Penny Dreadful Season 1 Episode 1
What They Say:
Night Work – A woman and an explorer investigate the murder of someone close to them, engaging a sharp-shooter and Dr. Frankenstein for help.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With only a handful of very minor previews that I was able to catch prior to the broadcast, Penny Dreadful has been a series that I’ve definitely been curious about. With an interesting cast that brings together such diverse people as Eva Green and Billie Piper along with Timothy Dalton and Josh Harnett while playing into some of the classic scary things that go bump in the night feels like a recipe for something either completely awesome or terrible. Likely it’ll fall in the middle of the two, but just the potential alone for a show like this with its concept had me interested from the get go. It certainly doesn’t hurt to have such a strong production side working on it as well with it coming from John Logan of Skyfall fame among others and to have Sam Mendes producing it. It’s like they got to put together a little dream project.
Taking place in 1891 in London, we get introduced relatively quickly to a couple of interesting characters that are easily defined. With Ethan Chandler, played by Josh Hartnett, we get the showman who enjoys life but hates what he has to do to earn a living in it by doing traveling performances and telling tall tales from America. He at least extracts a little extra payment from the occasional woman which makes it worthwhile for him. Proving to be a proper opposite, he ends up coming into the orbit of Vanessa Ives, played by Eva Green, a woman who needs someone of his particular talents. She’s definitely an attentive person when it comes to the details as she manages to pluck out everything about him that makes her own case as someone who as to why he should take the job since it will pay well. He tries to put on airs, but you can see how Chandler looks out for himself more than anything else while Ives makes sure she gets what she wants.
The job she wants him for is a bit shrouded in mystery of course, but it’s one that takes him to a place within London he doesn’t know and it brings him into the presence of Sir Malcolm Murray, as played by Timothy Dalton. This brings them to the under layer of the city, a side of it that is certainly not visible to most, as they seek to gain access to somewhere about have to deal with a very classic looking group of old style vampire types. It certainly allows Chandler to show his skills as he has to fight them off when things go south, but we also see that Murray is no slouch himself, though things aren’t all that easy to deal with when it comes to this group. The creepy factor definitely comes into play and there’s certainly moments and stylistic choices that allows it to earn the penny dreadful name in a most proper way. Dealing with this nest of vampires while in search of a girl definitely sets the tone here, particularly in the look and bloody side of it as it goes more for the creepy and disturbing rather than a splatterfest. But there’s also a good bit of blood as well.
With the need for more leads, the trio end up seeking the services of a doctor that can help to deal with the particular kinds of bodies they have. That leads them to a curious young man named Victor Frankenstein, played by Harry Treadaway. He’s intent on his own research and wants nothing to do with them, but a glance at the creature that he’s brought to them is naturally intriguing. His analysis of the body helps to show how some of this all works, but it also gives us a really disturbing look at how the creature itself exists while letting Frankenstein shine in the way that he explores and discovers things. And quite a good bit of understatement to him as well when he gets to part of the core of what makes the creature tick as they get under the thick layer of exoskeleton and discover that the ancient body is covered in hieroglyphics.
With Chandler used as our naive entrance into this world, the first half does a good job of showing the surreal nature of it, particularly to someone of that time period, while also allowing him to have a bit of the usual American bravado in contrast to the more even and calm – if curious – English approach that the rest largely have. With a lot of curiosities set up, that allows the second half to go more into a few explanations about what’s going on. Enough to get him hooked and a part of what they’re doing since they’re making it clear that they’re requiring someone of his skill set. But the truth of it all is simple at this stage, where she explains that there’s something just beyond the eyes of the normal world that he’s touched upon with them as Malcolm is searching for his daughter who has been taken. Chandler’s not exactly keen on all of this and his reasoning makes a certain sense as an idea as to his character as he doesn’t like being a hired gun as killing for gold doesn’t exactly build his reputation in the way he’s prefer. There’s some really neat if simple dialogue between Chandler and Ives here that works to draw him in even as he steps away for the moment. He’s seen a world that’s impossible to forget, especially since he has a hidden curiosity that will get him in trouble.
For Malcolm, he’s exploring a number of avenues for information and while he hopes for Chandler to be a part of it, he also works other options as well. The investigation into the hieroglyphs go in an expected direction as he deals with an Egyptologist that makes it clear that he wants to know more, when it suits him, since the pieces from the Book of the Dead and that’s wholly fascinating to him. Similarly, Malcolm’s also got his hooks into Frankenstein who is continuing his own research but realizes there may be some very useful information from him. The pursuit of knowledge for his goal is what Frankenstein is all about and there’s a definite sense that Malcolm is mixed up in the unexplainable and that may present itself with some fascinating knowledge. And Frankenstein is all about knowledge and truth, at least as it pertains to his conquering death.
With the initial central focus all on Malcolm and his goal of finding his daughter, we get a fairly standard drawing together of the core group that will move forward in this quest who will experience quite a lot not of this world. That brings in a lot of little questions asked but not answered as it helps to set the larger goals going on here and the dynamic between characters is well played, whether it’s Malcolm and Frankenstein talking about the world or the deeper relationship that seems to exist between Malcolm and Vanessa. Her issues definitely run deep and curious as there’s a depth to pain and suffering that comes through in a couple of scenes of prayer that makes it clear she is part of something much larger and that just tantalizes all the more. And even when alone, there’s more than enough that you want to follow their stories, though Chandler is the weakest of them since he doesn’t seem to have much going for him as there’s a superficiality about how he lives his life.
Penny Dreadful sets the foundations for the series down well here even while we’re only scratching the surface of the cast as there are several other players yet to enter the picture. With it being a part of this time and world, we get a series that shows off some really great stage settings and a kind of atmosphere to it that is wholly appropriate to it. There is, for better or worse, an intent with many creators and writers these days to do something real and grounded in order to tell a story. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn’t, because it ends up losing the things that made it special. With so many interpretations of these characters over the years, at least for the fictional ones that we’re dealing with her, I’m rather interested in seeing how they approach it. With the first few tastes we get here, it’s definitely going for that grounded and kind of real approach while also making it clear that it’s supernatural. It might not work with some other properties, but it’s looking like it’s going to work here, particularly with the cast that Logan has assembled and the scripts that are coming out of it.
In Summary:
Penny Dreadful sets the stage well here as it introduces us to the time period, the core cast of characters and some of their quirks that relates to their own story. There’s a good range of characters here that are going to be part of a larger narrative, whether it focuses on the hunt for the girl for the run of the season or not, and that allows it to take some intriguing deviations along the way to explore new unsavory areas. The opening episode may be a little too intent at times to create an atmosphere of tension that it slows things down, but as it explores the characters that are leading the storyline here and introducing us to this world between worlds, it definitely does it well. It’s punctuated by one real scene of violence and action, but I’m definitely interested in a show that wants to provide this kind of mood and explore these characters and stories in a new way.
Grade: B+