![]() On the contrary, the show drops subtle clues that can be considered spoilers if you’ve read all the works of fiction that have fed Logan’s imagination - such as when the adventurers enlist a young surgeon played by Harry Treadaway to do an autopsy on a creature they slew in combat and he drops a stray reference to his interest in “galvanism” - but we never feel as though we’re seeing John Logan’s reading list. The makers of Penny Dreadful are fond of smart, sexy banter and florid, quasi-theatrical monologues, but there’s nothing self-conscious about the way they shoot the material or the way the actors perform it. Its greatest and most surprising virtue is its sincerity. At no point does the show seem overly concerned with outsmarting viewers or putting air quotes around its situations or characters. Related Storiesįor now, here’s a short rave: Penny Dreadful is a handsomely produced hybrid, mixing supernatural horror, detective fiction, and the production values of an Oscar-baiting historical drama (the sets and costumes are Boardwalk Empire quality), but it has a refreshingly old-fashioned approach. I hope to revisit the program at greater length after its second episode, which is one of the most surprising and engrossing hours of TV I’ve seen since the pilots for Hannibal and The Americans. ![]() Though Showtime’s own production materials have given away some homages that won’t happen till next week, I’ll be vague and brief here. I realize I’m being evasive here, but with reason: Part of the fun in tonight’s pilot comes from deducing which sources Logan is pilfering, then appreciating that he’s not just dropping references - that he’s rethinking and, in a sense, reanimating these old stories and characters. An adventurer, Sir Malcolm Murray (Dalton) is determined to rescue his daughter, who apparently was abducted by the fiends he’s joined by his empathic and darkly elegant partner Vanessa Ives (Green), his ominously quiet valet Semb ène (Danny Sapani), and an American cowboy named Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett), a lost soul with amazing gunfighting skills who was recruited from a Wild West show.Ĭreated by screenwriter and playwright John Logan ( Rango, Gladiator, RKO 281), this Showtime drama has been described as a horror-fiction riff on Alan Moore’s comic The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a mash-up that put characters from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Dracula, Tom Sawyer, and the Sherlock Holmes stories together in the same fictional space. ![]() London is terrorized by butchers: not just the Ripper, but a mysterious band of cult-like murderers and kidnappers whose motives are unknown. ![]() Set around the time of Jack the Ripper’s murder spree, the show’s first episode kicks off with a horrifying but artfully elided atrocity and continues from there. Penny Dreadful, starring Timothy Dalton, Eva Green, and Josh Hartnett as adventurers piecing together a ghastly and possibly supernatural conspiracy in Victorian London, is a wonderful surprise, provided you have a high tolerance for gore and will go wherever the show’s delightfully absurd story takes you. ![]()
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