I'm a sucker for fantasy/sci fi shows, I'm a sucker for slow storytelling, I'm a sucker for damaged broken characters and I definitely enjoy my share of folklore and tales so this definitely hit all the right spots for me. This is dark and sad and twisted but very beautifully shot with haunting music and imagery. The acting was absolutely superb especially from Miss Eva Green who carried the whole damn thing on her frail shoulders.
Why didn't I watch this show sooner? Gotta say it's not for the faint-hearted. If you are expecting a happy ending or want black-and-white characters this show is not for you.
It's gritty, emotional and with great characters. I kid you not if you watched a whole season of this and expect a typical ending like most shows you'll be disappointed.
This has the most monstrous and the most humane characters I have ever seen.
I saw a lot of people disappointed in the ending but in my opinion, it perfectly fits the story. It would have been weird or even ridiculous to get a happy ending with this.
Main take on this: One of the best acting in TV shows.
:100::100: recommend it
Watched original run. I love this genre of tv shows and movies. Season 1 started out strong. Production and acting quality remained consistent but editing (slow pace), story (l never understood much after seeing up to S1.5/2) & plot (extemsive female pain & overdrawn out scenes were unnecessary) all went downhill from S2 onwards. I wanted to enjoy all of it but left a bitter after taste. Stop at S1 or watch for the acting talent only.
I really wanted to like this show much more than I did. And it is very possible it just does not work for me specifically. I can appreciate that it is well made, it is well acted, but the plots moves at a snails pace. To me, it was an incredibly consistent show throughout its three seasons. I don't recall a part where I feel it dipped, but it also never really picked up either. It's good. It will certainly appease many watchers out there. Unfortunately that watcher isn't me.
Average Season Review: 7/10
Recommendation: Skip (For Fans of Slow Burning Drama Fans)
To lovers of all things Horror, this show is a must watch. Absolutely 100% recommend it.
Watching the first season and witnessing how unbelievably great and well written, acted and directed it was, I was very baffled to know that the series aired only for 3 seasons. But continuing with the show and the story, I understand the writer's need to end it where it did. There were still so many endings for certain characters left open, so many things that still needed explaining, but I could do without them. After all, Eva Green is what really made the show, it was her story, it is only fair it ends with her.
This is the show American Horror Story was trying to be, but failed horribly.
Top notch acting by ALL the actors, top notch writing, top notch direction, scenery and costumes, and only minor amounts of Liberal propaganda; the only bad thing about this series is that it's already over after season 3!
Enjoying the show but am a little confused as to what i thought i was going to be watching and this different take on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
:-/
just seen the 1st two eps have to say I am pretty disappointed. ..had extremely high expectations as I great admire the supernatural/horror genre
Non-spoilerish;
After having finished Penny Dreadful S1 I must say I'm satisfied with how the first season ended. It seems the makers of PD knew there would eventually be a S2 and took their time and didn't rush through the story- that's awesome!
The show is/was enjoyable, delivered some really impressive performances and a well written story( apart from the misdefined egyptain creator diety Amon-Ra- that part is bullSHIT.
Amon-Ra was a more or less good buddy.)!
The cast- Great!
Eva has, once again, shown us what she's capable of as an actress. Impressive acting here!
Frankenstein, oh Frankenstein. I hate the Frankenstein stories and I already expressed my opinion on Frankenstein and his Creationin in my previous post, but someting has changed and I learned to actually like Frankenstein in Penny Dreadful!
What I absolutely don't like is Reeve's role, he plays sexy Dorian Grey, who basically didn't draw my attention at all. I simply didn't care if/when something awful happaned to him...
I was dry like an empty barrel, no tears, no pity and no sympathy!
His on-screen time was a joke! Reeve's a great actor and I think he deserved much better!
Scare/Anxiety Factor- mild/medium. Each ep. adds more mystery than anxiety.
Worth Watching? In my opinion, YUP! You should be watching! ^ ^
I am quite dissapointed that the show ended this way, but I guess there was no other ending to a show like this. I enjoyed every episode. Great actors, interesting plot. I would definitely recommend.
No Spoilers at all.
