Penny Dreadful City Of Angels Season 1 Episode 1 Review 

Had To Think About This One A Bit

If you haven't noticed, I'm a fan of Penny Dreadful. I did address my early thoughts on the new series a little while ago, and now that it's out, I thought I would give my thoughts on the first episode.

For the description I'm going to quote IMDB, "Los Angeles, 1938. LAPD detective Tiago Vega and his partner, Lewis Michener, investigate a murder. While at City Hall, Tiago's activist brother Raul Vega battles with the fiery Councilman Charlton Townsend over the construction of California's first freeway. Meanwhile, Peter Craft, the head of the German-American Bun, meets Elsa, the mysterious mother of one of his patients. Sensing danger, Tiago's mother Maria pleads with Santa Muerte to protect her family as the rising tensions in the city threaten to explode."

From what I've seen from other reviewers has been very mixed. And here's my two cents about the whole thing, I'm not really a fan of the new series so far. I'm willing to give it till the second episode, but things aren't looking good. Some spoilers ahead for the first episode.

The very first thing I'm going to complain about is the crappy CGI fire within the first few minutes of the show. A fire spreads across a crop killing off the main character's father, and hot diggity does it look bad. I swear whoever did the fire for this pulled it either out the the 90s or got it as a free download. This was the first sign of a bad episode.

Next up is the dialogue. It's forced. It's really forced. Almost none of the dialogue comes off as natural and it seems like this is the first script the writers have professionally written. I understand that it's a different time period and the language will be not what our modern ears are used too, but it's cringe. For example there is an absurd amount of swearing in the show. I don't have a problem with swearing, but the length that they use it in casual conversation is emersion breaking. For context, the series is supposed to take place in 1938, and the film, Gone With The Wind came out just one year later. The most famous line from, Gone With The Wind is, "frankly my dear i don't give a damn" and that was near scandalous for the period. Granted I don't expect it to be clean, especially during darker parts of the show, but when it's more laid back, it seems like the characters are more modern with their use of language. Also some of the side characters give poor delivery in the first episode. 

The main character of the series, Detective Tiago Vega is... alright? The actor who portrays him, Daniel Zovatto,  does seem to have some experience behind him. However it doesn't seem that he's comfortable with his character yet. Which typically for the first episode of a show would be fine, but you're going up against Eva Green's, Vanessa Ives. Eva Green embodied her character from the first second. I even admit that I'm not really a big fan of the first episode of the original series, but at least it seemed like Eva Green knew who her character was. I noticed on Daniel's IMDB page that he was in, Don't Breathe, which is a fantastic film. I do have hopes for him, but like I said, I'll give the show at least one more episode.

Now onto the villians for the series. It seems like they're putting in the Nazi's as a villain for the series, at least in a subplot. From my knowledge, this is somewhat historically accurate. They did try and convince Americans more to their side during the period, which I'm fine with having them as a villain. But here's my complaint, the actors and dialogue are almost cartoonish in some scenes and it really pulled me out of it. Also, what appears to be the main villain for the series will be Natalie Dormer's, Magda. I love Natalie Dormer's work. She's a great actress and really does well in the first episode. Her acting chops shine, but she seems like she isn't given much to work with. She does seem invested in her role, and I can tell she's trying, but it doesn't seem like she was given the best direction or script. It almost feels like she carried this first episode.

I hope the show has some tie ins with the previous series. I know that this sequel series came out and said it wasn't going to be gothic, but there were some immortal characters from the original Penny Dreadful and it would be fantastic if they could make an appearance. So far, I'm not really seeing how this connects to Penny Dreadful besides a shared name.



final score: 2.3/5