The best show on television has been cancelled. Just three episodes into its third season, NBC’s Hannibal has had its proverbial plug pulled, its fate hanging in the balance as fans await news of where, if anywhere, the show is heading to next. However there’s a chance that creator Brian Fuller won’t get to see out his vision for the show; that the season three finale will be Hannibal’s last woebegone outing.

Hannibal really is one of the most unique and gripping things on television. A dark, disquieting, elegiac, ultimately poetic show. In this 'golden age of TV', it shouldn’t come as a surprise that such a show should exist, but Hannibal takes modern television to new levels, and surprise should abound that Hannibal is based on long-outdated characters from film and literature. That such a work can be born from a franchise long past its sell-by-date is astounding.

In the eyes of the executives, it's the ratings that matter, and Hannibal's season three premiere was down nearly a million viewers on season two's. True, the show is not to everyone's taste: it's a verbose, artistic interpretation that spends more time luxuriating in symbolism and atmosphere than it does in progressing the story. But to those bored of the run-of-the-mill police procedural, it's a godsend.

In light of it's cancellation, let's remind ourselves of it's brilliance.