The Silence of the Lamb series is hugely popular, certainly iconic, and downright creepy. The SotL movie won Best Picture, the last sequel to do so. And to be honest, not one of my favorites. I like Jodie Foster in it, sure, but I find Anthony Hopkins too over the top to be enjoyable. Yet, I confess, I loved the original Manhunter, having watched it way back on The Movie Network when I was living at home. Hard to belive Gil Grissom from CSI (i.e. William Petersen) was able to pull it off, in retrospect. But I liked it better.

Still, nevertheless, with a new series with Clarice as the main character and her life one year after catching the serial killer, I wanted to give it a go. And, not unexpectedly, it is pretty well done.

There is a LOT of backstory going on in the show, with Clarice having trouble after the events, she’s avoiding the one woman she was able to save, her therapy isn’t going well, etc. But she wants to hunker down in the basement of the FBI doing data entry. Until the mother of the woman she saved is appointed Attorney General, and wants her to be on a taskforce with the agent she bested the last time out. Oh, won’t that be fun!

Clarice is played by Rebecca Breeds, and she has this southern drawl going on that is strangely alluring and a strong presence. She talks slower than her counterparts, slows down the chatter, and you find yourself listening even more. I didn’t watch The Originals, but I’m almost tempted to go back and see her in it.

Her immediate boss is played by Michael Cudlitz, and while he has been in a lot of shows over the years, almost none of them were ones I watched. Yet he was familiar. I was combing his bio, starting to think I was just mistaking him for someone else until I got all the way back to Band of Brothers. Wow, would NOT have linked him to that in a million years as Denver. Anyway, his acting is fine, but his character is a giant cliché. Oh, she’s no good, let’s wash her out, blah blah blah. Cuz, you know, every top notch investigator must be really smart to get that high but a complete idiot for how to deal with subordinates. Riiight.

There are a bunch of secondary characters, including a familiar face from Designated Survivor, for example, but overall, nobody super solid in EP1 who is likely to make it through the season (yep, I’m predicting at least one to die before too long).

Anyway, I’ll find out. Because I’ll be watching and I bet others will be too. Good show.