Banished was a British television drama airing for seven episodes on BBC Two in March and April of 2015. It was set in the first British penal colony in New South Wales in 1788, and dealt equally with the convicts and the soldiers guarding them.
Banished provides examples of the following tropes:
- Anachronism Stew: Multiple phrases and appearances seem anachronistic, but most noticeably Letters Malloy referencing a "Dear John Letter," a phrase that wouldn't be coined for another 150 years.
- Berserk Button: Tommy's is Elizabeth, with tragic results.
- The Big Guy: The blacksmith Marston is massive (his actor Rory McCann is 6 foot 6), which not only allows him to bully food off the other inmates with impunity, it means nobody believes for a second that James killed him and hid the body on his own.
- The Bully: Marston bullies other inmates into giving him their food (when they're all on the verge of starvation anyway), and after James challenges him for stealing Elizabeth's food, Marston starts stealing all of James' meals, fully intending to starve him to death for his defiance.
- Bungled Suicide: Kitty decides to drown herself in the ocean, only to discover Marston's body and decide she doesn't want to end up looking like that.
- Cement Shoes: After Marston refuses to stay buried, Tommy and James take his body out to sea, weighted down with chains. Unfortunately, that doesn't work too well, either...
- Cruel Mercy: James is saved from hanging for killing Marston only to become the hangman, a job he knows will get him ostracized and killed as soon as his fellow convicts find out, and which leads to him having to hang his best friend.
- Cut Himself Shaving: Private Buckley tells Major Ross he fell, rather than admit that Sergeant Timmins beat him up.
- Dead Guy on Display: Major Ross wants to do this with Tommy Barrett.
- "Dear John" Letter: Stubbins receives one right before he departs for New South Wales, but doesn't know it for quite awhile since he can't read and Letters Malloy lies to him about its contents.
- Downer Ending: James kills his best friend Tommy, Corporal Mac Donald apparently kills himself, and all the surviving characters are probably going to starve to death.
- Dramatic Irony: We know that James is the hangman since the end of episode four, but none of the other convicts know until the end of the last episode
- Driven to Suicide: Corporal Mac Donald
- Ensemble Cast: The opening credits featured eighteen names.
- Everyone Has Standards: Nobody is happy at Major Ross killing prisoners one by one until they turn to face the hanging of Tommy, including Ross himself; his usual indifference is severely rattled, especially when Boom, Headshot! gets averted and an inmate is left dying slower than he intended.
- Evil Is Petty: Buckley tells Tommy he's been with his wife (knowing full well this will lead to Tommy hitting him, which will lead to Tommy being executed) just because Tommy humiliated him at cards.
- Fatal Flaw: Tommy's temper
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Buckley is loathed by absolutely everyone. To his credit, he knows this, and knows why, and does make an effort to seek out Timmins and ask him to mentor him in how to be a better soldier and person. Any progress he makes is completely squandered when he gets Tommy hanged purely out of petty spite (and also demonstrates that Timmins' boxing lessons have been wasted when he cowers and gets the shit kicked out of him) and he ends the series having been given the job of guarding the hangman, a position absolutely nobody else wanted.
- Ironic Name: James Freeman is a convict.
- Just Following Orders: Sergeant Timmins clearly doesn't enjoy a lot of his assigned tasks (including flogging Elizabeth), but does them because it's his job. The one time he disobeys an order (turning back so as not to lose any men in the bush during the chase for James) leads to a severe dressing down (and threats) from Major Ross, which leads him to buckle down on doing exactly what he's told.
- Large Ham: Reverend Johnson
- Last-Name Basis: The majority of the soldiers' first names are never revealed.
- Last Request: Tommy requests that James marry Elizabeth after his death. This is, of course, before he knows James will be the one hanging him...
- Love Triangle: Major Ross, Corporal Mac Donald, and Kitty
- Manipulative Bastard: in the course of six episodes, Major Ross manipulates Kitty into leaving Corporal Mac Donald and coming to him willingly.
- Manly Tears: Multiple times, mainly among the convicts.
- Never Learned to Read: The majority of the convicts, with the notable exception of Letters Malloy, whose services as a reader and writer are used by multiple characters throughout the series. It's later revealed that Anne Meredith is also literate, though she hides it, and several other characters are depicted as learning over the course of the series.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Buckley suffers one of these at the hands of Tommy, as well as, to a slightly lesser extent, Sergeant Timmins.
- No Party Like a Donner Party: Major Ross brings up the possibility of feeding corpses to the convicts to preserve food for the soldiers, though this policy is not yet put into place by the end of the series.
- Official Couple: Tommy and Elizabeth
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Letters Malloy
- Penal Colony
- Pet the Dog: Following the death of his underling, Ross commissions Letters Malloy to fabricate a letter to the dead man's family saying he died valiantly protecting his comrades (rather than the pathetic and painful death from snakebite he actually had), and honours the favour he owes Malloy as a result of this. Notably, unlike many of Ross' Pragmatic Villainy moments, this is purely to give peace of mind to the dead man's family and has no ulterior motive.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Played with in the case of Major Ross; his forceful claiming of Kitty as a concubine (especially one who was already in a loving relationship with one of his subordinates) takes him into this trope, but she ends up ending her first relationship and being with him willingly due to a combination of Ross' genuinely self-reflecting improvement and cold-blooded manipulation. Ultimately, though Ross is a candidate for the most immoral character on the show, he is not without sympathetic or redeeming qualities, and his initial treatment of Kitty isn't treated as the
Moral Event Horizon it might be in other works. - Reasonable Authority Figure: Governor Philip is doing his very best to keep the colony vaguely functional, considers problems from as many different angles as possible, and while some of his decisions backfire none of them are unreasonable at the time.
- At a lower level, Sergeant Timmins is universally respected among the soldiers and the inmates, and specifically promised his subordinates that he would protect them from bad decisions made by top brass. He even tries to take Buckley under his wing and make him a better soldier (and person).
- Say My Name: If you took a shot every time Elizabeth cries Tommy's name, you would quickly be dead drunk...
- The Hero Dies: Tommy, in the final episode
- Sentenced to Down Under
- The Quiet One: Captain Collins records the minutes in the official meetings that include Governor Phillip, Major Ross, and Reverend Johnson. He usually adds little to the conversation, but his facial reactions to the others are priceless.
- The Smart Guy: Letters Malloy
- Tragic Stillbirth: Mrs. Johnson's entire back story, having suffered four stillborn children.
- Villainous Valour: After waking to find a knife at his throat, Marston just dares James to kill him rather than agree to stop starving him to death.
