Hannibal is cancelled but there's hope he'll dine again on a streaming network

NBC has canned the cannibal show, but with its lavish production, fine acting and intelligent script, surely it’s is perfect for cable, Hulu, Netflix or Amazon

Unleash the gags about last suppers - NBC has cancelled Hannibal. (Although how anybody can joke at a time like this is more upsetting than the series’ most graphic scenes.)

With the final episode scheduled to air on 3 September, the Bryan Fuller-directed series about the exploits of the cannibal psychiatrist invented by Thomas Harris will end its three-season run and break the hearts of fannibals everywhere.

“We have been tremendously proud of Hannibal over its three seasons,” the network said in a statement. “Bryan and his team of writers and producers, as well as our incredible actors, have brought a visual palette of storytelling that has been second to none in all of television – broadcast or cable.”

Well, anybody who watches Hannibal knows the cancellation isn’t the result of a decline in quality, especially with the addition of (queen) Gillian Anderson this season. However, the Hollywood Reporter claims the show may have come up against a rights issue (in that Fuller and friends don’t have rights to the character of Clarice Starling, who they were reportedly hoping to introduce next season), on top of the series’s slipping ratings. Heartbreakingly, Hannibal hit a low of 1.66 million viewers the week of 11 June when it went up against the NBA finals, and its fate on cable was effectively sealed.

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James Horner was a virtuoso: subtle, stirring – and astonishingly prolific

In 1997, James Cameron’s Titanic made its sensational appearance at the cinema, and with it a colossally popular soundtrack album of that movie’s powerhouse orchestral score by James Horner, which won him Oscars for original score and song. The album sold 30m copies – and continues to sell – featuring the song which he co-wrote, My Heart Will Go On, sung by Celine Dion. Horner’s aria of emotional defiance and survival, hurled like flotsam from the oceanic swell of his overall composition, was a key moment of the film, a moment which existed both inside and outside its narrative. When we saw Leo and Kate at the prow of the ship, when we remembered the awful final moments in the lifeboats, it was Horner’s music that thrummed through our hearts and minds.

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