Nine things you need to know about Hannibal

Obviously, "need to know" is a bit of a stretch. You don't need to know them in the sense that you'll be at risk of losing your job or home if you don't, nor will your children be taken into care because of the danger in which you've placed them through your ignorance. But this is how you write features on the internet: put everything in a list.

You can of course give the illusion of subverting this by having your list comprise a number of items that is not divisible by five, but who are you trying to kid: everyone will still know you're full of shit. Look, at least I'm not making you click a new page for each one.
Hannibal is a television programme

As such, there is a date and a channel on which it will first be broadcast. These are, respectively, Thursday 4 April and NBC. Details of when or if it will be shown in the UK remain shrouded in mystery. I can confirm that it will not be on CBeebies, however.
It's not an A-Team spin-off


That is, unless ... no, that's not going to work. Sorry. It's actually a Hannibal Lecter thing.
This guy plays Hannibal


He's Mads Mikkelsen, you know. He was in Casino Royale and everything, plus he was quite splendid in the quite-splendid film The Hunt last year, which I went to see even though it was in Danish with subtitles, just so I'd have at least something in my locker when I admit to people I've never seen The Killing.
People in it say things like this


It's probably not going to be all that bloody

It's on NBC, so it's a network show, and they don't tend to have a load of blood and kidneys flying about all over the shop. Look at something like The Following, for example: gets a bit stabby every once in a while but I'd estimate there's probably less than a pint of actual flowing/gushing/spurting blood per episode. Dried doesn't count.
Furious Styles from Boyz n the Hood is in it


In fairness, Laurence Fishburne is a lot more famous for being Laurence Fishburne than he is for being Furious Styles in Boyz n the Hood. But it should never be forgotten that there once was a character in a film who was called 'Furious Styles' but wasn't a rapper.
Scully's in it too


She's playing Lecter's psychiatrist. See, here she is standing in front of an MRI scan, which is obviously more the sort of thing neurologists do, but hey, there's more than one way to skin a brain.

There's a good chance this picture is from something else entirely, come to think of it.
Its premise is most likely too finite to yield lasting success

It deals with the period when FBI profiler Will Graham was consulting Lecter without realising he was the serial killer he was hunting, ie the bit that's seen in flashback at the start of Red Dragon. This ended with their nearly killing each other and Lecter being arrested.

If this is the entire premise, then we know where it's going and it seems like too short a time period to get much out of. If it continues past this period, then it'll presumably start going over the same ground as Silence of the Lambs and, God help us, Hannibal the movie, none of which anyone wants to see.

Obviously I speak for the developed world's entire TV-watching population when I say that.
This is a video that shows some things that will happen in it


Yes, nine. I'm leaving it at nine. If I did a tenth, I'd just be making up the numbers and we'd both know it. You know, just like all those other sites; the ones that ... get ... more hits than we ... oh, riiiiight.