TV Show Review: Penny Dreadful

Gosh darn it...Penny Dreadful has everything I love and hate rolled into one TV show - amazing literary characters, superb cast, great music, scenery and costumes...and lots & lots of sex and nudity. At least some of it supports the plot, but I was so amazingly sick of it by the end of the season, I can't even tell you. I think there was one whole episode with no sex and even that still had nudity...though it was a dead body, so there was nothing sexy about it. It was actually really sad and lead to one of the last "this is going to come back to bite you" moments of the season...but I digress.

Assuming whoever is reading this has never heard of Penny Dreadful, here's a quick synopsis:

Set in Victorian London, Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) seeks to save his daughter, Mina (Olivia Llewellyn), from the supernatural creature who is holding her captive. He is assisted in his endeavors by Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), adventurer Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett), physician Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) and manservant, Sembene (Danny Sapani).

And did I mention that, while not helping with the rescue side of the plot, Dorian Grey (Reeve Carney) and Frankenstein's Monster (Rory Kinnear) are also heavily featured, appearing in all 8 episodes of season 1?

(L to R) Ethan Chandler, Brona Croft, Dr. Frankenstein, Vanessa Ives, Dorian Grey, Sir Malcom and Sembene.

There are so many great things about this show. The timeframe - Victorian England. It's dark, dirty and the average bloke obscure enough for strange and brutal occurrences to take place without much notice by the rest of the community. The actors - Eva Green is one of my all time favorite actresses (she is bloody amazing in this)...and I've long had a crush on Josh Harnett (though finding out he's a vegetarian kind of puts a damper on that). I am also a huge fan of Timothy Dalton, who happens to be my favorite Edward Rochester in any version of Jane Eyre (1983), with Michael Fassbender coming in very close second in the 2011 version. Harry Treadaway does a good job playing a scientifically bold yet somewhat socially timid Dr. Frankenstein. I was happy to see that Billie Piper was on the show, since I'm a fan of her in the role of Rose Tyler from Doctor Who...though she's one of the people you see far too much of in this show, if you know what I mean.

The other one who takes the cake in that category - seeing too much of them - is Reeve Carney as Dorian Grey (no surprise there). He was perfectly cast as Dorian...amazingly so. In old movies you hear people describe a young man as a "beautiful boy," and that personifies Reeve's Dorian perfectly. He's is beautiful, charismatic, artistic and brilliant. He is also devoid of any moral standard because...well, he's Dorian Grey. They do some really interesting things with his character - just like in the book, he's all about trying new experiences, always pushing the envelope and then finding himself unfulfilled. He knows everything, has been everywhere and done everything (pretty much literally). They even comment on his fascination with religion, particularly the Catholic Church, which is straight from the book (and a reflection of Oscar Wilde himself in the character). There's one scene that opens an episode (maybe #4?), set in his gorgeously decorated living room, filled with debauchery of every kind...and he is utterly bored. They use the baseness to illustrate the lack of fulfillment in his life, but are more visually descriptive than I will every need.

Speaking of too visually detailed...sex is mostly used to make a point, but damn it, there's just way too much of it. I've mentioned it before, but one of the greatest advantages of watching stuff on my laptop is that I can quickly tab away when necessary, popping back to the show or movie once the raunch is over...an asset I happily use to my advantage...and in Penny Dreadful, it's generally multiple times an episode. In Penny Dreadful, both sex and nudity are frequently used for their shock value or as a trigger for something really bad happening - (SPOILER) for example, Vanessa Ives is possessed by a demon and is in a constant battle to maintain control over the demon that's "scratching right under the surface." She maintains a composed, somewhat restrained persona and mentions to Dorian Grey "there are things within us that

can never be unleashed." Once he seduces her (surprise, surprise), she loses that control by giving into temptation, opening the door and unleashing the demon she had been fighting for so long. She'd dealt with bouts of him appearing before and had barely survived a similar attack when he first possessed her...just barely surviving this time as well. She realizes how bad Dorian is for her...learning from the experience and reaffirmed in her understanding of the dangers in giving in to things you want but should not do or have. So while she is attracted to Dorian and feels a connection to him, she knows she must stay away from him and says good bye in the last episode of the season...which provides Dorian with a new sensation...that of rejection, something he's never felt before.

In other parts of the show the sex scenes weren't particularly explicit and still managed to get the point across - like (SPOILER) Vanessa as a child seeing her mother and Sir Malcolm together in the garden, cheating on their respective spouses. It was a defining moment for the character, which she notes via narration - but it manages to be so without nudity. It also leads to bad consequences, opening the first door to Vanessa's young soul and beginning her downward trend in immoral behavior and ultimate betrayal of Mina (Sir Malcolm's daughter and her then best friend) later in life. The first time we see Vanessa possessed, she leaves a party in the rain and while walking home, runs across a random bloke and they get it on in an alley. As soon as I figured out what she was up to, all I could think was "Eww! No! What are you doing?! This is dirty, germ-y Victorian England! You don't know where he's been or the last time he's bathed! Gross, gross, gross!" Bleh-heh-heh. But again, no nudity for this one. Thank heavens. :S  I think the only one in the show who hasn't had sex at this point is Dr. Frankenstein, who is a noted virgin. Oh, and Frankenstein's monster. So two whole main(ish) characters. Oi.

There's also a lot of profanity...again no surprise, considering it's on Showtime. One of the best scenes in the show is laden with excessive profanity, and while I know it's there for the shock value, it about ruins for me. It's the scene where Vanessa gets possessed for the first time (that we've seen) and she turns from a very elegant, beautiful woman into a raving, disheveled lunatic right before your eyes. Eva Green does an incredible job...I hope she gets nominated for something for this role.

Anywho...I definitely cannot recommend Penny Dreadful due to the excessive nature of sex, nudity and profanity (if it were a movie, it would be a hard R)...but I sincerely wish I could. While I greatly doubt it, I hope they tone down season 2 and find other ways to get their message/vision across.

Enjoy (or, don't!) and happy Friday!


~ Katie