Only One Episode of Hannibal Was Ever Banned From TV (And For a Tragic Reason)

In hindsight, it’s amazing that a show as amazing and unabashedly gruesome as Hannibal aired on a major broadcast network, let alone NBC. Today, the program would inevitably be a streaming original production or perhaps a prestige HBO show, but back in the 2012-2013 era, when Hannibal premiered, though, the very first major American streaming show (House of Cards) was waiting in the wings to debut on Netflix in February 2013. That meant Hannibal dropped on NBC in the same season where the network debuted Chicago Fire, The New Normal, Animal Practice, and the infamous sitcom flop 1600 Penn.

This unexpected home for Hannibal housed the show for three seasons. All the while, Bryan Fuller’s bold vision for Mads Mikkelsen’s Hannibal Lecter kept on delivering grisly imagery and sexually-driven storytelling that pushed the boundaries of network television. However, only one Hannibal episode never made it to television – and it was for incredibly tragic reasons, rather than prudish NBC broadcasters.

What Hannibal Episode Never Made It To Air?

Just four episodes into Hannibal’s run, an episode was pulled from its planned April 25, 2013, debut on the airwaves. The episode was entitled “Oeuf” and was written by Jennifer Schuur and directed by Peter Medak. In one of Will Graham’s (Hugh Dancy) earliest cases in the show, he is tasked with helping find missing young boys who are responsible for killing their families. Eventually, this is all revealed to be the plot of an unnamed woman (Molly Shannon), who is kidnapping the children and forcing them to commit these heinous acts. All the while, Graham keeps confiding more and more personal information to Lecter, which makes him more vulnerable to the mad killer hiding in plain sight.

NBC was ready to air this Hannibal episode without a problem, but show creator Bryan Fuller actively requested that it not air on American television. Fuller’s statement on the matter was that “the cultural climate in the U.S. right now” was not conducive to airing this specific episode. He further clarified that “it wasn’t about the graphic imagery or violence. It was the associations that came with the subject matter that I felt would inhibit the enjoyment of the overall episode. … It was my own sensitivity.” Fuller also claimed that tragic events in December 2012 and early 2013, like the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting and Boston Marathon Bombing, were key elements in “the cultural climate.”

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“Oeuf” still played on television overseas and, shortly after its original U.S. airdate, dropped unedited on online retailers like iTunes. Despite the pre-air controversy, “Oeuf” garnered positive marks from critics and continued the critical hot streak the show had been on. However, it’s easy to see why Fuller thought an episode of Hannibal specifically focusing on child endangerment and murder involving children wasn’t a perfect fit for general broadcasting circa. April 2013. Horrific circumstances had changed the world, and artists like those behind Hannibal had to be conscious of that reality.

Did Hannibal Face Any Other Controversies In Its Original Run?

Hannibal’s first season drama didn’t end just with this episode that Fuller mandated not to air, domestically. At the end of April 2013, shortly after this fourth episode was dropped from U.S. airwaves, an NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City, Utah made a grand display of dropping Hannibal because of the show’s graphic content. This was a bizarre move on many fronts, including the fact that the show had gone through rigorous Standards & Practices examinations to make sure it was fit for public broadcast. Another local TV station picked up the show instead, making this kerfuffle short-lived.

Beyond that one NBC affiliate and this fourth episode, Hannibal shockingly stayed out of the controversial limelight for its three-season run on NBC. That may partly be because the program was never a ratings juggernaut. Operating as a cult favorite, Hannibal was never big enough to attract the attention of folks looking to derive “controversy” from it for exposure. Then again, Hannibal Lecter’s notoriety in pop culture beyond this show also likely made it less susceptible to the outrage of parent groups. Everyone’s seen The Silence of the Lambs, it shouldn’t be shocking that Hannibal was a bloody NBC affair.

The show’s transgressive nature made it a favorite for folks all over the world and gave Hannibal a distinctive aesthetic compared to past adaptations of the original Thomas Harris books, such as movies like Silence of the Lambs and Manhunter. However, back in the program’s earliest days, Fuller was cognizant enough to realize that there were more important and devastating events going on in the real world that far surpassed the needs of Hannibal. Thus, the show’s fourth episode never aired on TV in America out of respect for unspeakably horrific real-world horrors.

Hannibal is now streaming on Prime Video.