Much as we’ve seen of one Clarice Starling across the many adaptations of Thomas Harris’ literature over the years, almost every story about the hotshot, young FBI agent has focused on her tireless hunt to find and imprison serial killers. Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet’s new Clarice series for CBS wants to change things up a bit.
When you’re introduced to Rebecca Breeds’ take on Starling, she’s at a point in her career where she’s already captured the serial killer antagonist of Silence of the Lambs, Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb, and made a name for herself as someone within the agency with the actual chops to get the job done well. But while Clarice’s temperament and ability to perceive the intentions of others is what truly makes her such a skilled investigator, what you see in Clarice’s first full trailer is that her talents make her a target within the FBI — someone at least some of her colleagues see as being out of her depth.
At the same time that there are people running around the Washington D.C. area murdering people, Clarice is tasked with surpassing the obstacles put up by and expectations of everyone hoping for her to fail. It’s a challenge Starling’s more than up to, but as you see in the trailer’s final moments, it won’t be long before her line of work ends up putting her smack dab in the middle of danger that really no one should have to deal with.
Large as Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal looms in Clarice’s shadow for obvious reasons, it seems as if the shows are going to exist in very different spaces both in terms of tone and style, despite their shared subject matter. Whether Clarice ends up being a compelling story that’ll keep you coming back to this bloodsoaked-world of unhealthy killers is going to depend on just what sorts of gripping tales it begins to weave when the series premieres on February 12.
Clarice — which also stars Lucca De Oliveira, Devyn A. Tyler, Kal Penn, Nick Sandow, Michael Cudlitz, and Marnee Carpenter — debuts on Stan in Australia on February 12.