Penny Dreadful S1
Jun. 29th, 2014 23:20![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladySo my friends O and G and I marathoned all of this show over the course of the last three days. The show is set in London in 1891, and follows Sir Malcolm Murray, Victor Frankenstein, American gunslinger Ethan Chandler, Murray's African servant Sembene, and medium Vanessa Ives in a quest to save Murray's daughter Mina Harker from the forces of darkness. I said to several people that I felt the show, prior to watching the second half of the season, was like Frankenstein's monster prior to the bolt of lightning--all the ingredients were there, but it was lacking a certain spark. I like many aspects of the show! The cast is very strong, especially Eva Green, but everyone is good (even Josh Hartnett! he can act when he bothers, and he is bothering here), and the writing is definitely not bad. But I think the characters are stronger together than they are apart, and the final episode sent them all on separate paths except for a brief interlude in the middle, and not enough was explained while at the same time too much was resolved too quickly. And as other people have pointed out, there are not enough women--if the second season needs one thing, it's for badass vampire hunter Lucy Westenra to show up posthaste--and Sembene remains the R2-D2 of the show, which considering he's a black guy, is a very not good and telling thing. And as amazing as Eva Green is, I feel like the show spends too much time on her being possessed, and also I find Dorian Grey annoying. Also it's been a while since I've watched an HBO or Showtime show, and the double standard of the gratuitous nudity--het scenes okay, gay scenes no way--is grating.
The final problem I have with the show is perhaps more obscure, but no less deeply felt. Shelley, Keats, and the other Romantics are a persistent leitmotif in the show, but given that Frankenstein and his monster are actual characters, the most famous of the female Romantics, Mary Shelley, is totally erased. And that bothers me too.
Conclusion: I don't regret watching it, but unless I hear that it's radically improved, I won't be picking up S2.
The final problem I have with the show is perhaps more obscure, but no less deeply felt. Shelley, Keats, and the other Romantics are a persistent leitmotif in the show, but given that Frankenstein and his monster are actual characters, the most famous of the female Romantics, Mary Shelley, is totally erased. And that bothers me too.
Conclusion: I don't regret watching it, but unless I hear that it's radically improved, I won't be picking up S2.