I watched the first series of Penny Dreadful a few months ago but never got around to posting anything about it. The library sent over the 2nd series the other day and I watched it. The first series started to air back in May 2014 and there were 8 episodes, there were 10 episodes in the 2nd series and they aired starting May 2015.
The story is set in Victorian London in the beginning of the 20th Century. A bunch of people are drawn together to fight an evil in the city. Eva Green plays medium Vanessa Ives, Timothy Dalton plays Explorer Sir Malcolm Murray, Josh Hartnett plays American gunslinger Ethan Chandler, Harry Treadaway plays scientist Victor Frankenstein, Rory Kinnear plays Victor's male creation, who calls himself John Clare, and Billy Piper plays a prostitute that gets turned into Victor's female creation after she dies of consumption. All these characters have a backstory that haunts them and their present day sucks pretty much. There's plenty of monsters, death and sex.
There's a bunch of witches who prance around in the altogether and their leader is an immortal bitch, named Evelyn, who works for her Master, Satan. Vanessa is a medium who is possessed by the devil, or something, and Ethan is a werewolf. The police are on Ethan's case for the slaughter of the contents of a pub. Evelyn seduces Sir Malcolm and screws with his mind. She wants to collect Vanessa because that's who her Master wants. This doesn't go over so well with the people surrounding Vanessa and there's all sorts of activity involving monsters, death and sex.
It's a nicely produced show with all sorts of great looking sets, props and costumes. Evelyn lives in a great place. One room has a lot of skulls in it, she says they're from her victims. She's lived a long time and is really evil. Dorian Gray gets involved with Evelyn's group. He's on their side but he's also got his own thing going on. Vanessa defeats the Master's attack and Evelyn dies at the hand of the werewolf. It turns out Victor has created a monster in the form of Lily. It ends with all sad notes but the story continues in the 3rd series. There won't be anymore than that but it's not out on DVD yet or Amazon Prime so I'll have to wait to see it. I like most of the show though it is a tad dreary and depressing. At least the bad guys take some knocks.
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