Article 52PJV Penny Dreadful: City of Angels walks a fine line between realism, the supernatural

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels walks a fine line between realism, the supernatural

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Jennifer Ouellette
from Ars Technica - All content on (#52PJV)
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    Star Natalie Dormer takes many forms as supernatural demon Magda in Showtime's new horror drama, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels. [credit: YouTube/Showtime ]

Simmering racial tensions and a brutal quadruple murder-not to mention a supernatural conflict between a demon and a saint-are making life very interesting for a newly minted Latino LAPD officer in Penny Dreadful: City of Angels. It's Showtime's spinoff series of its award-winning, critically acclaimed series, Penny Dreadful, which ended its run in 2016 after three seasons.

Created by John Logan, the original Penny Dreadful took its name from the lurid and sensational popular 19th-century British novels known as "penny dreadfuls." Sweeney Todd, aka "the Demon Barber of Fleet Street," highwayman Dick Turpin, and Varney the Vampire were among the notable fictional characters who first appeared in these cheap periodicals.

Logan drew heavily on more literary figures from that era for his main plots and characters: Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, primarily. While the first season occasionally took the macabre horror to ridiculous heights, the show soon found its tonal footing, and the second and third seasons earned widespread critical raves, racking up numerous Emmy nominations and several BAFTA awards.

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