Well, without Dr. Frankenstein you wouldn't have his Creature or Brona/Lily. I'd list him as one of the main characters along with Sir Malcolm, The Creature, Ethan, Brona/Lily and, of course, Vanessa.

Dorian did seem a bit of an excuse to use a famous character from the era, but he does lead Brona/Lily down her very dark path.

Despite the protestations to the contrary, I strongly believe that Penny Dreadful was supposed to have at least one more season, though I'm pretty sure we got the ending that was being worked towards. Maybe another season or two would have changed your mind about Henry and Dorian?

@M. LeMarchand said:

Well, without Dr. Frankenstein you wouldn't have his Creature or Brona/Lily

Nope. The creatures had nothing to do with the overall plot either.

@TheVorlon said:

Nope. The creatures had nothing to do with the overall plot either.

Depends what you consider the plot. if you were only interested in the Vanessa stuff, he was only a side character. But in the Viktor/Caliban stuff he was one of the main players. Ditto Dorian in the Brona/Lily/Army of Women plot.

Finally got around to seeing this. It has some good parts, but it gets boring/dumb after season 1. As mentioned, a lot of side plots that don't really go anywhere, although I did find the John Claire/Caliban stuff interesting, but I was expecting him to join in the fight against Dracula at some point. Nope.

Dorian Grey? Just there as an excuse for nudity and gay sex. Bride of Frankenstein? Just there so Victor can simp after her, and then she builds a gang of evil prostitutes that goes nowhere. They introduce Dr. Jekyll and that goes nowhere. They don't even really "defeat" Dracula, he just disappears. Which is too bad because there's some good acting here and it looks great, but the writing was lacking. I'm guessing they planned to do more seasons but it got cancelled because of how boring seasons 2 and 3 mostly were.