TV REVIEW: 'Penny Dreadful' is Just Regular Dreadful -- The 5 Most Disappointing Things About the New Showtime Series

I can't remember the last time a new series had me as excited as Penny Dreadful did. A macabre TV show set in late Victorian London and filled with characters inspired by so-called "penny dreadfuls," or popular horror fiction of the day? Yes please! That sounds great! Or so I thought until I watched the first episode.

Here are the five things that most disappointed me about the first episode of Penny Dreadful:


1. It's not really British. 

Though it's billed as a joint venture with Sky, it's basically a Showtime project. That alone is not enough to discredit it--after all, Showtime is responsible for shows like Nurse Jackie and Dexter...though the latter went on about three seasons longer than it should have--but it's enough to make me nervous. They may overdo it, try too hard, and make it entirely too glossy and American to fully capture the creepiness I was hoping for. If the first episode is any indication, that's exactly what they did.


2. The opening credits.

 Oh they tried, didn't they? They tried so hard to make their opening as creepy and ghoulish as first season American Horror Story, what with its barrage of unsettling images. But the series of gratuitous grossness is undercut by the flat instrumental music and in the end it just seems desperate.


3. Josh Hartnett. 

Seriously, has Josh Hartnett ever been in anything that wouldn't have been made better by his absence? It's a controversial opinion, I know, but I stand by it. His squinty, pubic hair face, perpetually greasy hair and charmless mumble are just the worst. Ugh. I wish I could go back in time and re-cast everything he's ever done with someone else (Ooh, maybe Jason Momoa. Yum.).


4. Eva Green's accent. 

Congratulations, French actress Eva Green! Years of English lessons have allowed you to perfectly capture the sound of an American actress pretending to be British. It's something, at least. Maybe you can make up for it with a judicious use of your Super Serious Face. When in doubt, pout.


5. Everything else.

By that I mean they threw EVERYTHING in there. Monsters! Vampires! Underworld! Spiders! Resurrection Men! Carnivals! Plus fifty more things! It's just...ugh. Too many ideas, not enough plot. And while American Horror Story has handled this masterfully (particularly in Season One), Penny Dreadful (so far) has not.


The one bright spot? Timothy Dalton.

 He's eminently watchable as a charming villain, or a villainous hero, or whatever variation of that role he happens to be in. In the DVD commentary of the movie Hot Fuzz, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg say "Timothy Dalton looks like a cartoon fox." Indeed.


Final verdict? I just can't. 

I may, however, check out the show's Goodreads Book Club, which encourages viewers to read the books that inspired the series. So far they've only added three books though. That might be another bad sign.

TV REVIEW: I just started watching 'Vera' and I'm noticing a pattern...

I started watching the British detective show 'Vera,' based on the Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope novels by Ann Cleeves. I'd been avoiding it, but if there's a British detective show on TV sooner or later I'm going to watch it. It's not bad, but I'm noticing some trends. Here are some things you can rely on in every episode:

• The cold open will involve a murder, even though it will often look a little like an accident or a suicide.

• Brenda Blethyn (as Vera) will use her "almost crying vibrato" voice, which is probably the most annoying sound on the planet (I'm exaggerating, but I still haven't forgiven her for that Law & Order: SVU episode where she played Linnie Malcolm, the woman with the world's most irritating whine).

• There will be a second murder. Count on it.

• After a series of red herrings, the "real" answer will be something hidden deep in the victim's past, and will invariably involve someone they were supposed to trust. This makes it pointless to try to guess the ending too early.

• Some small detail will cause Vera or her crew to have an "aha" moment, which will result in a mad dash to confront the killer "before it's too late."

• I will lose track of what they're talking about--and cease to care--somewhere around the 1-hour mark, but will keep watching because it's a lovely, cozy atmosphere. Still, at an hour and half without commercials, each episode is loooooong.

I haven't read any of Ann Cleeves' novels, but after watching 'Vera' and the other show based on her stories, 'Shetland' (which is even better!), maybe I should. She seems like she's kind of the grittier M.C. Beaton. She even has one series with a Scottish male police officer in the Highlands (or Sheltand islands) and one with a middle aged female detective in England. Sound familiar?

Nooo! Don't murder the puppies!! New McVitie's ad uses Murder, She Wrote theme, implied puppy murder

What are they trying to tell us? That the puppies are being murdered and then eaten as cookies? I'm pretty sure that's the message here.

Welcome! You have Peter S. Fischer to thank for this blog

Thank-you for finding my blog. It's sort of a spin-off from my main book blog, Cozy Little Book Journal. It arose from a desire to have all of my reviews of mysteries and thrillers in one place, plus a desire to talk about my favourite murder-themed TV shows. Well, that and I've been really, REALLY into Murder, She Wrote lately. Originally I considered just having a Murder, She Wrote blog. It may still be that...we'll see.

Let's kick it off with the book that re-ignited my love of Murder, She Wrote and led to the creation of this blog: Me and Murder, She Wrote: My Adventures in Television with Angela Lansbury, Peter Falk and Jerry Orbach...among others, An Unauthorized Autobiography by Peter S. Fischer. I cannot stress enough how much this book made me want to go out and re-watch every single episode of Murder, She Wrote...which is exactly what I did.

Me and Murder, She Wrote:
My Adventures in Television with Angela Lansbury, Peter Falk and Jerry Orbach...among others
An Unauthorized Autobiography by Peter S. Fischer
Author: Peter S. Fischer
Publisher: Grove Point Press
Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) Members' Titles
Publication Date: September 15, 2013
View on Amazon
Source: NetGalley
Review first appeared on Cozy Little Book Journal, October 3, 2013

Ooh this book made me want to watch a marathon of Murder, She Wrote! Why don't I have this series on DVD? I'm going to have to look into that.

It was a fun book to read. Peter Fischer gives a behind the scenes look at some of the coziest crime dramas of the '70's and '80's--Kojak, Columbo, and of course Murder, She Wrote--as well as some lesser known shows like Mrs. Columbo, Blacke's Magic, The Law and Harry McGraw. He tells the tales and names the names, including who was a joy to work with (Angela Landsbury, Jerry Orbach), who wasn't (Peter Falk) and who was a total nightmare (Hal Linden). It's deeply satisfying gossip, even if I didn't entirely remember all the people he was gossiping about.

The one thing that did make it a bit hard to follow was the fact that he switched tenses all over the place, often in the same paragraph. He goes from "I was" to "I am" to "I have" with seemingly no discernible rhyme or pattern. It was hard to tell when he was talking about the distant past and when he was talking about the present. Plus the book isn't exactly chronologically told and he almost never referenced years when he was introducing an anecdote. He did, however, frequently mention the month the story took place, which was confusing. "It was March and I had been writing..." "It was December and I have a meeting with..." You would think that meant all those stories took place in the same year that was previously mentioned, but usually that was not the case. I was struggling to figure out what year it could have been that had Columbo, Murder, She Wrote, Law and Order and The Father Dowling Mysteries all airing at the same time before I finally gave up and decided to just enjoy the stories. And I did enjoy them!

UPDATE: Guess who just tracked down the entire series on DVD? YAY!!! I'll see you in a couple of months.