Penny Dreadful: City of Angels - Season 1

I still would have preferred more rigor and investment — but without the Penny Dreadful title, the result would have felt like less of a bait-and-switch.

Behold the spectacle, then, and let that be enough. To expect anything else it to cast a prayer into the void. Maybe something will answer, but what it says might not fulfill you.

Over halfway into its season, it’s unclear if, and how, the show can recollect the Pandora’s box of horrors it’s released. But Penny Dreadful: City of Angels so far offers an entertaining promise to figure it out.

The new Penny Dreadful is new — a completely separate story set decades later and half a world away from the gone-too-soon gothic horror. In this one, the characters see the sun.

In setting, tone, and several fine and evocative performances, “City of Angels” cements itself as a fine entrant in the horror-on-TV genre.

Had the series pared down its plotlines the characters could shine more, their motivations crystallize, instead of feeling like they’re 20 characters in search of an exit.

Other than a few fun scenes and a scene-stealing performance from Natalie Dormer, it’s just too inconsistent and flat overall to connect as anything but a footnote to the first series for now.