Ladies and gentlemen, your voices were heard: Entertainment Weekly is reporting that despite its unfortunate low ratings, the high quality genre series Hannibal has been renewed for a third season by NBC.

The Brian Fuller series is a fan favorite but unfortunately has never had the ratings to match. While EW does mention that the series is growing through DVR and boasts the youngest viewers for a 10 PM Friday night drama, even those aren’t particularly strong. Still, NBC is standing by the series by giving it a Season 3 order.

Hannibal follows Detective Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) as he plays cat-and-mouse with Mads Mikkelsen’s Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The series has been generating buzz for its strong acting and some of the most graphic and grizzly depictions of violence and gore on television, cable networks included.

I found it hard to believe, considering all of the positive word of mouth regarding the quality of the series, that the show would go away completely. Genre television proves to be incredibly popular with younger demographics and it would appear that all of the networks, cable and otherwise, are looking to get in on the craze. It also seemed that if NBC wasn’t going to keep it going, someone else would pick it up.

Now that we know that the series has been saved, the question remains: how will NBC generate the series’ incredibly strong word of mouth into more viewers? Should they go the Breaking Bad route and get the complete series onto Netflix before the season three premiere? Should they take the show out of the Friday night doldrums and place it front and center for more general audiences to see? Let us know your thoughts on Hannibal in the comments below!

HT: EW