Banshee - Season 1 Review

It's been while, well i was gone at Germany for a week, but now i'm back in action. When reading synopsis of the story i wasn't really interested, but when i watched the actual trailer (my opinion changed drastically). Well i think that is with the most of the shows, script may sound pretty generic, but its the actors, music, effects and locations what brings it alive. I am big fan of Shield, i found Banshee somewhat similar to that like the whole bad cop thing and extreme measures, also multiple affairs and violence of main character.

 The Genre called "Drama" has evolved quite a lot in past years, in terms of more in depth series and complexity of relationships. If we go back in the 80's they pretty much didn't have anything like this (Well they didn't have pretty much anything except sitcoms). I think Banshee is one of those innovators, which is taking Drama to more darker side like (Dexter or Shield). For that reason i took quite a liking to the series.

*SPOILERS*
As some of you already know, main character takes a role of a Dead Cop and becomes a sheriff of the town called Banshee. Although you might think this is a cop show, i wouldn't really say so, i mean yeah there is crimes but this isn't your typical "Lets solve the case and find the murderer". It's merely a small detail among big details on the series. The Show is being filmed at North & South Carolina, which is great in my opinion (As i posted on True Blood review, i found the NY, California and Miami really over used locations). You have this small town setting where everybody knows everybody, with bars & salons and all that good western stuff.

Banshee had tons of twists in its 10 episode packed series, i feel like one of the most interesting characters aside main character was Kai Proctor played by Ulrich Thomsen, he really brought the show alive for me with his danish accent and show off style. I felt like there wasn't single episode like "nothing is going on", there was always something. Until the very last 3 episodes, they started to do some cliffhanger stuff to hype up the conclusion of the season. There was the potential to wrap the whole series in one season, but i felt like since season 2 is starting at 2014, we have chance to see whole Kai vs. Indians and how the whole situation will go normal from the conclusion with Mr.Rabbit on the final episode. P.S the whole bazooka thing in the end was extremely cheesy.
There was quite a lot of cliffhangers in the end of episode 10, but i won't go in detail of those, since some of you haven't watched this yet (There is one after credits, remember to check that).

Ratings

Music - There is fine piece of Theme song at the start with pictures going in and out (Not sure are these real pictures or are they taken for the series). Overall its pretty average stuff, nothing extraordinary here. (2/5)

Actors - Ulrich Thomsen really delivered, but so did Anthony Starr, i really loved the whole cast even the Chinese guy (he was actually really talented). I think if you're making a good Drama show, you can't have mediocre actors on it, so i really felt that there wasn't single actor who didn't deliver during the series. (4/5)

Story - As i mentioned there was quite of twists and heart beating events during the series, which will keep people watching the show. This isn't your cheap action drama show, Banshee has quite lot of depth in the story, rich backgrounds, flashbacks all that. I'm curious to see what they are going to focus on Season 2, probably about Lucas hiding his identity and conflict between Kai Proctor and the Native Americans. (4/5)

Re-watch Value - I Think this show has definitely high value of re-watching, since there is lot of events happening in just 10 episodes, so might wanna take few steps back and carefully watch it again before Season 2 starts in 2014. (3/5) 

Drama & Effects - This is A-tier Drama series and i would recommend this everyone who really enjoyed series like Dexter and Shield. I think actors were really good showing off emotions and nothing felt really over cheesy or anything. Fighting scenes felt like they had proper coordination and experts writing them, also blood make up seemed quite real to me. Really have to point that bazooka was pretty lame, it felt really cheesy. (3.5/5.0)

Final Score - (16.5/25)

I Enjoyed quite a lot watching this show, there wasn't really a moment where i was getting bored and would decide to put this series on hold (Which i do with some series, if they aren't entertaining enough). It's definitely among best Dramas of the season. The series had its really good moments and it kept delivering that 5 Star action through out the series. Those who like drama-action this is really something for you, i'm really looking forward to Season 2, so lets see what brings us.