The Best Television of 2015: No.8 - Showtime's PENNY DREADFUL

A coven of witches set their sights on Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton) and psychic Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), bringing great danger to the members of their occult clique. Meanwhile, Dr Frankenstein's sorrowful creation (Rory Kinnear) demands a mate, and American werewolf Ethan Chandler (Josh Harnett) arouses the suspicion of a Scotland Yard detective...

What made it so good? The first season was good fun, but more on a conceptual level. It was also inconsistent and petered out towards the end. This second run was much better on practically every level, although the story could still be tightened and there are a few characters who haven't developed as much as I'd like (Frankenstein's Monster, Dorian Grey). But I can forgive Penny Dreadful a lot, because it has a beautiful Gothic tone and can be very tense and thrilling when it wants to be. Plus, there's the delicious Eva Green doing astonishing (now Golden Globe-nominated) work as a tortured psychic, whose soul is the must-have thing for dark forces everywhere. It's fair to say Penny Dreadful focuses a little too much on her fascinating character, to the detriment of others like Sir Malcolm, but also easy to see why creator John Logan views Green as a muse.

PENNY DREADFUL adds Dr Jekyll to its gang of Victorian misfits

The currently-filming third season of Showtime and Sky Atlantic's Penny Dreadful will involve another character from Victorian literature: Dr Henry Jekyll, the mad scientist with a split personality called Mr Hyde, created by author Robert Louis Stevenson. Shazad Latif (The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Spooks) will play the iconic role, presenting a change to the character's ethnicity.

PENNY DREADFUL, 2.10 – 'And They Were Enemies'

★★★☆

Penny Dreadful's season 2 finale offered some hasty-but-fun conclusions, but preferred to instead focus on grace notes and setup for next year—rather like how True Blood structured its own closers. I was entertained, mostly because it allowed for some excellent performances to arise from a wallowing sense of self-important misery. It does get rather tiring how all of the show's characters deny themselves chances of happiness, even with each other, because they're convinced their own suffering is in some way infectious and a curse never to be shared.

PENNY DREADFUL, 2.9 – 'And Hell Itself My Only Foe'

★★☆☆

There were things to enjoy about this penultimate episode, and it tee'd up next week's finale very well by the end, but I was very disappointed John Logan's rushed various aspects of the story. The disfigured American looking to bring wolfman Ethan (Josh Hartnett) to justice back in the U.S? He somehow found Ethan and Vanessa (Eva Green) at the Cut-Wife's cottage, and was swiftly knifed to death pre-credits. In London, Dorian (Reeve Carney) somehow realised Lily (Billie Piper) is the Irish prostitute Brona he once had sex with, so I can only assume a temporary amnesia was affecting him.

PENNY DREADFUL, 2.8 – 'Memento Mori'

★★★★

I worship the ground Eva Green walks on, but her presence in Penny Dreadful is often detrimental—in the sense she's so magnetic to watch, and write for, that everyone else tends to fade into the background. "Memento Mori" got around this problem by revealing what's happening to the other characters, now Vanessa (Green) and Ethan (Josh Hartnett) have gone to ground in the Cut-Wife's cottage. And while it would be wrong to remove Green from this show for too long, her absence definitely allowed for the rest of the ensemble to shine.

PENNY DREADFUL, 2.7 – 'Little Scorpion'

★★★☆

Vannessa (Eva Green) took Ethan (Josh Hartnett) to the Cut-Wife's cottage, but following in her mentor's footsteps only extended to teaching her American friend how to dance. Penny Dreadful is an ensemble show with many moving pieces, but it's notable how the best hours tend to focus on the few. Ethan's been a troublesome ingredient of the show, but now that his lycanthropy's a secret shared—with Sembene (Danny Sapani), Sir Malcolm's (Timothy Dalton) servant—the story appears to be moving forward with him better. He's a man of principle, who knows the burden taking lives has on your soul, and by the end of "Little Scorpion" it's Vanessa's who's the one being schooled.

