Showtime Revives ‘Penny Dreadful’

Showtime has announced that it is officially reviving Penny Dreadful, the network’s hit macabre drama that was previously cancelled.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Penny Dreadful creator, writer and executive producer John Logan will return to helm the new series along with Michael Aguilar, who is an executive producer of the networks newest hit series, Kidding.

The new series is titled Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, and will reportedly be a “spiritual descendant” of the original series that ran for only three seasons.

Showtime has revealed a few details about the new series, such as that it will take place in Los Angeles in 1938, and that it will be a story about “a time and place deeply infused with Mexican-American folklore and social tension.”

Producers also plan for the show to blend the real world with the supernatural by rooting it with characters that are connected to the Santa Muerte deity.

“Penny Dreadful: City of Angels will have a social consciousness and historical awareness that we chose not to explore in the Penny Dreadful London storylines,” Logan said of the new direction.

“We will now be grappling with specific historical and real-world political, religious, social and racial issues. In 1938, Los Angeles was facing some hard questions about its future and its soul. Our characters must do the same,” he added. “There are no easy answers. There are only powerful questions and arresting moral challenges. As always in the world of Penny Dreadful, there are no heroes or villains in this world, only protagonists and antagonists; complicated and conflicted characters living on the fulcrum of moral choice.”

The original Penny Dreadful series debuted in 2014 and then ended its run just two years later after the third season’s shocking finale.

A short while later, Showtime president David Morse released a statement, revealing that the network and producers has decided during the second season to send the show with the third.

“John has decided the show really, at its core, has always been Vanessa Ives. John has said three seasons is enough, and I think it’s really interesting that we live in this world where every show can have its own rhythm and create its own destiny,” Nevins said at the time. “This is a case of your creator says this is the best thing for the show and eventually you just say OK, do it, just do it well.”

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels will begin production in 2019. At this time, there is no word on if any of the actors from the original series will participate in the follow-up.