Penny Dreadful, Sky Atlantic's new huge-budget, high-concept TV drama began last week. It's dripping with high production values, but at the same time it's a strange mix of things.
First, it reminds us of Alan Moore. Like Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it mixes various iconic stories and characters into a steampunk sort of setting. While League had Alan Quartermain, Tom Sawyer and Captain Nemo, Penny has Frankenstein, but also overlaps with Dorian Grey and Mina Harker from Dracula.
Second, it reminds us of Ripping Yarns. Ripping Yarns deliberately set out to debunk this sort of tosh (particularly in the episode The Curse of The Claw), and also loved getting cameos from famous friends.
Within these confines it's pretty good, and it's great to see Timothy Dalton in such a meaty role, but as with a lot of the recent Sky stuff, it's not as good as it thinks it is. Yes, it's suspenseful... but one person's 'nail-biting suspense' is another person's 'get on with it', and more often than not we fall into the second camp.
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