Penny Dreadful: City Of Angels Season 1 (2020) Review

So this show hit Sky Atlantic on Wednesday and I have now managed to get through the Ten episode first season of Penny Dreadful: City Of Angels and here is my review for it. The premise of the show sees two detectives come across a murder in 1938 which leads to events that will change Los Angeles forever. 

Main Character

Natalie Dormer plays the titular character and even though she has proven she is a talented actress it just didn't work for me here. She has to play multipe roles and honestly none of them hit me at all. Thye come across as majorly over the top and none of them were interesting, she spends such little time as her demonic character that you forget totally about it. The problem is that I still now don't understand what her motivation was and why she was doing what she was doing which really hurt the show. 

Supporting Characters

Daniel Zovatto and Nathan Lane play the two main police officers here and I thought they were both fantastic. They had really good chemistry together and I thought the fact that both of their characters are from minority backgrounds really helped and made them feel like a really great duo. The rest of the cast are great too, Michael Gladis, Rory Kinnear and Dominic Sherwood play really good characters and are interesting cogs of the machine here. The family drama is a bit much at times but I thought the acting was stellar and everybody did a great job here. 

Story

There are some really interesting story elements here. There are quite a few different things going on here and I would say there are things that are more interesting then others and they have some really interesting ideas. Though as I mentioned there is probably a bit too much going on here, a few parts of the story could have been cut and it would have allowed the more interesting story arcs to get more screen time. Also when the season ends it feels like you have watched a season of buildup and most of the stories aren't anywhere near finished which is so frustrating. 

Script

The script has some really good dramatic dialogue in it, it deals with some pretty serious topics and I think handles it well. It just doesn't quite work when it attempts its humour and this hurts the show from being a bit of a more balanced show and more accessible show.

Style

Now it is funny when it comes to the style, it feels like somebody was interested in making a show based on the video game LA Noire but they couldn't so made this show and included elements of it. There are some actors who were in the game, some story elements that were in the game and the look of LA is ripped straight out of that game and it looks great. But this show has 10 episodes and this was not necessary, it is a slower paced show and I think either 6 or 8 episodes would have made this show even better and give it a chance to be a better show.

Overall

Overall, this is a really average show, there are some really good things such as the supporting cast and elements of the story. But then there are some really weak things such as Natalie Dormer's performance and the slower pace. I would stay skip this one and watch another show instead. 

Rating - 5/10