Hannibal - Season 3 [Blu-ray + Digital HD]

+++Warning, this contains spoilers from the prior season, but no major giveaways from season three+++Hannibal is the critically acclaimed show by Bryan Fuller, who has created many shows (like Wonderfalls and Pushing Daises) that had a lot of critical acclaim and devoted cult followings but never got great ratings. Hannibal falls into that category and ultimately was canceled before it was able to get a proper resolution. Season three picks up months after the events that ended season two in which Lecter was revealed as the Chesapeake Ripper and attacked Jack, Will, and Alana and left them all for dead. We find out the fates of each one of them (and Abagail Hobbs, who was revealed to be alive), but not immediately in the first episode. The first half of the season was adapted from the Hannibal and Hannibal Rising storylines with Hannibal and Bedelia Du Maurier living in Europe under assumed identities. The second half of the season adapts the Red Dragon storyline and brings in Richard Armitage (from the Hobbit movies) as Francis Dolarhyde and Rutina Wesley (from True Blood) as Reba McClane. The season, and thus the series, ends on a pretty big cliffhanger and an epilogue that hints at the outcome of the cliffhanger.The A/V quality of the blu-ray is, like with the prior season releases, very good. There are also a ton of extras included in the set. There are ten commentary tracks, so most of the episodes, which include various members of the cast and showrunners providing commentary. Then there are deleted scenes, a gag reel, and the series of postmortem segments with cast member Scott Thompson (that run about an hour combined). Then there are a series of making-of featurettes, the shortest of which runs just under 17-minutes, and the longest that runs over two hours devoted to reimagining the Red Dragon storyline. So, if you like bonus material, this gives you a lot.Overall, the series is very good. Of course, it is very gory and violent. There is not much in the way of sex, but the gore is over-the-top. The acting is top-notch all around. The writers definitely took a chance ending the show on a cliffhanger without a true resolution, and the show ended up being canceled after most of the filming wrapped so we never do get a true resolution of the story. That said, it is still a great series that is worth watching even if not everything gets wrapped up in a nice bow.

I am mourning the loss of the best show on television. Hannibal was too good of a show to be on network tv. It should have been on HBO or Netflix. With that said, NBC was amazing for allowing what they did and letting Bryan Fuller's vision play out on screen.Mads Mikkelsen is Hannibal for me now. That doesn't take away from Anthony Hopkins in the least. His version was incredible, and should be honored for what it was. But this was Hannibal in action, with his person suit still on. Hannibal before he was caught, and it was glorious.Hugh Dancy was just as amazing as Will Graham. He was damaged, overly empathetic, awkward in social situations, and brilliant. The friendship that unfolded between him and Hannibal was a beautiful thing to watch. There were lots of people 'shipping' for more than a bromance, but I saw their relationship was purer than that.Whenever I see a show like this, that's intelligent and strange, and in this case gory as well, I know it will be canceled. I am grateful we got three seasons out of it, and that Bryan Fuller had a chance to wrap it up, even if it was mashed together. This season should have been two seasons, but they made it work. All in all, I am very happy with how it ended as well, which is more than I can say for most shows that have captured my heart the way this one did. Mads and Hugh should have won accolades and awards galore, but they were ignored. Their acting was a beautiful thing to behold, as was the cinematography, writing, directing and everything else about this show. I doubt there will ever be another like it, but it was beautiful while it lasted.

Nothing bothers me more than a great tv show that outlives it's welcome and then ends abruptly because the creators didn't have the decency to write a solid ending before the show got boring. Hannibal manages to completely defy that. I did hear that the show was intended to have another two or three seasons (which I would have loved) but since the creators could not secure the rights to Clarice Starling and 'Buffalo Bill' they were forced to end the story after the third season. Even though they may not have intended to end it here, they took the time to craft a solid ending that wraps up the storylines presented and leaves just enough questions to make the viewer wish there were more, but not enough to frustrate.Side note, I've heard that there is still a possibility that we'll get a movie to end cap the whole series. Don't know if it's true or not, but I'd love to see it happen.

The series finale is for fans. Meaning they go for it with the many fannibalisms and wish-list payoffs for the viewers 'into' the show. Bravo. If you're new to Hannibal, you'll really need to see the series from its first frame to get into this season. Don't misunderstand. This is some of the finest work fed to audiences in decades. But, as they knew it was to be the finale, you see, sense, feel, production and cast dipped heavy into their last hurrah. They do dream sequence-style, mind-f---ing, to near absurdity. But, for those of us drooling for this installment it works. Once again, acting, art, food styling, drama, creepiness...it has been delivered upon a sterling silver room service cart by a super production ensemble, the likes of which, will be hard to assemble again <- sad for we viewers who have now been spoiled with craftsmen and women tweaking, caring, and meticulously shaping every part of their presentation for us...

Super

Season 3 storyline of Hannibal seems to cover what was intended for season 4, that being the investigation of a serial killer calling himself Red Dragon. Now, I haven't read the Thomas Harris book 'Red Dragon' to know much about this character, so I haven't figured out what the connection is between William Blake's dragon (which is the symbol for war and/or the Church-State militant, according to A Blake Dictionary) and this serial killer born with a cleft-palate who aligns his schizophrenic split-self with the dragon in Blakes' watercolour depicting Revelation XII.1-4. Over this season the character of Red Dragon is built up to seem like some kind of Anti-Christ and Hannibal is in awe of him (as John the Baptist is to Jesus). Perhaps the forth season would've had more time to elaborate on this had the show not been cancelled in the third season?! Maybe the writers were hinting at alchemical meaning as the dragon Ladon from Greek myth, a guardian symbol of the bestial, but who knows? It makes me very sad that this dark masterpiece of a neo-gothic horror show was not permitted to run its due course. It's clear the intended original storyline for season 3 was about Hannibal's nefarious activities in Europe having fled there. Although the episodes included (that are set in Europe) are fantastic, there's a lot of threads left unfinished --like the mystery of Hannibal's aristocratic birthplace and what really went on there; what's the story with the Asian girl with the sniper rifle; and the reason why Hannibal was drawing the high-society of Florence to him to kill them? Anyway his European dalliance comes to an abrupt end (probably just to add-on the season 4 Red Dragon story arc) and he returns to America and gets caught by Mason Verger (this storyline seems to be taken from the Harris book Hannibal, the sequel to Silence of the Lambs, which I admit I haven't read yet). Hanni escapes, then gives himself up to the FBI. Crawford and Wil rope him into profiling the Red Dragon (similar to Silence of the Lambs where he profiles Buffalo Bill for Clarice) in order to help them catch him. So ends an amazing show that delves into the darkest side of human nature and attempts (rather successfully) to put it on screen. Personally, I'm going to read all of Thomas Harris' books on the Hannibal saga with the characters from this tv series as the book's characters in my mind's eye, after all, Mads Mikkelsen plays Dr Lector so perfectly that I cannot see anyone else as Hannibal (sorry Anthony Hopkins!).

Brilliant show in every way, the acting, the writing, cinematography, soundtrack all masterworks.

Esta edición tarda un poco en llegar por que lo envían desde Europa pero vale la pena, incluye extras y comentarios cosa que la edición mexicana no tiene. En lo personal es mi temporada favorita de la serie, un hipnotizante viaje por Europa la primera parte y la segunda una magnifica adaptación del Dragón Rojo. El final es perfecto.

Glorious end to a fine series. Sad to see Hannibal leave the airwaves, but the show was a feast to the senses, to say the least. One of few series that didn't deserve to be on network TV and should have been given a second life to one of multiple streaming services. The series is definitely not to everyone's taste, but for suspense and horror fans, than this series is for you!!!