesting twists in the relationship between Hannibal and the people around him who are just hoping not to be served for dinner.

Fuller had this statement after the annoucement:

"NBC has allowed us to craft a television series that no other broadcast network would have dared, and kept us on the air for three seasons despite Cancellation Bear Chow ratings and images that would have shredded the eyeballs of lesser Standards & Practices enforcers. Jen Salke and her team have been fantastic partners and creatively supportive beyond measure. HANNIBAL is finishing his last course at NBC’s table this summer, but a hungry cannibal can always dine again. And personally, I look forward to my next meal with NBC."

Naturally in this age of streaming services, the most obvious solution would be for Hannibal to decamp to somewhere like Netflix, Yahoo or Amazon. While its a cult hit its nothing on the level of Arrested Development so its hard to know just where it might fit, in terms of being a profitable purchase for any of these services. And there's the issue of retaining talent like Hugh Dancy, Gillian Anderson and the mesmerising Mads Mikkelsen as well as the talented team which crafts those amazing images every week.

And also, just how much more horrifying could it get without the limited of network TV?

So enjoy the concoction of horrors left in season 3, preferably on HD or blu-ray and wait and see what happens next for Hannibal. The current season has 10 more episodes to air on NBC in the US.