This for TV historians of the far future.
In past reviews I have talked about how TV has changed in both subtle and un-subtle ways.
I have talked about auteurs like Whedon who so dramatically changed the nature of writing for TV that it took 20 years for essentially a new generation of writers to appear willing to use his techniques.
Right now, in 2015, this may surprise you, there are doctoral theses being written about how the zombie theme has become a metaphor for reality, I don't want to talk about zombies. I want to talk about what I consider the most leading edge show on TV, which, by a nose, is Banshee.
The key I think has to do with the mixing of the expected and the unexpected, For decades TV scripts were based on the expected with small doses of the unexpected.
Look at for example (of many) CSI Miami. The quality and story arc is so consistent that if you were stranded on a deserted island, you could do worse than have the full DVD set of CSI Miami to console you. It would pass the time.
BANSHEE I believe will someday be remembered for changing the balance. From literally the pilot, the expected was playing second fiddle to the unexpected. I could be wrong, but I think this was the first time anyone did this, or AT LEAST DID IT THIS WELL.
This small arc in this episode makes the point. We have a sheriff who is not a sheriff playing cop at a police station which is not a police station (BTW, this dialog IS ACTUALLY IN THE EPISODE) who discovers a son who is not his son... and then the son who never existed ... ceases to exist.
On paper this sound trite. In reality, this makes for fascinating TV.
I maintain this show aside from being fun (what many are calling a guilty pleasure in their blogs) is history in the making.
And, just for fun, I will remind the interested TV fan how even JJ himself recently took the tried and true formula of his hit show Person of Interest and threw it under the bus, in an attempt to work with this new kind of story-telling.