So, i just finished first season of the series, and having watched this far, i dont really know how this series got an 8 here... its a "kinda good" series, it makes use of a lot of good characters from british literature and has a good cast of actors, really good actually, and they kinda put together a good "ambience" for these characters on a good plot, the problem here is, the plot moves too slow, so slow you actually lose interest in the middle of the episode, i start watching it, and around 20-30 minutes i am already picking my phone and doing something else and not even paying atention, which is a shame, cause the series has everything to be good, another problem i find with it is the way the characters are "connected" everything sees so random that it doesnt seem random at all, its like, every character find each other from time to time with no reason whatsoever besides advancing the plot, its too much of a coincidence.
Its not a bad series by any means, but if you are like me, and like a little bit more action packed and not so "wait for the plot to happen" series, this is not for you, my personal score for this would be 6, cause of this point in question, but since this is a review for other people and not myself, i am confortable with giving it a 7, but i dont find it deserving any more than a 7.
I am facing a bit of a dilemma with my assessment of this show.
The production quality is through the roof, the costumes, the sets, the detail is phantastic. It´s beautiful at times even artful. The cast ist brilliant, first and foremost Eva Green of who I am a big admirer. She´s the reason I started to watch this and boy, she is amazing. Plus, I like the style and look of the period. Still, after every episode I wondered why to continue and after the second season I ran out of reason to be honest. I just didn´t want to continue just to watch Eva and the plot did't interest me that much. Simply not my genre. And as mentioned many times before it is slow in it's developement. Also I think there are too many characters vying for attention and in a way they all take away from each other or distract from what I considered the main arc. The Frankenstein plot could have been a show on its own, opposed to that Dorian Grey was rather uninteresting. Then you have werewolfs, vampires, witches, the Devil - it all seems a bit too much. Like they wanted to see how much they could throw together at the same time. Now, I never read the classics and I admit I might be missing the point of the story completely but I strugled to find meaning or sense in the story. If this would have been a, say, 50+ episode show I might have even been out after the first season.
So please bear in mind that my rating of the show is very subjective and please don't let it discourage you to watch it.
One of my favourites shows. I've not seen any show recently that has such interesting story, dialogues and a great cast. I will surely miss it.
Eva Green is definitely my favorite after watching Penny Dreadful. She has proved to be a great actress and I love the fact that her character in Penny Dreadful is so comprehensive, meaning that Vanessa Ives can be tough and fearless or at the same time scared, vulnerable and lonely, cold-hearted and yet loving :) I really enjoy watching Eva act it all out :)
Now that S2 has officially ended we are left wondering-
What about Vanessa's secret- and Lucifer?
What has become of Frankenstein and his creations?
Why feeding us with Mr. Chandler, make us love him....just to throw him away at the end? What is his story anyways? It did not even take 2 episodes to kill his story. I expected so much more development here!
So, so, so~ many questions left unanswered, but I am just going to stop before someone screams: Spoiler!
Honestly, I find that the ending this season was rushed...brutally! Overall, compared to what I have seen in previous episodes the final episodes did not do it for me. I was NOT able to sink into the story's setting and truly enjoy the final.
In my personal opinion, none of the episodes directed by Mr. Kirk — S2: 11/15/17/18— are right for the show. He doesn't seem to get the whole Penny-Dreadfull-ness, his episodes lack magical realism, horror— sometimes, I found myself laughing instead of crying for a hug— and the love for depth and detail. Brian Kirk has worked hard for a place on my hate-list. I will not go into detail, but let me just say that the other directors have done a better job and deserve some credit!
The cast has been great and the performances this season have blown my mind.
Green was badass..again! I really enjoy Eva Green portraying Vanessa Ives.
Season 1 was pretty bad for Reeve and his portrait of Dorian Grey, but in Season 2 he has gotten his short moment of glory. I enjoyed him so much! Giving him more air-time was a good decision!
Treadaway's character(Dr. Frankenstein)- I know he is the daddy of his monsters and all, but if not for them, he would have been a nobody in my eyes. I like Treadaway's acting though!
McCrory(Kali, the witch)- McCrory has had better moments in her career.
