After a stellar start to its second season, Cinemax has renewed its Alan Ball-created drama Banshee for a third, which will air next year. Though Banshee has only received one Emmy (for Special Visual Effects), buzz for the show has been positive among critics, and fan numbers appear to be growing.
Banshee is a beautifully filmed, though violent series about an ex-con jewel thief who returns to Banshee, PA, to seek out his former partner (and lover). Both have assumed new identities, and while Banshee plays off of these themes throughout the series, it also expands its world by including a number of characters from criminal networks, as well as the local Amish and Native American populations. Hit the jump for more on the show.
If you haven't yet checked the series out, you can read my review of the first season, or preview of the second season if you aren't caught up yet with it. It's great news that Banshee is being given another year to tell its story, even though we're only halfway through the current one (which has been great). There's so much to explore, and the show deserves more attention.
Banshee airs Fridays at 10 p.m. on Cinemax. Here's the press release:
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 30, 2014 – CINEMAX has renewed the Emmy®-winning hit action series BANSHEE for a third season, scheduled to debut in 2015, it was announced today by Kary Antholis, president, HBO Miniseries and CINEMAX Programming. The show is currently in its second season, with episodes debuting Fridays at 10:00 p.m. (ET/PT).
Executive produced by Jonathan Tropper, David Schickler, Peter Macdissi, Alan Ball and Greg Yaitanes, BANSHEE stars Antony Starr (“Rush”) as Lucas Hood and Ivana Milicevic (“Charlie’s Angels,” HBO’s “Mind of the Married Man”) as Carrie Hopewell. The series tells the story of Hood, an ex-con and master thief who tracks down Hopewell, his former lover and partner in crime, who has reinvented herself as the wife of the Banshee, Pa. prosecutor. In Banshee, Hood assumes the identity of the town’s sheriff and continues his criminal activities, even as he’s hunted by the shadowy gangsters he betrayed years earlier.
In Sept. 2013, BANSHEE received a Primetime Emmy® Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Supporting Role. The series has been hailed by the Hollywood Reporter as “taut, entertaining and smart,” while TV Guide called it “addictively entertaining.”
Also starring in season two are: Ulrich Thomsen (“The Celebration”), Frankie Faison (“The Good Wife,” HBO’s “The Wire”), Hoon Lee (“Premium Rush”), Rus Blackwell (“Burn Notice,” HBO’s “Recount”), Matt Servitto (HBO’s “The Sopranos”), Demetrius Grosse (“Justified”), Trieste Kelly Dunn (“Brothers and Sisters”), Ryann Shane (“Blue Bloods”), Anthony Ruivivar (“Southland,” “Third Watch”), Lili Simmons (“Fat Kid Rules the World”), Odette Annable (“House M.D.,” “Cloverfield”) and Ben Cross (“Star Trek,” “Ben-Hur”).
