Penny Dreadful The final season

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

If you’re a fan of Seasons 1 & 2, you will no doubt feel compelled to buy the 3rd Season, but you will probably be very disappointed. Clearly the show was cancelled in a peremptory manner, since the third Season adds several new characters but never gets to develop their plotlines, including a woman who mysteriously appears and befriends our leading lady (but we never learn anything about her); we are introduced to “Dr. Jekyll” (but the show ends before he has time to become “Hyde”); and we finally meet “Dracula,” who (in the stupidest, most unbelievable plotline imaginable) has apparently spent a year working at the British Natural Museum simply to initiate an accidental meeting with Miss Ives! [He might just as realistically have gone to work in the shop that does her hair!] Truly, the third Season is an embarrassing mess which (like Dr. Johnson’s horse) charges off “in all directions at once” but (tragically) has no where to go. [As for the very beautiful Mr.Carney, the show quite literally leaves him alone in his mansion completely adrift from the rest of the plot. One thing is clear: Whoever pulled the plug on this show in such a precipitous manner certainly had no regard for its fans.

– RANDEL

The third and last season of the show begins where it left off with all the main characters alone and on their own way feeling depressed and down and slowly picking up the pieces of their minds and hearts.
After the devil has failed to claim Vanessa Ives for his mate, this entire season is time for his material brother Dracula to make her his bride.
Penny Dreadful’s Dracula is completely different from all previous movies and any other show that presented the character so none of the preexisting notions and nuances of the vampire are shown here.
New characters include Vanessa’s female therapist Dr. Seward, Dr. Henry Jekyll a close college friend of Frankenstein, Ethan’s adoptive american indian father Kaetenay, a new friend for Vanessa, Catriona Hartdegen who studies the dead and death and with them new plots are introduced.

As the show progresses we yet again see more of Vanessa’s most interesting past, this time a more detailed account of her stay at the women’s asylum, where (spoiler alert) she meets the would be creature or John Claire. We are also presented with the full story of Ethan’s past as many episodes are set in the Old West New Mexico of the USA, including who gave him his werewolf curse and why.

As always all performances are top notch as well as all the production values. Sadly the series end too suddenly in finale that seems very rushed and too out of character for the main protagonists (Vanessa Ives and Ethan Chandler), with none of the new characters ever developing their new stories nor seeing more of them. This as far as I can tell was due because Showtime cancelled the show halfway filming this third season, due to low ratings and high costs of production. Originally John Logan meant this show to last more, but being under contract he and the cast had to make these little videos saying this was all there is to it and that was it. This is not the first time Showtime cuts a series short due to their high expectations.

In general Penny Dreadful was an unique psychological thriller, a Victorian Gothic horror tale that fused together all the famous literature monsters of the time (Dracula, Frankenstein’s creature, Dorian Gray, and many others) in one long tale. Though a Gothic horror show it was never about the gore and blood, which is present and graphic but done tastefully, it was more about the lives of the characters and how they intertwined together. There is action, romance, sex, violence, but also the evil side of the supernatural and questions about being human and the life here and beyond.

Even though I hate the ending, hence my 4 stars clearly this show was meant to go on further, I urge all fans to buy all seasons and if you love the music the soundtrack CDs. The show is unique, classy and very rich in its language and Victorian England’s poetry. No one has done TV Gothic horror with such class before and I doubt anyone will again. Highly recommend the entire series.

Also on a curious note, Showtime has marketed all merchandise for this last season very differently from 1 and 2. Vanessa and Ethan were the poster dandies for most merchandise, all season 3 items have either new artwork or the photo of the naked male figure forming the human skull on the honeycomb tiled floor.

– E. Ocasio

This is the final season of this daring show, and as such makes me sad to see it go. The arc of this season is the final battle for all the folks as the split up last year to go their separate ways. Once again they must band together to fight the Darkness, and they do, after interesting side trips and the addition of new charactors and dangers. I can heartily recommend each of the four seasons, and once again ask why HBO and Showtime seen to be willing to move forward on projects like this whereas Broadcast networks do not.

– Robert Abel

DVD Wholesale Main Features :   

Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Number of discs: 3
Rated: NR – Not Rated
Studio: Showtime Ent.
DVD Release Date: October 4, 2016
Run Time: 480 minutes
ASIN: B01JCUNLQ8