I am not a big fan of the horror genre, oftentimes it's just mindless murder with no story behind the story, but I like what I saw in Penny Dreadful so far and S2 has been great despite the flaws.
It's an intense show with great characters.
Anyways, totally worth your time! The final of S2 is just not what I expected, but it's still OK!. Give it a go!
!!!Season 3 has been confirmed and I can't wait to see more!!!
Plenty Dreadful: it's like they tried to lay X-Men or Heroes over a combo Frankenstein, Dracula and whatever else.
Has a fresh take on some classical supernatural characters …but It is has a very very depressing tone. seasons2&3 move too slowly. And I find some scenes too prolonged -> with an unnecessarily large amount of 'women in pain' & glorification of pain scenes.
This was a great show that just didn't reach its potential. Green's acting is amazing and she really should have almost won some awards for it. Unfortunately the first season lost a lot of viewers because of slow pace and I don't think it ever got them back. However, this show is dark, has great characters, and felt unique compared to other shows. I really hate it didn't get more seasons but it's still worth a watch.
I wasn't sure in the beginning but decided to give it a shot anyway and this is one of the bests shows I've seen. Great characters, great acting, great storytelling, just WOW! Looking forward to Season 3!
though it took more time for me to watch the second season, i must say that it was flawless. the character development was amazing and vanessa ives is probably the most intriguing character on television
Great cast, rich settings, smart and mysterious storytelling.
I'm not really into the whole supernatural stuff like vampires, the evil and such. But you should watch this series because of Eva Green. Her role is so dark and well acted, it's a pleasure to watch! The show is a bit slow at the beginning but gains a lot of momentum after E04
I didn't liked that much of how this amazing "TV Show" ended.
this is the best thing I've seen...it's a shame they didn't make more seasons
I absolutely LOVED this show. I first watched it when I was about 13 or 14, and I’ll have to admit it wasn’t really my cup of tea at that point (even though after 4-5 years season 1 episode 7 remains as fresh as ever in my mind).
However, after finding Abel Korzeniowski’s soundtrack for the show on Apple Music, I decided to finally rewatch it. WOW. This show just shuts all the right spots for me, and I absolutely love it.
Trying to keep this spoiler free, but I absolutely recommend this show to anyone who has a love for dark psychological dramas like I do!
How can a horror series be so boring?
Clever and hooks you in. Highly recommend!!!
this is a very scary show
Great show. Brilliant plot. Superb acting.
La mejor serie que he visto nunca. Los personajes son una joya, y las actuaciones son sublimes.
I so miss this tv show.
Might have spoilers!
Great actors, I just love love love Eva Green and her talent. Plot was interesting. I really liked how it portrayed many more or less known characters like Dracula, Hecate, Dorian Gray and Frankenstein.
In some parts of the series I did feel like "oh here we go again, crisis after crisis" but I still enjoyed the series no matter what. I have to admit though that I am quite disappointed in the way this series ended. But like someone already said, maybe there is not any other way for this kind of show.
I didn't know who I was supposed to be attached to. Gave up very quickly. Maybe an artsy movie but the story was weak
What a great series. Wish it didn't have to end already. Either way, one of my top shows.
No spoilers.
I just wanted to say that this series is more art than it is entertainment. There's nothing wrong with that of course, in fact I welcome it. Just look at the poster to the left. A human body in the shape of a skull.. both terrifying and artistic. This is what most of the series is like. You can see that the creators took great pains to infuse their artistry into the show and for that I'm grateful. They did a great many things in this show that I had never seen before and I'm glad I took the time to enjoy watching this. Would highly recommend!
The show apparently has ended with S3; Good show with nice display of an old London; there have been times (especially in season 2) where the plot was very slow and you had the impression that nothing is happening while all of a sudden in 2 episodes everything happened :D;
Overall a nice show that knew how to put all of the classical horror figures in one nice foggy place;
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the show has been officially canceled today :( https://youtu.be/4Sf2heIw8Dc To be honest I felt the third season was below my expectations, though I think they could have at least delivered a fourth season and then wrap up everything maybe with Mr Lyle coming back from Egypt with some good old mummy to deal with. At least they managed to give the show a proper finale. :|
So far the best horror/supernatural show I have seen. You never know what you can expect next and it makes great use of known names such as Frankenstein and his monsters, werewolves and more.
