With “Hannibal” ending, television loses one of its finest examples of how to delve into psychiatric matters and still tell stories that are lush and complicated while upholding the clear-eyed humanity the subject matter deserves.
In the now-canceled series, Hugh Dancy portrays Will Graham, an FBI special agent who suffers from an empathy disorder that allows him to put himself into the mind-set of anyone, through the power of pure empathy, making him gifted at tracking serial killers.
His antagonist is Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen), the sociopathic killer and cannibal played so memorably by Anthony Hopkins in “The Silence of the Lambs” and adapted from the series of books by Thomas Harris.