Penny Dreadful

Yesterday, I got my hands on the first season of “Penny Dreadful.” Today, I started watching the episodes and simply couldn’t stop until I had seen all eight of them. They were even better, because they didn’t feel or look like your average ‘turn of the century’ series done at the moment. There’s series like “Ripper Street” which are great on their own, but especially that one never really caught me. “Penny Dreadful” does a lot of things in a different way and that is what makes it so great.

Years ago, when “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” came out (the movie which put Sean Connery off acting), there was a good base to it, but the realisation was bad. The comic series it’s based on, also called “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and done by Alan Moore, is a very good, very tight, and very well structured series. It introduces characters well. It gives the characters a good background and a believable set of traits. It makes the story run well and it takes its time. Which is precisely where the movie failed - badly. Fact is, if you want to bring together a group of characters from several novels (or other backgrounds), you need time to bring them all together. You can’t do a total of three or so minutes for every character as they do in the movie. But you can do a total of almost one episode per character in a series, which is what “Penny Dreadful” does.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a lot of horror stories were written and published, usually in the form of a penny dreadful, a weekly or monthly magazine filled with stories, cheap, printed like a newspaper, available for everyone. They in turn inspired authors to write more of that type, to take those scares to the ‘better’ market. “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” and “The Mysterious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” bring together the three most important pieces of what Stephen King called the ‘Tarot’ of horror in his book “Danse Macabre.” The vampire, the creature, and the werewolf (because that is, deep down, what the story of Dr. Jekyll and his other self comes down to). Even though the series holds back on the werewolf for a long time, it brings together all three of the archetypes, including the demonic as well.

Then there’s the topic of life, of elongating life. It shows, of course, with Dr. Frankenstein, but also with the vampires (ever-lasting existence), with Dorian Grey (and his deal with the devil to stay young), and with Brona (who is on the verge of death and doesn’t want to die).

“Penny Dreadful” takes it slow with all those topics. It paces itself very well. We are introduced to the characters, to their stories, to their backgrounds. We are introduced to Victorian London (filmed in Dublin), to Victorian society with all its facets (including the dirties sides). We are pushed bit by bit into things, learning slowly what is going on actually.

The ending(s) of the story is(are) surprising enough, proving the old proverb of being careful of what you wish for (to Lord Malcolm). Things get turned upside down in the end, cards get shuffled, fates get dealt anew for most characters. The series leaves us hanging with very important questions: does Isabella desire to be normal, to be rid of everything dark about her? And if she does not, will she become what fate has chosen her to be? But there are similar questions attached to the other characters. What will become of Victor and his first ‘son?’ What will become of Ethan, now that he has shown his dark side in England? What will the master do, now that his bargaining chip is gone? (One question which bothered me during most of the series is where the hell the vampire masters get those masses of slaves from. Another was why all of those develop white hair, especially why all of the woman grow long, flowing, pure-white locks.)

I really enjoyed watching the first season of “Penny Dreadful” and I’m now looking forward to season two which has already been confirmed. I will also watch the episodes again at my leisure. The series is a rare gem and deserves to be treasured.

Back to Sleepy Hollow

Recently, a sub-station of Pro7 started to air the first season of “Sleepy Hollow.” That means people over here can finally see one of the best supernatural series made recently. I, however, have moved on already and took the chance to get the second season at iTunes yesterday. As with the first on, once I had started watching the episodes, I was caught and just had to go on and on and on. Which meant, with only 11 episodes, I have managed to watch the season in about a day (split between Friday evening and Saturday morning/afternoon).

It’s always a certain danger when a series is going into another season. I remember being completely taken with the first two seasons of “Warehouse 13” and finding the third so uninteresting I almost didn’t watch the final two seasons, which are great again. I did fear a little that the series, once in for a new season, might lose the things that made it so interesting to me: the close connection of mythology, history, conspiracies, and magic. I was afraid they would put some of that aside to boost other stuff. I was afraid action might take over, or the visible attraction between Ichabod and Abbie may.

