I don't know what else to say, so I'm just going to repost my Facebook status upon hearing the news:

"I am so fucking disappointed that NBC has decided to cancel Hannibal.

It's one of the most bold, original, and aesthetically realized shows ever to air on network (or even cable) television. It has an extremely dedicated fanbase. It has received nothing but the most enthusiastic praise from critics, with season two earning a well-deserved 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But beyond all that, it's a magnificent artistic endeavor with so much room to grow. (Imagine if Breaking Bad had been canceled after season three. That's how I feel about Hannibal.)

I chose not to make a Father's Day post this past weekend. As many of you know, my father has been dead for a number of years, and I don't want to be a bummer just to get attention on social media. But this past Father's Day weekend, while I was catching up on DVRed episodes of Hannibal after returning from a camping trip, I kept thinking about how great it would be for my dad to still be around and to be able to watch this series unfold with me. He was such a huge fan of both Thomas Harris's novels and their film adaptations starring Anthony Hopkins, and I remember him telling me these spooky, intriguing stories of "Hannibal the Cannibal" even before I was old enough to appreciate the novels or the movies. Since then, I've formed my own connection with the tales of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a character that so wonderfully embodies both the most sublime and the most deplorable aspects of humanity simultaneously. With the cancellation of this series, I feel that not only am I losing the opportunity to further indulge an extremely satisfying aesthetic experience, I'm also losing a connection to the memory of my dead father, which grows more and more nebulous and difficult to hold on to as the years roll by. From what I understand (and I'll be doing some reading over the next few hours/days to confirm this), the series is being cancelled due to the network's inability to obtain the rights to use certain characters from the source material in future seasons. If that's the case, it would be a real shame that one of the greatest shows to air in my lifetime is being cut down in its prime due to petty copyright disputes. It just reinforces my cynicism about the state of intellectual property rights in America and the need for reform."