The 10 Best TV Shows Of 2014 (So Far)

Hannibal

The longer Hannibal remains on the air, the more its existence seems based on some secret Trading Places/She’s All That­-style bet between network executives. So, you want to take Hannibal Lecter, a character that’s gone from infamy to ignominy due to overexposure in films and books, and make an entire TV show about him? Your also going to make the show a crime procedural in a market that’s wall-to-wall with murder-of-the-week stories, and you want it to be run by a guy who’s had three shows canned on him already? Oh, and to top it all off, you want it to air it on NBC?!?

Hannibal has been a mad gambit from conception, but Season 2 proved definitively that the show’s creative (though, sadly, not ratings) success was more than just a product of surpassing low expectations. Bryan Fuller and his team of writers ended the show on an ambitious cliffhanger in 2013, one that looked to require one hell of a Houdini act if they wanted to write themselves back into the show’s killer-of-the-week format. The simple solution? Follow your title character’s lead, and cut out the fat. While Season 1 impressed with its macabre visuals and bloody bravado, it was a mere amuse bouche compared to the brutal and uncompromising season we got in 2014.

Morbid but never moribund, Hannibal outclassed every other show on TV for both the depth of its madness, and its commitment to exploring the method behind it. Despite being a prequel, the show managed to draw out Will Graham’s demented pas de deux with the titular serial killer as though the future were unwritten. Whenever an upcoming twist seemed too heavily telegraphed, or a conversation sounded to leaden with murderous subtext, it was all part of Hannibal’s design. The season finale, which constituted 2014’s most emotionally eviscerating hour of television, would have cemented the show’s status as among the very best in network TV’s history, had things just ended there. Thankfully, Fuller and company will be giving us at least one more year’s worth of sessions with Dr. Lecter, and it’s more a sign of the show’s quality than our own masochism that we’re positively giddy about getting to have another helping of Hannibal.