15 Most Underrated TV Shows Of The Decade (So Far)

9. Penny Dreadful

Showtime/Sky

The Show: Taking place in the late 19th century, Penny Dreadful follows explorer Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) who employs the help of medium Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) to recover his daughter, who has been taken by a vampire. Throw in Victor Frankenstein, Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray and various other characters from period literature, and it sets the stage for a delightfully trashy fantasy yarn.

Why It's Underrated: What Penny Dreadful lacks in originality it more than compensates for with its barmy, off-the-wall tone, which led to measured positive reviews for its first season, even if the show sadly hasn't earned much in the way of awards buzz.

Eva Green above all others certainly deserves some recognition for her terrifically entertaining (not to mention weirdly sexy) work here, most memorably having sex with an invisible demon in possibly the show's most outrageous scene (but possibly not). Its deliciously lurid treatment of its subject matter deserves more than to be dismissed as merely out-and-out trash: if nothing else it's trash at its most artful and considered (as penned by Skyfall scribe John Logan).

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.