Script to Screen: Penny Dreadful - TV Pilot Review

 Penny Dreadful - TV Pilot Review

Penny Dreadful is a TV dark drama written by American playwright and screenwriter, John Logan. The title, Penny Dreadful, is a reference to the highly popular and cheap Victorian booklets that contained gruesome stories and were issued weekly. 

In the first scene, we discover that the pilot episode of Penny Dreadful is set in Victorian London on Wednesday, July 8, 1891. As the reader/audience, you are immediately hooked through Logan's description of the surroundings and goings on. The graphic description Logan for example, the description of the butchers in Spitafields and the Spitafields Flat, also allows you, as an audience member, to vividly imagine the setting. The instantaneousness of the graphic description causes the audience's shock to be magnified. 

There is an immediate link between the first scene and the second scene. In the first scene (INT. SPITAFIELDS, LONDON), we discover that this scene is set in Spitafields Market and describes a butchers within the market. The reader/audience are then cleverly led/taken to the next scene (INT.SPITAFIELDS FLAT), which takes place in a flat through, through the use of flies flying from the butchers "across the street toward a particular building" buzzing "in and out of a half-open second story window" (Logan, 2012:1). Logan's use of "The butchered corpses" when setting the scene, mirrors "the caracasses hanging" in the butchers from the initial scene (Logan, 2012:1).

The protagonist is Ethan Chandler, whose past haunts him and starts to catch up with him even though he thought that he'd escaped it. We are made to feel slightly sorry for and empathise with Ethan despite his outwardly cocky manner. We discover that he holds a lot of hurt and pain and to make this worse, he has just lost one of the last things he had left, his job. We, alongside Vanessa, are made to understand that Ethan is an alcoholic and uses alcohol to numb his pain when Vanessa says "your left hand tremors, that's the drink" (Logan, 2012:9). Logan gives a greater depth of Ethan's character by subtly revealing more about his personality as the story goes on. For example, at the beginning of the pilot, we learn that Ethan is a bit of a hot-head, which results in him getting fired from his job then, towards the end of the episode, we discover that all he wants to escape his past/reality, which seems to land him in all sorts of tricky situations.

Logan subtly hints through his use of description, "they're pale, sickly-looking, thin... eyes almost completely filled with dark pupils" (Logan, 2012:13), that the quartet that Sir Malcom Murray, Vanessa Ives and Ethan visit, are vampires. This is later confirmed when Sir Malcom uses a stake to kill them. 

The pilot script is fast paced, to build suspense, therefore engaging the viewer. Through doing this, it increases the viewer's curiosity and leaves the viewer with a lot to reflect upon. For example, in the second scene (INT. SPITAFIELDS FLAT) in the midst of the conversation between Alex Galsworthy and the Constable, there is a sudden flash, which we learn to be the crime scene photographer's camera going off, this interruption builds suspense and reflects the chaos that the crime scene appears to be . The fast pace at which this pilot is written reflects the busyness of Victorian London, with it's overcrowding and it being the world's largest financial centre in the world (English Heritage). 

A physical and emotional reaction is felt from this pilot script, particularly in the Ressurectionist's Mortuary. Right from when Vanessa pulls back "the sheet covering the body, exposing it" (Logan, 2012:21) as an audience/reader, you want to turn away and/or physically squirm. We learn that the body that the doctor is investigating is an in-human mummy when "he pulls back the skin to reveal an oily black membrane beneath" (Logan, 2012:23), making the audience squirm further. 

As this is a pilot script, Logan doesn't give too much away about the characters and what's going on in the story. This leaves the reader/audience wanting more. For example, we want to know more about each characters' backstory and the storyline. What happened between Ethan and his father, why are there vampires, what kind of being is Vanessa and what are both Sir Malcom Murray and Victor Frankenstein (the doctor) up to, how the characters' storylines intertwine? 

The pilot script of Penny Dreadful uses a lot of description, which was useful in helping me to develop my screenplay. The screenplay I wrote, 'Things Aren't Always As They Seem' is mostly descriptive and takes the audience on a journey of discovery. My screenplay provides clues about the character, much like Logan has done with his characters. In order to develop the second draft of my screenplay, one of the suggestions that Jane Marlow put forward was to cut the stage directions that aren't necessary. This pilot script will help me with that as Logan has included some stage directions and description but he hasn't gone over the top in order to lengthen it out. 

The Penny Dreadful pilot script is a suspenseful script that left me wanting more. 

Bibliography:

English Heritage. 'Victorians: Commerce'. At https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england/victorian/commerce/ (Accessed 07/12/2020)

Logan, J. (2012) 'Penny Dreadful Pilot Script'. At: https://ucreative-my.sharepoint.com/personal/mrymer_ucreative_ac_uk/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?FolderCTID=0x012000A98322C95427654FA7209A4F8222728E&id=%2Fpersonal%2Fmrymer%5Fucreative%5Fac%5Fuk%2FDocuments%2FScript%20to%20Screen%2FTV%20Pilots%2FPenny%5FDreadful%5F1x01%5F%2D%5FPilot%2Epdf&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fmrymer%5Fucreative%5Fac%5Fuk%2FDocuments%2FScript%20to%20Screen%2FTV%20Pilots (Accessed 13/12/2020)

Anderson, H. (2016) 'The Shocking Tale of the Penny Dreadful' (1) In: BBC Culture https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160502-the-shocking-tale-of-the-penny-dreadful (Accessed 13/12/2020)

Flanders, J. (2014) 'Penny dreadfuls ' (1) At: https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/penny-dreadfuls# (Accessed 13/12/2020)