‘Hannibal’ season 3: NBC boss praises quality, but stands by cancellation

While “Hannibal” was officially canceled weeks ago, there have not really been too many opportunities as of late to get NBC to offer up some sort of candid take on their decision to end the show … at least until today during the TCA Summer Press Tour on Thursday.

It’s somewhat interesting in way how the discussion about “Hannibal” came up. First, network programming head Robert Greenblatt cited the show in a discussion over how many excellent shows these days just don’t get the awards recognition that they deserve. From his standpoint, Emmy nods are not the only way you measure quality. We actually do agree with this commentary … but why in the world are you using a show that you canceled as an example? It’s such a bizarre thing to remind reporters of all people that you are responsible for taking something that they love away from them.

Later Greenblatt was asked by IGN about the decision to end the low-rated show after three seasons, and he of course cited everything that you would expect him to cite:

“All decisions are close. You look at where you are in terms of the storytelling, and you look at the ratings and you look at the profits and loss of the show and all of those things. And they’re all really tough calls. We just decided it was time to move on.”

We’ve said this before, and it bears repeating again. We don’t blame NBC in the slightest for the decision they made. If a show is not performing to your expectations, especially when you have given it multiple chances to perform, we get canceling it. We don’t think any other major TV network would have kept it going after season 2. What we don’t understand is why they continue to make it so difficult on themselves with comments like this, praising the quality of a show that you just dispatched. It’s almost salt in the wound.