Dreadfully Extraordinary.
Penny Dreadful
All sad people like poetry. Happy people like songs.
Veteran hunter and explorer Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) assembles a formidable team of talented people to face the forces of the dark. One of these people is Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) whose fate is intertwined to the survival of the world... or at least, of London.
Kinda wish they made more of this.
This dark and wonderfully cinematographic three season series has some cool fight scenes, more than a few scary sections, a truckload of good acting and some great use of poetry. Alas the plot is not as tightly knit as I'd like with some characters idling on the sidelines for far too long but it still makes for entertaining viewing. Definitely a show I recommend, I give it 3.5 scorpions out of 5.
Fans should also view the pretty decent prequel comic which you can find online that I think is worth a look. Apparently there's also a graphic novel that continues the story after the series as well, but I've not been able to get my hands on that yet.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
I was hoping I'd get to nail you one more time.
Veteran hunter and explorer Alan Quartermain (Sean Connery) is tasked to lead a formidable team of talented people to face the forces of
Lol at the forced American in the story.
However, it also has plenty of good action scenes and a decent pace to the story that makes it highly entertaining. Definitely more for action buffs rather than intellectuals, I give this three old tigers out of five and would easily watch it again.
Penny Dreadful: City of Angels
What a weak spin off.
A time and world away from the original series, this one features Natalie Dormer as a supernatural entity bent on making man war upon himself... only she's not really too powerful at all, requiring whispered suggestions (that sometimes fail) and multiple shapeshifting roles (which is great for the actress, not so great for the character).
Humanizing your supernatural elements is a mistake.
Indeed the Nazis, who are on the rise at this time, are doing a better job than she is but even then they get maybe 35% of the story time. The rest focuses on the Latins and their mistreatment from the whites. I do quite enjoy all those dancing scenes though. There's a surprising amount of it here and perhaps the highlight of the entire show for me. One solo tap routine even greatly improved my liking of one character!
Shame that the writers messed up the plot in this one, or at least failed to make it interesting. Not even Rory Kinnear's reappearance here (as another character) could save it. Cancelled after season one, I can't really recommend this one at all. I give it one and a half loud arguments that go no where out of five.
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