Instead, they continued down the road they had chosen before. Yes, there is more action in the second season, but that is only to be expected, as the End of Days draws nearer and both sides get more desperate. They also expanded the pool of main characters a little. But they kept more than they changed. Just as in the first season, it pays to pay attention to the details of every episode. The situation can change from one moment to the next and what you thought you knew can suddenly be all wrong again. There is no such thing as a ‘monster of the week’ episode in “Sleepy Hollow,” either. With merely 11 episodes, there is no space for one. Even seeming ‘monster of the week’ episodes like “Heartless” or “Mama” include vital information and drive the main story. Often it takes one or two more episodes to realize the real impact another episode has had on the full story. “The Weeping Lady” seems to be a ‘monster of the week’ episode at first glance, since the ‘lady’ in question targets women around Ichabod and tries to drown them. The episode is important for the season in the long run, though, because of the outcome and the new information on both Ichabod and Katrina it delivers.

As in the first season, the monsters are not just creations of the show’s writers, either. Even though they might have taken some liberties with the material, all monsters have a solid foundation in mythology, history, or at least literature. They are very well-made (the Gorgon in the next-to-last episode took my breath away, once it was completely visible) and the writers know how to introduce monsters correctly: by not immediately showing them off.

At the end of the first season, the audience is left with no less than five cliff-hangers, every main character has their own. Ichabod is buried in his son’s former grave, Abbie is caught in purgatory, Katrina is in the hands of the headless horseman, Captain Irving has been arrested for the murders his daughter committed while possessed by a demon, and Jenny (Abbie’s sister) may be dead or still alive after a car accident. During the first episode of the second season, not only is a full story of a ‘possible future’ told, but all five cliff-hangers are resolved, too. And as much as there’s different threads running through the whole season (for both seasons out so far), they all get tied up nicely towards the end of each. It’s almost as if the show’s writers wanted to do a ‘how to’ about handling the story arcs right.

I really loved the second season of “Sleepy Hollow,” even though there’s less cliff-hangers at the end of it. I will definitely hope there will be a third one.

My Happy End (of sorts) with "Sleepy Hollow"

In March, I complained here about Pro7 starting to air a mystery/horror series and then cancelling the whole thing after only four episodes. The series in question was “Sleepy Hollow.” Happily, iTunes allowed me to pick up the full first season now, in English, but that’s not a problem for me.

I went on a full-fledged marathon with “Sleepy Hollow,” watching the first half yesterday in the evening (getting to bed a little before 2 a.m.) and the second half this morning. I’ve just finished the last two episodes (listed as one double-length episode at iTunes) and I can just say one thing: “More please!”

The first season ends with a huge cliff-hanger, but the second season has already been confirmed, luckily. I might have to wait for quite a while (especially since I will have to wait for iTunes to offer it), but I know the story of Ichabod and Abbie will continue. On the ‘how’ I don’t even want to speculate now.

I can see now, with the whole first season under my belt, how the officials at Pro7 might have believed that the series was not worth continuing. Not because the series is bad, but because it is very complex and demands a lot of knowledge of early American history and the more or less far-spread conspiracy theories wrapped around early America. I suspect the station just thought people wouldn’t be able to follow the series, which is stupid, but understandable.

As a matter of fact, quite some stuff is explained pretty well in the series - and we have Google and Wikipedia, which means everyone can check things online they don’t understand. There is a lot of blood and death in the series, but it is dealing with the headless horseman, after all. What else is a headless rider with a sharp axe supposed to do with his time? Chop wood? Offer free rides to small children? Naturally, he is making people a head shorter.

