Hannibal

The fourth episode of NBC's serial-killer drama "Hannibal" scheduled to air next week has been pulled because of concerns over violence in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and other violent incidents. Bryan Fuller, who created the series, asked NBC to pull the episode, which featured guest star Molly Shannon as a woman brainwashing children to kill other kids. The fifth episode of the drama will air in its place. Clips from the fourth episode will appear on the website along with an introduction by Fuller explaining why he felt the content might be too disturbing.

The fourth episode of NBC's serial-killer drama "Hannibal" scheduled to air next week has been pulled because of concerns over violence in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and other violent incidents. Bryan Fuller, who created the series, asked NBC to pull the episode, which featured guest star Molly Shannon as a woman brainwashing children to kill other kids. The fifth episode of the drama will air in its place. Clips from the fourth episode will appear on the website along with an introduction by Fuller explaining why he felt the content might be too disturbing.

So Mark Twain was born in Hannnibal, Miss. (The Book Review, Nov. 2). We learn something new every day. We will have to change that song from "Damn Yankees": "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo." to "Barefoot Kris from Hannibal, Miss." DAVID BOLENDAR Long Beach

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Neither your reviewer, Hugh O'Neill, who said Mark Twain was born in Hannibal, Miss., nor letter writer David Bolendar, who said he was born in Hannibal, Mo., is correct. Twain was born in the small town of Florida, Mo., as he says in the very first sentence of his autobiography. He adds: "The village contained a hundred people and I increased the population by one percent. It is more than many of the best men in history could have done for a town." He did grow up in Hannibal, however.

Once again I am completely disgusted with the Los Angeles Zoo ("Sale of Elephant to Mexico Zoo Protested," Metro, Sept. 20). Sounds to me like they are unloading Hannibal because Asian elephants are so common now. Doesn't 11 years account for anything? LAURY MILLER Murrieta

I must agree, to a degree, with Joyce Westbrooks (Letters, Jan. 8). My difference is that we (African Americans) not only need to be included in books on U.S. history but also world history. As a child in third grade, I was told by one of my white teachers: "It is too bad that you don't have any black heroes." Fortunately for me, a black librarian gave me a book to read. It was about Hannibal. Although the book never called Hannibal black, it did describe his father. He was definitely black!

"Hannibal" is devouring the competition. In its first weekend of release, the sequel to "The Silence of the Lambs" took in $58 million, making it the third-largest Friday-to-Sunday opening in Hollywood history. That the continued adventures of Hannibal "the cannibal" Lecter, the suave hero-villain portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, can sell so many tickets speaks volumes about the grossed-out state of popular culture today. But tomorrow could be different because social trendlines have a way of zig-zagging, even reversing.

In the modern pantheon of the world's dictators, Moammar Kadafi stood apart. Far apart. Erratic and mercurial, he fancied himself a political philosopher, practiced an unorthodox and deadly diplomacy, and cut a sometimes cartoonish figure in flowing robes and dark sunglasses, surrounded by heavily armed female bodyguards. He ruled Libya with an iron fist for 42 years, bestowing on himself an array of titles, including "king of culture," "king of kings of Africa" and, simply, "leader of the revolution.

Hot on the trail of Hannibal's death, we have the death of the tiger cub from Malaysia (March 25). The importation of these animals and their transportation to faraway zoos, even for breeding purposes, should be abolished unless complete responsibility can be taken from the beginning of the journey to the end by people who are knowledgeable and devoted to the animals' welfare. RACHEL ROSENTHAL Los Angeles

NBC sent out five episodes of its "Silence of the Lambs" prequel "Hannibal," and although the reasons to stop watching (when in doubt, impale a woman!) too often outweighed the reasons to continue (Hugh Dancy, tracked by a dangerous dream deer), I swallowed my bile and soldiered on. And indeed, Episode 5 proved an epiphany. No spoilers here, but it costars Eddie Izzard, whose natural gift for twinkling malice threw everything into perspective. The problem with "Hannibal" is not the graphic violence or the absurd back-story tweaks - Dancy's Will Graham is no longer just a super-great FBI profiler with a photographic memory, he's a shivering, night-sweating, natural-born empath, whatever the heck that is - or even the fact that it is rather late to a very crowded serial-killer crime scene.

