Penny Dreadful: City Of Angels

The bold and disparate strands of this series (Nazis! Footloose-style dance sequence! Jewish gangsters!) are individually compelling, but the show strains under the weight of its own webbing.

Style is this Showtime series' strongest point, but it can only work its magic to a certain point. Beyond that threshold "City of Angels" is mostly an excellent, well-meaning concept that doesn't quite live up to the grandeur of its intent.

Even with Logan writing every episode, it's hard to exactly put a finger on what Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is or what it's trying to generate from viewers. It's definitely not scary or disturbing. It's not especially mysterious. ... There's a lot of very good acting. Dormer, playing at least four or five different variations on Magda, is a clear standout. ... What Penny Dreadful: City of Angels ends up feeling like is a thinner extension of the recent run of alt-histories like Plot Against America, Man in the High Castle and Hunters.

Other than a few fun scenes and a scene-stealing performance from Natalie Dormer, it’s just too inconsistent and flat overall to connect as anything but a footnote to the first series for now.

City feels more pretty than essential. [Apr 2020, p.89]

Had the series pared down its plotlines the characters could shine more, their motivations crystallize, instead of feeling like they’re 20 characters in search of an exit.

Nathan Lane adds a bit of zing as Vega’s partner, an old hand with a big heart. But Dormer’s Magda should rule proceedings as an agent of chaos, whispering evil into the ears of men. Instead, she’s underpowered. A show like this needs to commit either to being a horror or a riot, and it does neither.

The show's motto seems to be, anything you can do, we can do worse.