The Frankenstein Chronicles


The Frankenstein Chronicles is a British television period crime drama series that first aired on ITV Encore on 11 November 2015, designed as a re-imagining of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Lead actor Sean Bean also acted as an associate producer on the first series. It follows Inspector John Marlott, a river police officer who uncovers a corpse made up of body parts from eight missing children and sets about to determine who is responsible.
The series co-stars Richie Campbell as Joseph Nightingale, Robbie Gee as Billy Oates, Tom Ward as Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel, Ed Stoppard as Lord Daniel Hervey, Vanessa Kirby as Lady Jemima, and Anna Maxwell Martin as author Mary Shelley. Other historical characters portrayed include William Blake, Ada Lovelace and Charles Dickens under his pseudonym of ‘Boz’. The first series consists of six episodes which opened to critical acclaim and drew an average 250,000 viewers per episode.
A&E subsequently acquired the series for broadcast in the United States, describing it as "thrilling and terrifying". On 20 June 2016, ITV announced that it had renewed it for a second six-part series, with production set for January 2017. Filming commenced in March 2017, with Laurence Fox and Maeve Dermody joining the cast. The writing team for the second series consisted of Michael Robert Johnson, Paul Tomalin, Noel Farragher, Colin Carberry, and Glenn Patterson, with all six episodes directed by Alex Gabassi. In December 2017, it was announced that Netflix had struck a deal to carry the programme in the United States and other territories.

Cast

The Frankenstein Chronicles was filmed in Northern Ireland in 2015.

Episodes

Series 1 (2015)

Series 2 (2017)

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes season 1 has an approval rating of 80% based on reviews from 10 critics.
Euan Ferguson at The Guardian concluded "It's genuinely rather good, and a beast of wholly different hide to Jekyll". Carl Wilson at The Globe and Mail wrote: "On balance, the season ended just as brilliantly grim as it started." Ben Travers at IndieWire said: "While it's unlikely to be remembered for as long as it took to make, Frankenstein certainly earned its shot at a long life on Netflix."