Ok so I caught up on all six episodes (hunted down the unaired fourth episode before I found out it was on iTunes) in the past day or so. I wasn't going to watch it because I thought they were just going for a prequel to the other movies instead of just doing a flat out redo and I thought that changing around characters' race/gender so much wouldn't work because, while I normally don't really care about race/gender-bending a character, if you're trying to match another continuity it can get a little strange.
Anyway, once I found out it was a whole other take on the story and caught a few minutes of one of the episodes, I figured I'd give it a shot, got addicted, and rushed through them all at once. I've liked pretty much all the movies so far (aside from Hannibal Rising, which I haven't seen because by all accounts it's not worth bothering with) and read the first two books so I'm pretty familiar with any and all source material they could possibly be drawing from so far. Taking that into consideration, I have to say that while I really like it on its own merits so far, it's relying on references to things that are supposedly going to happen in the future so much that I can't see it going according to what I've heard they have planned without things getting really repetitive. There have been a couple of references so far to the Tooth Fairy's whole "do you see?" shtick, Will's hallucination of the Angelmaker saying he could help with Will's "becoming", the way Anna Chlumsky's character figures out the Chesapeake Ripper's identity... Not to mention all the other simpler references that don't necessarily have to affect the story in the future but are just there as kind of in-jokes for people who know the other iterations of the story. Things like Eddie Izzard's whole mannerisms of Hopkins/botched voice of Cox impression, a shot or two in the Angelmaker episode, etc... That combined with all the other things I've either noticed so far and forgot to type up here or just plain didn't catch at all and I think it's all just a bit much. I'd rather see what the creative team on the show posits should have organically happened before Red Dragon and have it all be satisfying on its own story-wise without all these references to earlier material. That way, once they do come across trodden ground they can mess with it or leave it unchanged as much as they want without worrying about "what have we already mined for earlier episodes?" and things can unfold in whatever way works best, whether that means fidelity to source material or changes made because a (hopefully) better idea has occurred to the writers of those episodes.
Aside from that, I think it's a brilliantly written, beautifully shot and wonderfully acted show and I'd love to see it be on air long enough to actually give a new take on some of the other parts of Hannibal's story that have already been seen in a visual medium. I'll definitely either try and catch it when it airs or at least DVR it to watch later.
looking forward to the rest.
