8.6 /10 1 Votes
93% Rotten Tomatoes Created by John Logan Network Showtime | 8.2/10 IMDb 8.1/10 TV Final episode date 19 June 2016 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Genre Drama
Fantasy
Horror
Thriller
Dark fantasy
Historical fantasy Written by John Logan
Andrew Hinderaker
Krysty Wilson-Cairns Starring Reeve Carney
Timothy Dalton
Eva Green
Rory Kinnear
Billie Piper
Danny Sapani
Harry Treadaway
Josh Hartnett
Helen McCrory
Simon Russell Beale
Patti LuPone
Wes Studi Theme music composer Abel Korzeniowski
Tom Kitt (series finale) Opening theme "Demimonde" by Abel Korzeniowski
"A Prayer" by Sophie Meade (series finale) Awards Critics' Choice Television Award for Most Exciting New Series Cast Eva Green, Josh Hartnett, Timothy Dalton, Reeve Carney, Billie Piper Profiles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Penny dreadful season 1 official trailer eva green josh hartnett showtime series
Penny Dreadful is a British-American horror drama television series created for Showtime and Sky by John Logan, who also acts as executive producer alongside Sam Mendes. The show was originally pitched to several US and UK channels, and eventually landed with Showtime, with Sky Atlantic as co-producer. It premiered at the South by Southwest film festival on March 9 and began airing on television on April 28, 2014, on Showtime on Demand. The series premiered on Showtime on May 11, 2014, the first in an eight-episode season. After the third-season finale on June 19, 2016, series creator John Logan announced that Penny Dreadful had ended as the main story had reached its conclusion.
Contents
- Penny dreadful season 1 official trailer eva green josh hartnett showtime series
- Penny dreadful tv series review
- Main cast
- Supporting cast
- Production and development
- Critical reception
- Ratings
- Comics
- References
The title refers to the penny dreadfuls, a type of 19th-century British fiction publication with lurid and sensational subject matter. The series draws upon many public domain characters from 19th-century British and Irish fiction, including Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray; Mina Harker, Abraham Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, Renfield, and Count Dracula from Bram Stoker's Dracula; Victor Frankenstein and his monster from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; and Dr. Henry Jekyll from Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Penny dreadful tv series review
Main cast
Supporting cast
Notable non-recurring cast include Mary Stockley as Dr. Frankenstein's mother Caroline, Anna Chancellor as Vanessa's mother Claire, and Frank McCusker as Dr. Christopher Banning, overseeing Vanessa's treatment while institutionalized, all appearing in flashbacks during the first season, as well as Oliver Cotton as Father Matthew, performing an exorcism on Vanessa in the first season's penultimate episode.
Production and development
In January 2013, it was announced that Showtime had made a series commitment for the project. Logan and Mendes previously wrote and directed Skyfall, respectively. Production began in London in the second half of 2013. Showtime president David Nevins stated that the tone of the ensemble series will be "very realistic and very grounded, not Bela Lugosi. All exist in human form in turn-of-century London." This was also reflected during production of the sound for the show, where Logan would often pull things back towards more realism. Logan, a lifelong fan of literary monsters, wrote the project on spec and scripts the majority of episodes of the series. It was intended that Mendes would direct episodes, but scheduling prevented this.
Juan Antonio Bayona was announced as director for the first two episodes. The remaining episodes of the first season were directed by Dearbhla Walsh, Coky Giedroyc, and James Hawes.
In March 2013, it was announced that the series would be filmed in the United Kingdom; eyeing the new UK tax credit for high-end TV productions that offers a 25% rebate. However, it was reported in August that production would instead take place in Bray's Ardmore Studios and other locations around Dublin, Ireland, because of the country's section 481 tax incentives. Filming began on October 7 and lasted 5 months. Reports indicate that the change was made as no stage space of a sufficient caliber was available due to the filming of major motion pictures in London.
In December 2013, Showtime announced its first production blog for a series with the launch of The Penny Dreadful Production Blog. The venue gives viewers an online, behind-the-scenes look at the series' production from its early stages of filming in Ireland through the end of the first season, featuring interviews with cast and crew. In February 2014, Showtime released a full-length trailer for the series.
Logan revealed at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con International panel that one of the texts he thought about while planning the series that he would like to use in a future season is The Island of Doctor Moreau. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly prior to the premiere of the third season, Logan stated that the addition of Dr. Henry Jekyll was implemented because the rights to Doctor Moreau were not available.
Showtime announced shortly before the end of the first and second seasons that another season (of 10 and 9 episodes, respectively) would debut the following May. However, Logan had decided during the middle of the second season that the third season should be the last, and he pitched the third season to Showtime president David Nevins accordingly. They did not release this information until after the final season had completed, as Nevins stated, "given what I knew the ending of Penny Dreadful was going to be felt like a massive spoiler and it felt disrespectful to the experience that people were having with the show." Logan said regarding not releasing the information: "That's what the ending of this series is, it is meant to be a strong, bold, theatrical ending because I think that's what our fans like and to water that down with an announcement or having them know I think would be an act of bad faith."
Critical reception
The first season of Penny Dreadful received positive reviews from critics, with a Metacritic rating of 70 out of 100 based on 37 reviews. It holds a 79 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 7.4 out of 10, based on 56 reviews, with the site's consensuses stating, "Skillfully shot and superbly acted, Penny Dreadful is perplexing in a good way – even if it's a bit silly at times." The first season was described "as riotous as it is ridiculous, taking the macabre to new heights (or depths)" by The Guardian reviewer Ben Hewitt.
The second season also received positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic, it has a score of 77 out of 100 based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 100 percent rating with an average score of 7.6 out of 10 based on 19 reviews, with the site's consensus stating, "Penny Dreadful's second season maintains the show's intense, bloody drama, utilizing a vast array of fascinating characters and locales to tell a unique story."
The third season received very positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic, it has a score of 83 out of 100 based on 9 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 100 percent rating with an average score of 8.1 out of 10 based on 11 reviews, with the site's consensuses stating, "Penny Dreadful is back for a beautifully bloody third season of ever-expanding mysteries and Gothic horrors." Ben Travers of Indiewire gave it a "B+" grade and wrote, "Season 3's American-set storyline breaks things up nicely with some classic western elements mixed in with the show's established creature horrors, and the aesthetics of the production have never looked better.
Ratings
The series debuted to 872,000 viewers (1.44 million including re-runs). This number does not include the 900,000 viewers who previewed the series on Showtime on Demand and the Showtime app.
Comics
In 2015, Titan Books announced a graphic novel series based on Penny Dreadful, written by co-executive producer Chris King, and writers Krysty Wilson-Cairns and Andrew Hinderaker. The first issue was released on May 11, 2016. In October 2016, Showtime announced that a new series would be released in 2017, set six months after the finale of the TV series. The project will be written by King, illustrated by Jesús Hervás, and published by Titan Books.