Penny Dreadful with Josh Hartnett, Eva Green and Timothy Dalton

This might be a pain because the American airing is like three weeks ahead of the British airing. So I'm hoping plot spoilers won't matter too much. Wasn't that the same with True Detective?

Just some words about Eva Green: I thought Dark Shadows was a total mess but I still enjoyed a bunch of things about it to like it well enough. The thing I might have enjoyed most was finding her cartoon villainess act really funny and sexy. I started thinking that there needs to be film vehicles where she can be really hammy (this tv show isn't one of those places) as cartoonish heroines and fatales.
Then I saw about the 300 sequel and initially I was unenthusiastic as I am about any movie franchise, but then I hear it is being called hilariously camp (someone said it would make Baz Luhrmann jealous) and see that it has Eva Green looking like a Soul Calibur character and I want to see it!

However the final product turns out, Penny Dreadful is an excellent title.

But not if there is a character in it named Penny, or Penny Dreadful. Is there?

I have always loathed hammy seance scenes in horror films but the one in episode 2 is extra special.

I just saw the first episode. I know a lot of first impressions look really dumb in retrospect but I was quite disappointed by this.

Firstly that they seem to be basing these characters on popular horror novel characters rather than actual penny dreadful characters. It's a bit too well worn, especially after League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and loads of other riffs on old classic novels. I was hoping for Varney The Vampire, Springheeled Jack and many others if they had to base it on pre-existing characters.

I was surprised how fast paced it was and I think the action scenes were a bit too blockbustery when it probably would have benefitted from more restraint. I felt like it never comfortably settled on any tone, so I was never sure how cartoony, exaggerated, serious or fluffy it was supposed to be.

But then Game Of Thrones is not really pitch perfect either and I love it, so I'll watch the next few episodes and see how it goes. The main good thing was that the visuals were very good at times.

Are there boobs y/n?

The next episode is a lot better and the seance scene is startlingly nasty, you would do well to stick with this.

xp
Dorian Gray making a b/w porno video with Billie Piper playing a TB addled prostitute with a dodgy oirish accent.

Hartnett's ass makes an appearance but I didn't see any breasts in the first episode.

The League of Extraordinary Gentleman references is painfully distracting (Mina, vampires, African explorer, opium den), but that recedes quickly by the second episode even though the "Sup, I'm Dorian Gray" stuff is a little heavy-handed. The Proteus/Frankenstein stuff is surprisingly affecting, however.

Also some Star Trek: The Next Generation vibes in the second episode.

You can see Dorian thinking "This I don't need" during the seance.

Frankenstein plot is easily the juiciest, if you'll excuse the term. The Egyptian Dracula story so far is pretty prosaic.

Hartnett and Piper's are the most inessential characters in this so far and certainly don't add us much as the stellar performances of Green, Dalton and Kinnear do. The frankenstein plot/Proteus murder, creature homecoming scene was really great.

so is this worth adding to my list of things to watch?

Pretty to look at, but I haven't been compelled to watch it in a few weeks.

There have been one or two awesome episodes (the proteus one and last week's Closer than sisters one) and some poor ones and it doesn't quite gel together as a series. The Hartnett, Piper and Dorian Grey characters are all waste.

is eva green pretty

I've heard ep5 is a good place to start. Clears up the murk of the first 4.

Eva Green's performance has been the only constantly good thing about this series, yeah episode 5 is brilliant.

Timothy Dalton has been very solid throughout as well.

Let's not shortchange Billie Piper's accent.

That is such an intolerable fake accent, I mean WTF!

Am I alone in appreciating terrible accents?

I can appreciate that tbh I enjoy Orphan Black, but shitty NI accents are a pet hate of mine, they never measure to my battle-axe auntie's manner of speaking.

I'm caught up now, but episodes seem to follow the format of moving chess pieces around for four acts before anything of worth/note happens in the fifth.

OK that wasn't too bad.

I just watched 6 eps of this in a row, good lord theres a lot of porny sex scenes in this show. I really dont need to see so much of billie chipmunk face piper's t&a, bleugh.

I didn't mind this so far. I foudn the best-friends backstory dragged on way too much, though I suppose it helped explain a lot that up til that point I'd been sitting there going "WTF is even going on in this show?!" at.

Whoever Dorian Grey dude is, he's distractingly hot, though a bit of a blank slate.

First ep last night. As a big League of Ex Gents fan, I'm a bit appalled by much of it, but maybe they'll pull it round in episodes to come. Agree that some of the action scenes could be a bit less blockbustery. The whole episode did feel a bit hastily chopped and edited too.

So I watched more of this. By god it's hammy. What I don't understand is why these characters just walk up to each other and start talking to each other as if they've always known each other even though they've never even been introduced. There is a hell of a lot of ACTING! in it.

frankenstein's "yes, she's a real women, that's what i mean" stumbling over himself was so deliciously campy.

Rory Kinnear is a treat in S2. Also lolz @ Billie's new accent.

Ep3, the witch flashback one, seemed like a complete waste of time.

I thought the second season of this was excellent and a massive step up from the patchy first one.

Opening episode of season three was great and looks like this final season will be fun.

1st season was too cheesy for me - shoudl I skip straight to S02?

this show is so good

Weakest episode of the season this week but last week's with Green & Kinnear was superb

I agree, I hope this desert shit turns itself around. All that silliness, especially the snake summoning, just to get to an expository monologue by Bryan Cox. And it's not even like they did a good job setting up Kaetenay for a surprise reappearance. They left him for dead in the desert, like what Apache doesn't come back from that?

I'm into this! But I haven't even finished season 1 so I don't think I can participate in this thread yet. Boo.

Season 1 was my favorite. They didn't manage to keep up the eeriness after that, imho. Just a lot of Eva Green scenery chewing and mopey goth Frankenstein. Also don't like a lot of the other characters outside of Green's, Dalton's and a couple others I won't spoil for ENBB.

I thought Season 1 was patchy and Season 2 was where it really found its feet.

last week's with Green & Kinnear was superb

I didn't like it. It seemed like one of those extra-long videos David Bowie used to make occasionally.

I didn't like the big bad in S2 but there were some pretty great individual episodes. S3 has been super spotty with some highlights. Only in S1 was there a fun sense of progressive discovery as it set up the world (and the lily subplot in S2 I guess). Disappointed by how little S3 has found to do with caliban.

at this point i'm totally confused about who/what the vanessa backstory is. they keep changing it round on us.