Penny Dreadful Season 1

I don't really remember when I first heard of Penny Dreadful. It's really only been on since 2014 and it's on Showtime. I don't mean to knock Showtime at all, but I honestly don't know a lot of people who watched the show when it was on. I'm sure it had it's fans, but it really didn't seem to me like people were talking about it the way that people talk about Game of Thrones or Stranger Things.

The real reason I was interested in Penny Dreadful without really knowing what the show was about at all was because I saw who was in the cast and I really dug it. You've got big names like Eva Green, Timothy Dalton, and Josh Hartnett. All actors who I really enjoy in other things but they haven't really been in a lot of really popular movies or TV shows, save one or two big ones, and definitely not recently.

It's a little hard to explain exactly what Penny Dreadful is all about without getting into spoiler

territory but I will do the best I can. The show takes place in the 1800s where a young sharpshooter named Ethan Chandler (played by Josh Hartnett) is at a stop with his show in London and he is recruited by a mysterious woman by the name of Vanessa Ives (played by Eva Green) to assist in a mission that requires his gun slinging skills.

Chandler finds himself in the company of Sir Malcolm Murray (played by Timothy Dalton), an explorer in search of his daughter. In the first episode, Chandler finds himself in the middle of a battle between Malcolm Murray's team of mysterious characters and the forces of darkness and evil.

The intriguing thing about the show is that it takes a number of characters from famous pieces of literature and utilizes them in an organic collaboration. Characters like Victor Frankenstein (played by Harry Treadaway) and Dorian Grey (played by Reeve Carney) are brought to life in the show and they have their own stories and connections to a larger world.

One thing worth saying up front is that there is a reason why I was drawn to this show due to the cast. It is a solid cast. Hartnett, Green, and Dalton are all really strong actors and they fit really well into their characters. But the supporting cast is great as well. I've already mentioned Reeve Carney and Harry Treadaway, but Billie Piper, best known as Rose Tyler from Doctor Who, appears in the show and she gives a surprisingly great performance, totally different from her role as Rose.

The really fun part about the show is just how many directions the show could head in. In the process of writing this review, I did have to look at the Wikipedia page and I wanted to avoid as many spoilers as I can, but even without knowing any spoilers, there's a lot you can speculate might happen and a lot of characters you can guess might show up from famous pieces of literature.

I'm not usually one to get into shows about vampires and demons like The Vampire Diaries and others, but Penny Dreadful to me seems like a lot more than that to me. Even the vampire storylines are done in such a way that it's subtle and feels more within the vein of classic Dracula and not Twilight or True Blood.

That is not to say there isn't the sex, blood, and gore from shows like True Blood, there is a lot of it, and it is raw. This is definitely a horror show and there are some pretty intense moments, something that I usually don't go for.

The truth is this show is not for everyone. Even if you're a fan of the vampire movies and shows like Vampire Diaries, this show might not be for you with the amount of gore and horror that appears in this show. It can get intense at times and it's definitely not for the faint of heart.

However, I really enjoyed the story and the unique atmosphere the show brings. And like I said, there's a really good cast behind this show.

While the first episode focuses mainly on Josh Hartnett's character of Ethan Chandler, the show is spread pretty evenly across the 5-7 main characters within the story. Each episode delves into characters differently and you really get to know these characters.

I thought it was really funny when I figured out that Josh Hartnett was in this show. I don't know if I've mentioned this in past reviews of movies that have featured him but you don't really see Josh Hartnett in a lot of things these days. He seems to be pretty selective of the movies he's in and apparently he's been pretty busy with this show for the past 3 or 4 years that this was really all he was doing. He does a really good job and he's one of the reason why I'm going to continue watching the show past the first season.

The real star of the show however is clearly Eva Green as Vanessa Ives. I have really been a fan of Eva Green ever since Casino Royale and I really wish that she would be in more American films. She is a power house of an actress and no where does she show it more than her performance in Penny Dreadful. This girl has to do a wide range of things in this show and a lot of them do not look pleasant at all. All the while she's just there drawing the audience in and she does a really good job doing it. Again, it comes down to a lot of these actors are really good, especially the ones who are a little bit more well known and it's good to see them in these roles and back in action once again.

And speaking of back in action, let's talk about Timothy Dalton.

I will be honest, I haven't seen a lot of Timothy Dalton's work. I know that he was once James Bond but I didn't see much of his run as 007. I know that he was an antagonist in Doctor Who from one of my favorite David Tennant specials, and I know that he has this amazingly commanding voice.

Reading into him, I've figured out that Dalton is Shakespearian trained and did a lot of stage work in his long career. Now we see him in this role and he commands it perfectly.

The best comparison I can think of when talking about the character of Sir Malcolm Murray is Sean Connery's character from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Now I know that movie wasn't very good, but hear me out. He's an older gentlemen rounding up a group of extraordinary individuals in Victorian London. But what works about Murray is that he is conflicted by his personal goals and everyone he works with seems like pawns he moves in order for him to achieve the goal of finding his daughter.

All of these characters, including Harry Treadaway as Victor Frankenstein, Reeve Carney as Dorian Grey, and Billie Piper as Brona Croft all make a really great team that I want to continue watching as they go out search for Vampires and more other-wordly things. All the characters compliment one another very well and they all have their own personal goals.

Now are there problems with the show? Of course. It can drag a little bit. Luckily the season is only 8 episodes. However, with the exception of one or two episodes, I can't really point to a specific episode and say exactly what that episode was totally about. Now this does make it so the entire series feels more like an 8 hour long movie which I like, but there's also not really anything extraordinary about the episodes themselves and I don't have any real favorites except for the two that I can remember exactly what they were dealing with, both of them centering around Vanessa Ives. This is not to say the season isn't good, there's just not a lot of exceptional episodes and they all kind of blend together for the big picture.

The action in the show is fine and that's clearly not the emphasis of the show. The emphasis is more on the drama and the struggles of the characters. The overall truth is that I just enjoyed Penny Dreadful. It's not the best show I've seen in a long time but it's definitely a different ride worth checking out if you're into horror and traditional vampires, not modern Twilight Vampires.

But what do you think? Have you seen Penny Dreadful? Comment and Discuss below! You Can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films and TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Something I really enjoyed from the show was the music. It was really good. Enjoy!