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Mixed:
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Negative:
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Critic Reviews
TV Guide MagazineMay 9, 2016
Season 3 Review:
Elegant and erotic in its savage yet sordid beauty, the third season of John Logan's stylishly literate monster mashup never loses focus despite being, quite literally, all over the map. [9-22 May 2016, p.18]
Apr 18, 2016
Season 3 Review:
Fresh blood and sharp ideas make for delicious, smart-pulp fangoria. [22/29 Apr 2016, p.105]
Apr 30, 2015
Season 2 Review:
The sly second season of Penny Dreadful finds its drama in characters trying to shake shameful pasts that won’t stop haunting them, and finds rich menace in cunning folk and shape-shifting spirits who make thralls and puppets out of our heroes, robbing them of authenticity and self-determination.
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May 4, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Its characters aren't valiant champions of truth, beauty, and goodness, but deliciously compromised anti-heroes who are morally ambivalent, if not downright nasty. More compelling--at least for English lit nerds--our leads go toe-to-toe and fang-to-fang against an army of vampires while speaking poetry.
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May 1, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Beyond the elaborate production design and the stately but genuinely gory and frightening Gothic bloodletting, Penny Dreadful is a fairly typical story of troubled people--all the main characters are hiding something, in their pasts or in their bodies--who manage to do the right thing. That it’s the best of its kind on TV right now, along with “The Strain” on FX, has to do with Mr. Logan’s ability to render over-the-top action and emotions in human terms and to choose actors who can see what he’s trying to do.
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May 1, 2015
Season 2 Review:
The tone of the second season is slightly different from the first, yet he remains remarkably true to his stated metaphoric mission. Have no fear, it's the same Penny Dreadful, but Logan is shaking things up in all kinds imaginative ways.... No if about it. Penny Dreadful works.
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TV Guide MagazineApr 30, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Even richer and spookier in its second season, this inspired creep show plays like a Hammer horror film rendered by a poet consumed by a fatal romanticism. [4-17 May 2015, p.12]
May 9, 2014
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014
Season 1 Review:
The plot is mostly gibberish.... But the language is wonderful, the performances excellent, and the direction by Bayona so fluid and gorgeous that I found the whole thing a treat even as I quickly lost interest in whatever it is all these people are working together to accomplish.
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May 6, 2014
May 4, 2015
Season 2 Review:
There are times when I wish Penny Dreadful were baser, lower-brow, and more exploitative than it is apparently willing to be. And yet I can’t quite dismiss it, thanks to winning, carefully modulated performances by Billie Piper—as a woman who fears the man whom she was brought back to life to wed--and Helen McCrory, whose full-bodied incantations are even scarier than Vanessa’s.
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May 8, 2014
Season 1 Review:
For fans of expertly hammy acting and heated-up supernatural doings, it’s a lot of fun. But if Logan wants to elevate Penny Dreadful from an entertaining and overdone lark to something richer and more thematic, he will need to keep changing things up.... With a bit of clever revisionism and an infusion of our current anxieties into these dated tropes, the show could become something a bit more interesting and dread-filled.
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May 8, 2014
Season 1 Review:
The production and period values are outstanding, as is the cast, especially Timothy Dalton as famed African explorer Sir Malcolm Murray.... As creator John Logan moves away from the horror by the Thames and more toward the internal demons that haunt his protagonists, Penny veers toward the overwritten and overwrought. But by then, you may well be in for a pound.
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May 16, 2014
Season 1 Review:
As the season goes on, the narrative grip will (one hopes) tighten and grow as richly decadent as the surrounding production--or Eva Green. [26 May 2014, p.39]
TV Guide MagazineMay 9, 2014
May 5, 2014
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