You just can't keep a good cannibal down. More than three decades after he first murdered and chomped his way to pop culture infamy, sophisticated serial murderer Hannibal Lecter is back, alive and well-fed. And although he has gone from the big screen to the small screen, his twisted appetites have not diminished during his absence. Introduced in a series of bestselling novels by Thomas Harris that gave birth to a hit film franchise, which included the Oscar-winning "Silence of the Lambs," Lecter's latest incarnation is "Hannibal," a dark drama premiering Thursday on NBC. SPECIAL COVERAGE: The Culture of Violence The series is a prequel to the novels and films, positioning him as a psychiatrist who works for the FBI. He is recruited to help a troubled but gifted criminal profiler, Will Graham (Hugh Dancy)

THE BEST WAY TO HANNIBAL, MO. From LAX, American and Southwest offer nonstop service to St. Louis. Connecting service (change of planes) is offered on United, American, Frontier, Air Tran, Continental, US Airways, Midwest Express and Delta. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $306. Hannibal sits about 100 miles northwest of St. Louis, along the Mississippi River. WHERE TO STAY Garth Woodside Mansion Bed & Breakfast, 11069 New London Road, Hannibal; (573)

It was long after dark when Henry Sweets brought me to Hannibal's Old Baptist Cemetery, "a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. " No moon. Ragged weeds, crumbling gravestones. We tried to tread lightly, but it had been raining, and mud grabbed at our shoes. Down at the bottom of the hill, the Mississippi churned. I had to smile, because here I was, three decades removed from 11th grade, still slogging through American literature. This, as Sweets explained, was the cemetery Mark Twain remembered when he imagined the midnight murder of Doc Robinson in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" - grave markers leaning every which way, Tom and Huck hiding behind a tree, and the treacherous Injun Joe burying a knife in his victim's chest.

There wasn't much of a theatrical appetite for "Hannibal Rising" -- Thomas Harris' prequel to "Red Dragon" and "Silence of the Lambs" -- when it opened earlier this year. The grisly horror film took in just $27.7 million domestically -- compare that with 1991's "Silence of the Lambs," which made $130.7 million; 2001's "Hannibal," which took in $165.1 million; and 2002's "Red Dragon," which earned $93.1 million.

The German psychological thriller "Antibodies" owes more than a little to serial killer procedurals such as "Manhunter" and "The Silence of the Lambs" but is nonetheless a better-than-average entry, buoyed by a strong cast and writer-director Christian Alvart's ability to refresh genre conventions. Wotan Wilke Mohring stars as Michael Martens, a pious small-town police officer and farmer haunted by the killing of a young girl, a friend of his teenage son.

"Hannibal" may not be to everyone's taste (joke intended), but it is first-rate movie-making. I found Kenneth Turan's criticisms ludicrous ("A Cannibalized Tale," Feb. 9). Dr. Lecter isn't scary enough! What did Turan expect, for him to be lurching around Florence slobbering and jumping out and shouting "Boo!" What made Hannibal Lecter and Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of him memorable was his sinister stillness. I found the same, albeit older Dr. Lecter present in the latest offering.

The five broadcast television networks will be rolling out 23 new one-hour dramas for the upcoming season. That would normally be good business for Hollywood's hometown industry - with bookings for soundstages and plenty of work for the costumers, camera operators and caterers needed to put a show on the air. But not this year. Just two of the 23 new fall and midseason shows will be shot in Los Angeles County, as cost-conscious producers seek tax-friendly production havens in New York, North Carolina, Georgia and other states.

He's an orphaned immigrant who ascended to the top of the psychiatric profession. An accomplished author, gourmet and patron of the arts, he's a true Renaissance man. And he kills and eats people. Hannibal Lecter is the American dream on Thorazine. He started as a minor character in Thomas Harris' novel "Red Dragon," garnering about five minutes of screen time in the 1986 film adaptation, "Manhunter."

Lacking the wit to qualify as a sick joke, the ongoing saga of Hannibal Lecter has become the Grand Guignol equivalent of a shaggy-dog story, a rambling, directionless yarn whose promising beginnings have been eclipsed by its stubborn failure to end. A self-styled "origin story" of the kind that normally explains why Peter Parker can cling to walls, "Hannibal Rising" completes Hannibal Lecter's evolution from blood-curdling bogyman to comic-book ghoul.