As anyone who watched them could tell you, the first two seasons of Hannibal were shockingly good, much better than they had a right to be, given how the film franchise ignobly spiraled down from the heights of Silence Of The Lambs to the “wait, does this barrel even have a bottom?” of Hannibal Rising. Needless to say, viewers’ patience has been wearing thin, especially since season two had already begun by this time last year. But now an answer is here: Variety reports that NBC has announced the premiere dates for its summer programming lineup, including the return of Hannibal and the debut of its new scripted thriller Aquarius. (There’s also the return of American Ninja Warrior, a show created specifically so that any impressive clips can be viewed on YouTube the following day.)
Hannibal will return Thursday, June 4 at 10 p.m. ET, so those of you who have been salivating since the season three trailer appeared will have to wait until then to have your growing hunger sated. It will be going up against CBS’ Under The Dome in that timeslot, because NBC is a smart network that always knows what it’s doing. Speaking of always making good decisions, Charles Manson and his followers will be on NBC this summer as well. Aquarius, the new drama about the long-running police investigation of Manson and his followers in the years leading up to the Tate-LaBianca murders, stars David Duchovny as an LAPD sergeant and will debut Thursday, May 28 with a two-hour premiere. It will regularly air on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.
Finally, if you saw American Ninja Warrior in that opening paragraph and actually got excited, you can rest easy, knowing that your reality competition grunt-a-thon will return on Memorial Day, Monday, May 25. It will be followed the next night, Tuesday, May 26, with the most popular summer TV show for nine years running now, America’s Got Talent, which at this point might as well include the parenthetical (But Not For Choosing Summer TV Programming). Both shows will air two-hour premieres that will run from 8-10 p.m. ET.