Penny Dreadful is a horror drama television series created for Showtime and Sky by John Logan, who also acts as executive producer alongside Sam Mendes.

[5][6][7] After the third-season finale on June 19, 2016, series creator John Logan announced that Penny Dreadful had ended as the main story had reached its conclusion.

The series draws upon many public domain characters from 19th-century Victorian Gothic fiction, including Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray; Mina Harker, Abraham Van Helsing, John Seward, Renfield, and Count Dracula from Bram Stoker's Dracula; Victor Frankenstein and his monster from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; and Henry Jekyll from Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, showing their origin stories as an explorer searches for his daughter.

In the third season, the main characters find themselves scattered across the world – Ives is in London, consulting the alienist Florence Seward, Ethan is being extradited to the United States, and Murray is in Zanzibar.

In March 2013, it was announced that the series would be filmed in the United Kingdom to take advantage of the new UK tax credit for high-end TV productions that offered a 25% rebate.

The venue gave viewers an online, behind-the-scenes look at the series' production from its early stages of filming in Ireland through the end of the first season, featuring interviews with cast and crew.

[27] Logan revealed at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con panel that one of the texts he thought about while planning the series that he would like to use in a future season is The Island of Doctor Moreau.

[33] It holds an 81 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 7.4 out of 10, based on 62 reviews, with the site's consensuses stating, "Skillfully shot and superbly acted, Penny Dreadful is perplexing in a good way – even if it's a bit silly at times.

[36] On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 100 percent rating with an average score of 7.7 out of 10 based on 21 reviews, with the site's consensus stating, "Penny Dreadful's second season maintains the show's intense, bloody drama, utilizing a vast array of fascinating characters and locales to tell a unique story.

[38] On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 93 percent rating with an average score of 8.1 out of 10 based on 15 reviews, with the site's consensuses stating, "Penny Dreadful is back for a beautifully bloody third season of ever-expanding mysteries and Gothic horrors.

"[39] Ben Travers of Indiewire gave it a B+ grade and wrote, "Season 3's American-set storyline breaks things up nicely with some classic western elements mixed in with the show's established creature horrors, and the aesthetics of the production have never looked better.

[72] The series started production in August 2019[73] and stars Daniel Zovatto, Nathan Lane, Natalie Dormer, Kerry Bishé, Rory Kinnear, Adriana Barraza, Michael Gladis, Jessica Garza and Johnathan Nieves.