PENNY DREADFUL, 2.6 – 'Glorious Horrors'

★★☆☆

We've moved into the last half of season 2, and a few plots are beginning to move forward, although progress remains leisurely. Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton) is now under the enchantment of girlfriend Evelyn Poole (Helen McCrory), but all it's resulted in is making everyone suspicious over his non-reaction to his wife's suicide, and a decision to shave his beard. No great shakes, although scenes of Evelyn massaging the organic heart of a miniature Malcolm voodoo fetish suggests greater torments to come.

PENNY DREADFUL, 2.5 – 'Above the Vaulted Sky'

★★★☆

It's hard to predict if Penny Dreadful will succeed in making its various storylines, and individual lives of its main characters, converge in a satisfying way. That's obviously a goal, of sorts, but there are times when I wonder if it's going to happen in a clever, natural manner. For instance, the beginning of "Above the Vaulted Sky" again saw Vanessa (Eva Green) petrified with terror over her nocturnal visitations from "the nightcomers"—are they real or imaginary?—but soon after she was all smiles during a dinner date with Dr Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) and his "cousin" Lily (Billie Piper). While it's unrealistic to expect Vanessa to be shaking with fear constantly, there are gear changes Penny Dreadful demands that feel very awkward and abrupt...

PENNY DREADFUL, 2.4 – 'Evil Spirits in Heavenly Places'

★★☆☆

After last week's bravura instalment, quality lurched back to a more standard level, all things considered. There were a few things I really liked about "Evil Spirits in Heavenly Places", but also more evidence that many of Penny Dreadful's characters are stuck in dull storylines of questionable importance to the grander scheme.

PENNY DREADFUL, 2.3 – 'The Nightcomers'

★★★★

The highlight of the first season was a Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) flashback, episode 5's "Closer than Sisters", which provided much needed backstory to the ongoing story around it. The same could be true of this year, as "The Nightcomers" was likewise focused on Vanessa's past, and was quite a wonderful hour of spooky chills and heartbreak. It further enriched Vanessa's enigmatic character, deepened our understanding of her prickly nature and steadfast resolve, but also hinted at Penny Dreadful's long-term plan for her story, and created a fantastic, personal connection to season 2's villain.

PENNY DREADFUL, 2.2 – 'Verbis Diablo'

★★★☆

There are a few things that are beginning to irritate me about Penny Dreadful now: firstly, it's unclear what the show's longterm goal is, because the first season's Egyptian doomsday prophecy hasn't factored into the show as strongly as one assumed it would; and secondly, its separate storylines need to intersect fairly soon, because the way Dr Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) floats into Sir Malcolm's (Timothy Dalton) storyline feels odd half the time, because he's ordinarily stuck in a completely different show with his monstrous creation (Rory Kinnear) nobody else even knows about.

PENNY DREADFUL, 2.1 – 'Fresh Hell'

★★☆☆

Warning: Showtime released this premiere online, a week before its television broadcast on 3 May, so please only continue reading if you've seen this episode...

I enjoyed the first season of screenwriter John Logan's Gothic horror, which clearly owed a debt to Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (in how it assembled a mix of supernatural icons and literary heroes). But its problems became more noticeable as the season progressed—mainly an issue with sustaining a healthy pace, repetitive arcs, the unfortunate fact some of its surprises were instantly predictable—and the first season ended more with a perfunctory whimper than an exciting confluence of storylines. Those things coloured my perception of season 2's mediocre premiere, "Fresh Hell," or perhaps tempered my expectations is a better way of putting it.

First-look: PENNY DREADFUL - Season Two

Sky have released a first-look photo from PENNY DREADFUL season 2, which is currently filming in Dublin. It's not much to get excited about, unless the fact Eva Green wearing her hair down is a cryptic clue about something (beyond changing Victorian fashions). More interesting is knowing that Helen McCrory will have a bigger role as spiritualist Evelyn Poole/Madame Kali, and will be joined by new stars like Patti Lupone (as a character linked to Vanessa's past), Douglas Hodge (as a Scotland Yard investigator), Sarah Greene (as Evelyn's daughter Hecate), and Johnny Beachamp.