The series so far has been written excellently, the threads merge, the story weaves in and out, with twists and turns. There are no ‘monster of the week’ episodes in the 13 (12 on iTunes) made so far. Even seeming ‘monster of the week’ episodes, like “Blood Moon” or “John Doe,” have a meaning for the overall story arc. The middle of the season, the three episodes “The Sin-Eater,” “The Midnight Ride,” and “Necromancer,” marks a change in the story, a twist into a new direction. The motives and identity of the headless horseman are revealed, the stage for the end is set, and the group that will have to stay together in the end forms. It’s very obvious the writers knew what they were doing, where they were starting, which ways they were going, where they would end up. I like that in a series, because it shows the creators take it seriously.

What to do now? Well, it’s time to wait for season 2. I still have to finish watching the series “Dracula,” so I will be entertained. It’s too bad, though, Pro7 didn’t have enough faith in their viewers to give an excellent series a chance beyond episode 4.

Only Lovers Left Alive

…or how to do a vampire love story right. “Only Lovers Left Alive” is a little independent movie by Jim Jarmusch. If you blinked last year, you probably missed it - and that’s a shame. The movie was released on DVD in Germany yesterday and I took the chance to snatch a copy for myself.

Okay, so my main reason was this:

But, seriously, the movie stars more people than just Tom Hiddleston, who is standing there and looking delicious. The main cast also includes Tilda Swinton, Mia Wasikowska, Anton Yelchin, and John Hurt. That’s also about all the main characters, four of which are vampires and one proves very mortal.

How do you make a vampire movie these days? With the vampire being one of the classic monsters of horror, it’s very much a case of ‘been there, done that’ for most things you could think of. ‘Good vampires’ have been done over and over again recently. That was fun once (Louis du Point du Lac), even twice (Nick Knight), or three times (Angel), but has become quite tiring by now. Vampire-human relationships are tricky, too. And a 150-year-old guy should not hang around high schools and date 16-year-old girls with no personality, if you ask me.

What can you do with vampires? What angles haven’t been done to death already? One angle I’d like to see more often is the whole ‘ennui’ thing. Another is relationships of any kind among vampires. And how do you cope with seeing the world change over and over again, as an almost-immortal being? “Only Lovers Left Alive” deals with all of that stuff to a certain degree. It knits ennui and world change into one thing, but that’s okay. Seeing how stupid humans stay over time can be tiring.

“Only Lovers Left Alive” is the story of Adam and Eve. Well, probably not those Adam and Eve, you know, the ones from the Garden Eden. However, both are pretty old as vampires, that much is obvious from several scenes of the movie (and a deleted scene, in which they talk about how Eve’s people transported the stones for Stonehenge). Adam is a musician with a solid interest in and knowledge of technology (good enough so he can build a little Tesla generator in his garden, so he has electricity at home). Eve is an avid reader, a good dancer, and overall the more pragmatic of the couple. They’ve been married for a long time already (their third wedding was in 1868) and are very much in love with each other. Yet they’ve chosen to live in separate places, he lives in Detroit, she lives in Tanger.

Adam is quite depressed, seeing how the humans (the zombies, as they both put it) treat their surrounding and themselves. How they have even contaminated their own blood - which makes living as a vampire not exactly easier. Eve, sensing his mood and worrying for him after a phone call, travels to Detroit to help him - and not a minute too soon, he already obtained a bullet capable of killing him. The lovers’ reunion, however, is disturbed by Eve’s sister Ava. (And can’t you just hear the dialogue between their parents when Ava was born? ‘It’s a girl again, darling.’ ‘Well, we named our first daughter Eve, how about naming this one Ava?’ ‘Great idea, darling, let’s do just that.’) Ava is, for all intents and purposes, a spoiled brat with the self-control and survival instinct of a wet hanky. How she survived so long (as she must be around 10,000 years old herself, being Eve’s sister), is a complete mystery. Ava just appears in Adam’s home, not even waiting for an invitation, just going in while Adam and Eve are going for a late-night drive. She disturbs her sister and brother-in-law (who is still pissed about that thing in Paris a little over 80 years ago), she diminishes their blood reserves (which Adam gets from a hospital), and in the end her actions force Adam to abandon his home and his beloved instruments and flee back to Tanger with Eve. I’m not going to spoil what happens in Detroit and what happens in Tanger afterwards, but I will say this: for all the love Adam and Eve have for each other, for all their knowledge and their close relationship with nature, they are predators and, unlike some other movies, “Only Lovers Left Alive” accepts that.

