Eva Green
Timothy Dalton
Josh Harnett
Harry Treadaway
Reeve Carney
Rory Kinnear
Billie Piper
Danny Sapani
Simon Russell Beale
Helen McCrory

Created by:
John Logan

2014-
Drama, Horror
Showtime
TV-MA

“Penny Dreadful,” whose events start on September 22, 1891, is fashioned out of classic horror traditions; but it combines those traditions with modern TV-production techniques. Here’s one great example from the pilot: The camera closes in on Eva Green as she prays; we don’t see her head, so she appears headless. A spider crawls out from behind the cross hanging on the wall and ends up on her body. She then lengthens her body and head, and that causes her head to cover the cross in the camera shot. …

This is a period piece that includes the aforementioned spiders, religion (including possession and exorcism), mist, shadows, a traveling Wild West show, Egyptology, vampires, Frankenstein, spiritualism, and many other things. The pace is fairly brisk at times, but “Penny Dreadful” lingers when necessary. The score is reliably instructive yet unobtrusive.

I imagine that “Penny Dreadful” is what the novel “Drood” would look like as a TV show. This show fits in with the film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” in both tone and appearance. NBC’s now-cancelled “Dracula” had a somewhat similar look, but it was a little lighter in tone.

However, this show isn’t completely derivative; it has its own ideas. And this is no “True Blood,” by the way; they take things seriously here. There’s a confidence to this presentation that’s intriguing. It sweeps along for the most part.

If you like the classic period-piece horror-thriller genre with a modern twist, then check this out. …

As the first season and second season progress, some story lines aren’t as strong as others. But that seems to be due to either the lack of information given for some of those story lines or the misguided focus on the wrong characters in favor of others. Eva Green is the reason to watch this (she’s destroying it); whenever she’s onscreen, this show has a nice pull to it. (Except for when they isolate her with Josh Hartnett’s character – I won’t tell you what kind of character he is. Hartnett doesn’t give her much to respond to.) While much of the rest of “Penny Dreadful” is good (some of it’s very good), most of it isn’t as good.

Overall, “Penny Dreadful” does a good job and showcases a few stellar moments.

Verdict: Good With a Few Great Moments

About: (Source: pennydreadful)

PENNY DREADFUL is a powerfully written saga filled with dark mystery and suspense. It lives in a demimonde — a half world between reality and the supernatural — where personal demons from the past can be stronger than vampires, evil spirits and immortal beasts.