X
- 2024
- TV-MA
- HBO
- 2024
- TV-MA
- HBO
Summary Mob boss Oz Cobb aka The Penguin (Colin Farrell) sees a possible opening in the power vacuum left in Gotham after what occurred in the 2022 film The Batman.
Created By: Lauren LeFranc
- 2024
- TV-MA
- HBO
- 2024
- TV-MA
- HBO
The Penguin
Season 1 Premiere: 2024
72
7.7
Summary Mob boss Oz Cobb aka The Penguin (Colin Farrell) sees a possible opening in the power vacuum left in Gotham after what occurred in the 2022 film The Batman.
Created By: Lauren LeFranc
All Seasons
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 39 Critic Reviews
72
69% Positive
27 Reviews
27 Reviews
31% Mixed
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 39 Critic Reviews
72
69% Positive
27 Reviews
27 Reviews
31% Mixed
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The Penguin is a slick and powerful beast, with enough action and heart to capture existing fans and create many more. And Farrell himself should soon be swimming in a sea of awards.
With suitably noirish direction and cinematography, a doomsday score from Mick Giacchino and outstanding performances by Farrell and the entire cast, “The Penguin” makes for gripping, engrossing television.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 57 User Ratings
7.7
82% Positive
47 Ratings
47 Ratings
5% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
12% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 57 User Ratings
7.7
82% Positive
47 Ratings
47 Ratings
5% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
12% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
Stands out as a unique Sopranos-inspired take on the DC universe. I hope they keep going in this direction. This show is dripping with atmosphere and I love it!
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“The Penguin” stays interesting thanks largely to a litany of episode-ending cliffhangers and its female characters, Cobb adversary and former Arkham Asylum patient Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti, stealing many scenes) and Cobb’s mother, Francis (Deirdre O’Connell, “One Dollar”), who gives off Livia Soprano vibes.
Director Craig Zobel has done a fine enough job of recreating the basic look of The Batman, all grainy sunlight and amber streetlights, but the show itself is so disinterested in anything to do with its source material that the connection feels largely academic. (There’s little of the brooding, noir-esque sensibility that lent the film its unique identity amongst the Bat-flicks; Oz’s troubles aren’t half as operatic as Bruce Wayne’s.) Farrell and Milioti remain compelling, but if—as the show promises—The Penguin is on the rise, we can’t quite grasp that trajectory just yet.
Even if it largely succeeds on its own terms, “The Penguin” could’ve benefited from a little more romance and variation, rather than a relentless and gloomy dose of reality.
You must be content with a standard-issue mob turf war TV series, with thick overtones of "The Sopranos," as heavy and as gloppily applied as all that clay weighing down Farrell. This "Penguin" is a proximate real world, and not even a slightly heightened version of one, with no Batman and no fantasy world to escape to — or for it to escape to.
If The Penguin just wants to use the former Oswald Cobblepot to tell a traditional Mob war story, it needs to tell a much more interesting version of one, with a more compelling protagonist, than what we get here.
The Penguin is absolutely a must watch, it feels like a continuation of The Batman but with the Penguin, it's gritty, well written, engaging and also got some subtle jokes that feels so organic and some Easter eggs for batman fans, it's just so top notch. Well Done DC you've done it again.
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Production Company:
- 6th & Idaho Productions
- Chapel Place Productions
- DC Entertainment
- Dylan Clark Productions
- Warner Bros. Discovery
- Warner Bros. Television
Initial Release Date: 2024
Number of seasons: 1 Season
Rating: TV-MA