Eva Green. enuff said. she is absolutely sublime in this series.
I love this show! It didn't take long for me to get into it. I understand where the last commenter is coming from as far as advancing the lot', and the actors just' knowing each others, but Imo, that's how people are connected, everyone is somehow and in no particular way. So that's believable. I like the mystery, there fantasy and love all the characters. They have been created with such detail, the plot is just right at it's current pace. I'm so looking forward to season 3!!!
great tv show, eager to see the third season
one of my favorites!
If you like Victorian England and fantasy movies this is dope for to you!
Dorian Gray is A M A Z I N G, he fucked every character. I'm in love with him
The season 2 Finale was supposed to reveal a new character for season 3, did i miss something?
The best season best end waiting for season 3 in 2016
(via TV Blaze for WP)
Awesome show hope for a third
(via TV Blaze for WP)
The best season
(via TV Blaze for WP)
This show makes me proud to be English.
This show makes me proud to be English.
Easily the best horror series I have ever seen. Eva Green, Josh Hartnett and Timothy Dalton knock it out of the park.
(via TV Blaze for WP)
Penny Dreadful is one of the best drama and horror series of these times. It mixes psychological fears and pains - that are not just related to the story, or to the people of the XIX century environment in which the series is realized - and besides, it wants to share with us the deeply desperation of the characters. Even if we know that Mina Murray or Dr. Frankenstein are fictional, their emotions are completely real. Plus on this series are the Victorian age and Gothic stories: costumes and the landscapes of the Era are great!
Best character: Miss Vanessa Ives (Eva Green is a majesty)
OMG yes yes yes!! Amazing show!! Loved the first season! Must see for anyone into supernatural related shows or exorcist like movies.
Penny Dreadful is perfect! And, Eva Green is god or evil, you decide!
Penny Dreadful is perfect! And, Eva Green is god or evil, you decide!
I did NOT see that werewolf coming
Good show but a bit too much sexual activity!
We got a werewolf at last
The plot is just so so, but the actors are pretty( both Gray and Ives)
Man! this show is everything! I've always wanted these types of stories!
Let see how this episode... Brb in 60 min..
Sounds boring to me. Is it really worth watching? How about a review?
love this show , probably going to cancel it, love the characters and the darkness of ir
Amazing show, love every minute of it!
Finally saw the first episode. I'm in
Good horror show- it's really slow, but charming.
As for Dr. Frankenstein, I never liked that dull Monster story. I'd love to see him die...
Awesome actors! I love the scene in Victorian London. Everything is perfect. Just one fault: I hate the story. I can´t stand Frankenstein and it´s slow and annoys me. Just not my taste and I´m totally sorry for that and the potential I miss out.
Its gonna start.... Shhhhhh be quiet fools!•!•!
Looks very promising! It's just the pilot and for me it was firing on all cylinders. Atmosphere was great and the whole premise sounds very interesting. Already much better than The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen :p
Love the Victor Frankenstein scenes. A bit too gory but I think I'll keep watching it.
If that trailer is anything to go by then this show is going to be awesome.
I'm so excited for it \o/
Shout by Mohamed YahiaBlockedParent2018-05-15T18:28:05Z
Such a shame a great work with great potentiality to be wasted ,main story started strong leaving you wanting more after first few episodes with strong acting strong characters great horror then it falls.very slow story pacing and many character that has no impaction on the storyline.it is a pity to get all these characters and make it revolve about stupid hunting demons and amun ra shit
Acting and Characters: Like plot acting started amazing reaching their best but they got betrayed by poor script ,eva green did a marvelous job then she kept repeating the same shit till the rest of the show ,Billie Piper was amazing till the end of the first season then it all went down poor writing for her character, Dorian is WTF there is no important significance of him it would be better for the show without him.apart from that shit two people will win your heart Frankenstein and his monster the only reason to watch that show
sum up yea it‘s good to watch if it only one season