"Hannibal" Premiers to Decent Ratings and High Praise.

Bryan Fuller has had a rough year with "Mockingbird Lane" not being picked up despite good reviews; and now he has to deal with NBC shafting "Hannibal" to it's late Thursday time-slot.

Not all seems lost, however, as "Hannibal" premiered to some surprisingly decent numbers despite it's time-disadvantage and mid-April start:

(From Variety via Nielson):

According to preliminary national estimates from Nielsen, the premiere of Bryan Fuller-created drama “Hannibal” averaged a 1.6 rating/4 share in adults 18-49 and 4.3 million viewers overall. While not great numbers, the premiere does score points for building on its soft lead-in courtesy of first-year comedy “Go On” (1.1/3 in 18-49, 2.4 million viewers overall), which is finishing its season with a pair of Thursday airings.    

"Hannibal", based on Robert Harris's "Red Dragon" novel, casts Hugh Dancy as Criminal Profiler Will Graham, who teams up with Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) to hunt a notorious serial-killer.

Critical response to the show has been well-received, with "Hannibal" sitting at a 68% on Metacritic, with an 8.5% Viewer score. The show also received some promotion via Twitter, with show head Bryan Fuller doing a live-tweet of the show using the hashtag #Hannibal. According to social network tracking website Topsy, "Hannibal" had almost 5,000 mentions just 30 minutes prior to the shows premier.