Penny Dreadful will return to Showtime/Sky Atlantic in 2015.

Stuff You (Probably) Didn't Know About... Eva Green

Eva Green's one of my favourite actress's working today, because you can never take your eyes off her when she's around, she always gives the material 100% (no matter the objective quality), and tends to elevate weak projects through sheer force of will (Dark Shadows, 300: Rise of an Empire, The Golden Compass, Camelot). A fascinating presence at the cinema or on television, she's equally fascinating off-screen it would appear...

Digital Spy: 12 Fantasy Television Crossovers

Over at Digital Spy today, it's my latest article. This one fantasises about 12 "crossover" episodes of past and present TV shows, that would be extremely unlikely but incredibly fun to watch. Dexter meets Hannibal? Sherlock travels to Fargo? Justified visits True Blood? Click through to read more, and remember to share if you enjoy it!

SDCC 2014's Thursday panels: 24, COMMUNITY, HANNIBAL & PENNY DREADFUL

This year's San Diego Comic-Con is in full flow until Sunday, but chances are you're not there to enjoy it. But hey, the internet is your salvation! A lot of fans upload 'shaky-cam' videos of entire hour-long panels, so below are my pick of Thursday's events. (If you notice any of these embedded videos have been removed, or a better quality one becomes available, please let me know in the comments section below).

PENNY DREADFUL, 1.8 – 'Grand Guignol'

written by John Logan | directed by James Hawes

I fall for it time and time again, but whenever cable series are given short orders (like Penny Dreadful's eight episode run), I assume this is because there's a shorter story to be told. The fact John Logan (a busy and successful movie writer) also scripts every single episode, added weight to the idea this was a story with a beginning, middle and end he was desperate to get off his chest. And then Showtime renewed Penny Dreadful for a second season, but I assumed this proved it would perhaps be an American Horror Story-style anthology series, with a new story and characters arriving next season—which would befit a drama named after Victorian literature containing multiple stories. I should have known better...

PENNY DREADFUL, 1.7 – 'Possession'

written by John Logan | directed by James Hawes

I wasn't expecting the penultimate hour of Penny Dreadful to essentially be a 'bottle episode', considering there's still lots to do, but that's exactly what we got. The bigger picture story didn't really move along very much (something of a recurring issue with the show, like there's only really enough plot for half the number of episodes), but it was a brilliant hour in terms of developing some of the characters and their dynamic together. This was the first time Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton), Ethan (Josh Hartnett), and Dr Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) felt like a real team instead of people thrown together. Even manservant Sembene (Danny Sapani) had a good moment, as Ethan speculated on the reason for his presence as Sir Malcolm's loyal aide-de-campe.

PENNY DREADFUL, 1.6 – 'What Death Can Join Together'

written by John Logan | directed by Coky Giedroyc

I've heaped praise on Penny Dreadful most weeks, and I again enjoyed this latest episode ("What Death Can Join Together"); but it was my least favourite of the six episodes to air, so I thought it might be fair to be slightly more critical about the show and point out some failings and growing frustrations. I'm largely happy with the show, don't get me wrong, but considering there are now only two episodes left... has writer John Logan done a good job parcelling out his high-concept Victorian chiller?

PENNY DREADFUL, 1.5 – 'Closer than Sisters'

written by John Logan | directed by Coky Giedroyc

We're over halfway through Penny Dreadful's eight-part first season (it's been renewed for a second, thank heavens), and instead of advancing the plot, John Logan decided to colour in the background to Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton) and Vanessa Ives (Eva Green). In "Closer than Sisters" we learned how they came to investigate creatures of the night, and it was a particularly tragic past that gave rise to their partnership.