NBC's Hannibal strikes a comfortable tone. (With a warning to NBC on how NOT to screw it up.)

Serial Killers are en vogue right now, at least on TV.  A&E has “Bates Motel” which, if I were in charge of branding for A&E, I would’ve never let that get through.  It makes it seem as though the show is about the day-to-day operations of running a small, roadside motor hotel, in between the brutal murders of an embezzler, a police detective, and a third attempted murder.  Fox has “The Following,” with Kevin Bacon, which has ridden out many of the early hiccups and last-minute character alterations (I guess he’s… not an alcoholic anymore?) to have a fun, coherent, ever-changing show about a serial killer cult.  Showtime’s Dexter is wrapping up after this upcoming eighth and final season.  There are, of course, behavior science shows like SVU and Criminal Minds, but the other, more heralded and critically acclaimed hit is NBC’s Hannibal, a revival of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter character, including Jack Crawford as the director of the Behavioral Sciences unit at the FBI. There is a reason for why Hannibal has received its much deserved praise. The acting and plots have been fantastic, and the theme for the show, with a potentially insane criminal behavior forensic psychologist assisting the FBI, all add to the appeal. But, it is the tone in which the show is portrayed that truly sets it apart from the rest of the gory pack.