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TV show review: CONTINUUM season 4
PHOTOGRAPHY

BANSHEE The Complete First Season

Blu-ray review by David Blackwell

 

DETAILS:  600 minutes (10 episodes on fur discs), audio commentaries, featurettes, Inside The Title Sequences, digital comic book, Reveal The Code featurette, Banshee Origins prequel shorts, digital copy

VIDEO: 1.78:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen) 1080p High Definition

AUDIO: English 5.1 DTS-HD MA, Spanish 2.0 DTS Digital Surround

Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish

 

STUDIO: HBO Home Entertainment/ Cinemax/

RELEASE DATE: 7-30-2013

 

DISC 1-  PILOT/ THE RAVE

DISC 2-  MEET THE NEW BOSS/ HALF DEAF IS BETTER THAN ALL DEAD/ THE KINDRED

DISC 3-  WICKS/ BEHOLD A PALE RIDER/ WE SHALL LIVE FOREVER

DISC 4- ALWAYS THE COWBOY/ A MIXTURE OF MADNESS

BANSHEE is a rush- a cocktail of action, violence, nudity, twists and turns, characters with secrets, gangsters, cops, Amish people, and a drag queen hacker.  An ex-con assumes the identity of a small town sheriff named Lucas Hood (Antony Starr) after tracking down his old girlfriend who lives under the assumed name of Carrie Hopewell (Ivana Milicevic) in the town of Banshee.  Hood has been in prison for 15 years so that he could let his partner Ana (now Carrie) escape with the diamonds they stole.  Both of them are on the run from a Ukrainian gangster named Mr. Rabbit (Ben Cross).   Hood gets entwined with the local crime scene and a gangster named Kai Proctor as Hood doesn’t want to leave the woman he loves (that is married) and the daughter that may be his.  Banshee is a Pennsylvania town that is a mix of regular town folk, Amish, and criminals.    BANSHEE is an addictive action cop series that offers a lot for fans of shows like THE SHIELD and JUSTIFIED.  You can despise one character in one episode and feel for them in another episode.  The story and characters are developed at a complex level that it makes me want to see what happens in season two.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

BANSHEE ORIGINS (DISC 1)- 13 prequel shorts (over 30 minutes total) showing what various characters were doing during the last 15 years.

TOWN OF SECRETS (DISC 1)- a quick promotional featurette on the series

NYC BUS CRASH (DISC 1)- a behind-scenes look at how the NYC Bus Crash sequence was shot which included a bit of CGI to create digital vehicles

Digital Comic Book (DISC 1) of the first issue of the Banshee prequel comic book

 

INSIDE THE TITLE SEQUENCE- click on images in the title sequences of each episode to reveal secrets about each episode.

 

ZOOMING IN (DISC 3)- go on the set to see how key sequences were filmed for episodes 7 and 8

REVEAL THE CODE (DISC 4)- find out what the safe combination at the title sequence means.

 

Deleted scenes are included for episodes 6, 9, and 10.  I wish the deleted scene for episode 10 was left in even though the chance meeting between two characters in episode 9 is an interesting scene.

 

Audio commentaries were recorded with cast and crew for PILOT and a few other episodes, but no audio commentaries for the last two episodes.

 

The season two teaser trailer is a big tease which doesn’t show anything from the second season at all.

 

FINAL ANALYSIS: BANSHEE is a crime series with twists and turns that will offer cop show and action film fans enough thrills and complex character development in this very smartly written series that hooks you from episode one and doesn’t let go.   The prequel shorts are my favorite extra on the set.

 

This review is (c)8-8-2013 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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