Mon 20 Apr 2020
A TV Episode Review: BANSHEE “Pilot†(2013).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[6] Comments
BANSHEE “Pilot.†Cinemax. 11 January 2013. Antony Starr, Ivana MiliÄević, Ulrich Thomsen, Frankie Faison, Hoon Lee, Rus Blackwell, Ben Cross. Created and written by Jonathan Tropper and David Schickler. Director: Greg Yaitanes.
This is a pilot that pretty much does exactly what it’s supposed to do. It sets up the characters and the situation, tell a story as it does so, and makes the viewer want to come back for more. In this case, though, it takes the entire hour’s length of running time to squeeze everything in, and the average viewer (me) will still have a lot of questions. I guess I’ll have to watch the next one!
I’ll start with the characters, then, and maybe fill in the situation as I go. It’s rather complicated, but I’ll try to make things simple, if I can. A man (an appropriately tough-looking Anthony Starr) is just out of prison, and with the help of an old friend (Hoon Lee) he’s is able to find his way to the small Amish town of Banshee PA, where a former girl friend and (as it turns out) accomplice (Ivana MiliÄević), who is now married to the D.A. (Rus Blackwell), who trying his hardest to put a local mobster (UlrichThomsen) behind bars. On the ex-convict’s trail back in Manhattan is a crime boss (Ben Cross) who has a powerful reason for finding him.
I hope you’re still with me, since the most outrageous piece of the plot line is yet to come – and this occurs early, so I’m not giving too much away, I hope – the convict manages to take the identity of the new sheriff in town before he can present himself to the mayor who has just hired him, sight unseen.
That’s enough story line for a full season of ten episodes, wouldn’t you say? The show was, in fact, popular enough to be on for four seasons, probably based on that last gimmick, but I’ve resisted temptation and not looked that far into the future. Except an unnecessary focus at the results of some ultra-violence, I enjoyed this one and will go along for the ride, at least for now. You might even say I’m hooked.
April 20th, 2020 at 9:52 pm
It could have got by on the sex and violence alone, but the four seasons are actually worth watching as the characters play out against an increasingly surreal but well developed setting. There are times you can’t imagine how they can get to another episode much less a season, but then they do.
The sharp characterization is part of the reason you keep coming back to see how they survive some pretty harrowing and seemingly impossible cliffhangers.
April 20th, 2020 at 11:35 pm
It sounds as though I really am going to have quite a ride ahead of me.
April 21st, 2020 at 6:23 am
We watched it too – in fact, Jackie was always a bigger fan of it than I was (though I enjoyed it too). Additional info: the local mobster is also Amish (sort of), his right hand man and “fixer” is probably the most violent person in a very violent show, there is quite a bit of graphic sex and nudity about every other show.
You could say it is crazy, but in a good way.
April 21st, 2020 at 10:42 am
The main reason I never even looked into this as a series to watch until now is because of the title. To me BANSHEE sounded like a show about the supernatural, something like, well, SUPERNATURAL. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I watch supernatural shows only not so very often.
April 21st, 2020 at 9:58 pm
Even when the plot wanders a bit the relationship between the characters keeps you coming back just to see what happens to them next, and the series has some of the best villains ever, almost always a bit more than two dimensional.
April 28th, 2020 at 8:00 pm
[…] lines, there are – and you may not noted this too — some similarities to the set up to the recently reviewed Cinemax series Banshee, which debuted in 2013, two years earlier. In that one the hero, also just […]