10 TV Shows Cancelled Before Their Time

The second Bryan Fuller production featured here, NBC’s Hannibal is well known for its unusually passionate fanbase. First bursting onto our screens in 2013 as an unusual prequel to the Thomas Harris books, Hannibal is a show that had the potential to go really wrong - especially considering the critical acclaim of The Silence Of The Lambs. Thankfully, the showrunner’s vivid vision for the series, featuring a younger, suave Lecter luring tortured, on-edge profiler Will Graham to the dark side through the lens of an FBI procedural successfully produced one of the best examples of prestige television, well, ever.

A show that steadily darkened and moved away from the ‘kill of the week’ format as it progressed, leads Mads Mikkelsan and Hugh Dancy's nuanced portrayals rival even their Oscar-winning predecessors, and a main cast rounded out by the likes of Laurence Fishburne, Caroline Dhavernas and Gillian Anderson deliver compelling characters that perfectly compliment the show’s lush, decaying atmosphere, with some of the goriest kills ever broadcast on primetime.

Despite all this, and a planned seven-season plot arc, the show’s third season in 2015 ended up regretfully being its last. Production were unsure whether they would get another season, and so masterfully crafted a finale that ends on a literal cliffhanger, with the two leads hurling themselves off a cliff to their not-so-certain deaths, while also providing a satisfying conclusion to the intricate character arcs should the series not return.

Upon cancellation, the fandom, cast, and production team all campaigned for the show to return - a plight which remains on-going! All involved routinely display their eagerness to return if the opportunity arose, and the fanbase is as active as ever. Hannibal goes down in history as proof that when creating a truly mouthwatering piece of media, it won’t easily be forgotten, even if it died before its time... Unless?