Claim: Penny Dreadful started in the 21st century.

Penny Dreadful is a British-American horror drama television series created for Showtime and Sky by John Logan , who also acts as executive producer alongside Sam Mendes . The show was originally pitched to several US and UK channels , and eventually landed with Showtime , with Sky Atlantic as co-producer . It premiered at the South by Southwest film festival on March 9 and began airing on television on April 28 , 2014 , on Showtime on Demand . The series premiered on Showtime on May 11 , 2014 , the first in an eight-episode season . 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 title refers to the penny dreadfuls , a type of 19th-century British fiction publication with lurid and sensational subject matter . The series draws upon many public domain characters from 19th-century British and Irish fiction , including Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde 's The Picture of Dorian Gray ; Mina Harker , Abraham Van Helsing , Dr. Seward , Renfield , and Count Dracula from Bram Stoker 's Dracula ; Victor Frankenstein and his monster from Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein ; and Dr. Henry Jekyll from Robert Louis Stevenson 's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde .