Catching up on... BANSHEE, season three

It's not often that I binge thirty hours of scripted television in less than a few weeks, but I gorged myself on three seasons of Cinemax's Banshee ahead of 2016's fourth and final run. It will feel very strange to watch this show with seven days between episodes, that's for sure. I'd been led to believe from a few friends that it was a case of third time's the charm with this latest season, and I'm in full agreement. It often felt like someone else had taken over running the show, using the potential of the concept and its actors to craft a better version of itself. It's too late to try and make this show more "realistic" (if Breaking Bad is Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull, Banshee is Jean-Claude Van Damme in Kickboxer), so it instead just had a lot of fun with its ludicrousness and sometimes transcended its scabrous nature.

Catching up on... BANSHEE, season two

After last weekend's binge of Banshee's first season, it seems only fair to report on the following weekend's binge of the second. Most TV shows have better sophomore years, because the writers know what worked and the best showrunners fix things based on constructive criticism. You also have something tangible that you've made, so it's simply easier to develop an existing world and write material that plays to various actor's strengths. However, some shows struggle in year two because they've exhausted their core concept and it can be difficult to retool things for a longer haul now it's successful. Banshee season 2 was, on the whole, an improvement on the first year—although I wasn't in favour of some of its key storytelling choices, and it often lacked the addictive viciousness of season 1.

Catching up on... BANSHEE, season one

I almost pine for the days when American television effectively shut up shop over summer, because it at least gave you a chance to catchup with the good TV you missed from across the pond. Nowadays there are dozens of great shows airing all year round, many during the only slightly quieter summer, so it's a real struggle to find time to watch everything. Or even 50% of the best stuff. Still, the last few weeks of of August is the closest thing to a TV drought we still have, so it's the only time I can consider watching any overlooked recommendations. And this past weekend, that's been Cinemax's Banshee.