{"id":65093,"date":"2014-10-02T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T06:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=65093"},"modified":"2014-09-05T15:58:29","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T14:58:29","slug":"penny-dreadful-season-1-dvd-review-very-guilty-pleasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/penny-dreadful-season-1-dvd-review-very-guilty-pleasure\/","title":{"rendered":"Penny Dreadful Season 1 DVD review: Very guilty pleasure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Penny Dreadful<\/strong><\/em> has tremendous prestige behind it.<\/p>\n<p>This lavish gothic drama comes from <strong><em>Skyfall<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s John Logan, is produced by Sam Mendes, with episodes directed by <em><strong>The Orphanage<\/strong><\/em>\u2019s JA Bayona, and brings together the genre\u2019s most iconic monsters.<\/p>\n<p>So we were disappointed to see this beautifully shot, well-cast show stumble so quickly. The first few episodes lurch around like Universal\u2019s Frankenstein\u2019s monster in search of a tone, but it\u2019s worth sticking around.<\/p>\n<p>American carnival sharp-shooter Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett) is recruited by the mysterious Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) and the determined Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) to help them find Malcom\u2019s daughter Mina.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) lends his medical expertise when he\u2019s not being hunted by his creation (Rory Kinnear), while Vanessa is bewitched by the charming Dorian Grey (Reeve Carney). But why is Vanessa such an important part of this mystery?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s tempting to blame the success of <em><strong>American Horror Story<\/strong><\/em> for the skittish and dull first few episodes. That series showed that grim horror and delirious high camp can blend, but Logan\u2019s attempts to mash tones aren\u2019t quite successful.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s something appealing about the <em><strong>League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen<\/strong><\/em> quality; watching Treadaway\u2019s twitchy, pallid Victor alongside Dalton\u2019s fiery Malcolm is compelling, but often frustrating, and storylines suffer.\u00a0Dorian Grey is a languid distraction, Billie Piper\u2019s consumptive wretch never feels rounded, and the show only seems perfunctorily interested in solving its own mystery.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re thankful, then, for Eva Green, who carries the series so completely that it illuminates how much of the rest needs fixing. Not only does she get the biggest showstopper (channelling the spirit of Malcolm\u2019s dead son while possessed by a demon), but the best episode of the series is devoted to her back story.<\/p>\n<p>The second half of the season is much improved, as the show finally settles on a direction, and we\u2019ll certainly be back for <em><strong>Penny Dreadful<\/strong> <\/em>Season 2.<\/p>\n<p>However, this could have been much more than a beautiful guilty pleasure.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YFXHfEqMcis?rel=0\" height=\"347\" width=\"616\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Does Penny Dreadful &#8216;s mix of high camp and grim horror eventually work out?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":65096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2617,8],"tags":[3404],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Frankenstein_and_Caliban_Penny_Dreadful_Season_1_Episode_8.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65093"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}