Be it a show you expected to not like and then did, or something that had an unexpected plot twist, what shows have surprised you lately? For me it would be the comedy show Bojack Horseman. I really didn't expect to like it at first, but as soon as I got past the first few episodes, I just couldn't stop watching it. It was amazing. Dark and depressing at times, but very, very real. I'd recommend it a lot.
When I initially watched the Hannibal tv series I thought I would enjoy it due to it's aesthetic likeness to Silence of the Lambs and the other films in the Thomas Harris series but I got the shock of my life when I found it was a much darker and dramatic Hannibal. It was stylistic and artsy and I finished it up to the last episode of the last season. I'm gonna miss this show.
I liked Hannibal was interesting during the first two seasons, but it got too dark for me in the fourth season. I lost interest after 2 or 3 shows. I see Netflix and Amazon failed to pick up a fourth season. For me, NBC's The Blacklist (http://www.nbc.com/the-blacklist) is a very captivating show with James Spider as Red Reddington and Megan Boone as Elizabeth Keen. Recommended.
I've never actually watched any of Hannibal. The fandom always put me off the show a lot. If it's as good as you say it is, I'll definitely give it a shot. I've never even heard of the Blacklist before. It looks pretty interesting! I'll see if I can find any episodes to watch later.
The Blacklist (http://www.nbc.com/the-blacklist) has episodes and recaps on the NBC site, and Netflix has the first two seasons available. Season 3 begins on October 1. HTH And that was James Spader... autocorrect bites again.
One show that surprised me was sons of anarchy. I know the series as finished now but I started watching that right from the beginning and wasn't sure if it would be any good or not. As it turned out, it's probably one of the best series I have ever seen and I was gutted when it eventually finished after seven seasons as I was sure they could have carried it on longer.
SOA was good, and add The Shield (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shield) and Justified (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justified_(TV_series)) to the much-better-than-average category.
The Last Ship surprised me. I didn't expect it to be that good but I loved the show when I watched it. Looked at some reviews later and noticed that Season 1 had higher ratings than Season 2 but IMHO Season 2 was much better than Season 1. More conflict, more entertainment.