The movie definitely is no blockbuster, no movie made by a large studio for making money with it. It’s an independent production that relies more on visuals and the talents of the actors to bring the story to life. There’s few special effects (unfortunately the two scenes involving mirrors have been cut from the movies, but are on the DVD), there’s no glamour in the vampires. They are outsiders, looking a little suspicious (hair seems to be a real problem, once you’ve become a vampire), acting a little out of time (especially Adam, who has removed himself pretty much from the world).

Yet it is exactly this ‘we’re not a major movie’ thing which makes up the charm of the movie. Detroit, falling into ruins, full of neighbourhoods that are anything but filled with life. Tanger, an old city, full of people with shady trades (it seems), yet more alive than Detroit. And four vampires moving through time, remembering the past, watching the present, sometimes guessing the future. Four vampires, three of which seem to be creative in their own way (Christopher Marlowe, played by John Hurt, still writing, Adam composing music, Eve dancing), and one of which hanging on to life without a real destination (Ava, who is living in L.A.). When push comes to shove, though, vampires are the ultimate survivors - and that leaves us both happy for Adam and Eve, who will survive, and worried for our safety.

“Only Lovers Left Alive” is definitely a movie worth watching. Don’t expect too much action, rather expect a well-told story with eccentric characters. In the end, only the lovers will stay alive, as they have for such a long time already.

Sleepy Hollow cancelled

A few weeks ago, Pro7, a German TV station, added the series “Sleepy Hollow” to their rooster. From the beginning, though, I was suspicious about the scheduling. Running a horror series with a high body-count after two episodes of a ‘chick’ series like “Grey’s Anatomy?” Very suspicious … or stupid.

There was hardly any advertising for the series which, while very popular in the US, is not widely known in Germany. Sure, we know about the headless horseman (since Tim Burton, if not before…), but we don’t know all that much about the oodles of series that run in US television. Yet, hardly any advertising for a new series. Other stations have done better. So has Pro7, with other series.

Why the placement right after “Grey’s Anatomy?” Sure, the actor playing Ickabod Crane is rather cute and can pull off fashion that’s not just a year, but 250 years ago. Apart from that, though, there’s not much that would suggest coupling the series with classic ‘chick’ material. “Sleepy Hollow” is bloody, dark, full of corpses, and full of demons. So, if I had to couple it with a series Pro7 already airs, it would go before or after “Supernatural.”

Why the break from the ‘15’ schedule? For decades, German TV has adhered to an unspoken rule. After 8 pm, series and movies start at 15 past. They start at 8.15, 9.15, 10.15 and so on. When did “Sleepy Hollow” start? 10.10.

Given the placement behind two episodes of a ‘chick’ series like “Grey’s Anatomy,” the possible audience for the series would have had to switch stations. Now, is it likely they would switch 5 minutes early? The placement at 10.10 means that either the viewer has to discard the last 5 minutes of whatever they were watching before (and not seeing the end of a an episode or movie sucks) or turn in 5 minutes late to “Sleepy Hollow” (which means missing the first 5 minutes, deadly for a series as complex as this one).

“Sleepy Hollow” clearly was misplaced, therefore, but was it intentional? I can’t really believe that, since buying the licence of a successful TV series can’t be cheap. They will eventually show the series completely, I guess, but where? Hopefully not their ‘chick’ station Sixx. They have some mystery and dark romance there, but no full-fledged horror so far. Could they run it during one or two nights? Quite likely, perhaps around Halloween. It wouldn’t do the series justice, though. It’s another TV series broken by stupid placement and missing advertising, like “Doctor Who.” (And don’t get me started on that, please…)

Shame on you, Pro7! If you spend money on a TV series, put some thought into the scheduling and do the series justice. You owe it to the series and the viewers.