Penny Dreadful, Showtime’s new series, has all the ingredients to become a cult sensation – a very weird cult sensation. I can just imagine the fan fiction this intriguing, but strange, horror show will produce. Set in Victorian England the series features Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), who is a spiritualist/medium of great power. Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett) is the American Wild West sharp shooter hired to help her and Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) who is combing the underworld of London to find his missing daughter, Mina. This world is filled with supernatural creatures, swathed in violence and psycho erotic moments, where psychic powers are real and everyone has a secret, or two.

John Logan (Skyfall, Hugo), who created Penny Dreadful and wrote all eight of the first season episodes, surrounds his characters with other literary legends: Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) and his monster/companion, along with dilatant Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney) all wander this macabre world. And in the second episode (Séance) we meet the wild, Irish prostitute Brona Croft (Billie Piper) who is entangled in both worlds.

The possible connections to other literary, historical characters and events are endless. This has made some critics suggest it’s too close to the premise of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (the wonderful comic book series/graphic novels by Alan Moore/Kevin O’Neil, not the dreadful movie version.) This literary device has been used many times, but to me Penny Dreadful has more of a flavor of Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula.

Orphan Black abounds with interesting troubled characters even if most of them are clones all played by the brilliantly talented Tatiana Maslany. But even clones need a BFF and that’s actor Jordan Gavaris who is Felix Dawkins or Fee to his many friends. Felix is also a scene stealing, sarcastic rent boy as well as an outlandish, sarcastic artist. And he always gets the best lines.

Several months ago, after their segment at the Television Critics Association conference, BBC America hosted an afternoon tea party for the casts of several of their shows and The Flickcast was lucky enough to trade questions and answers with the delightful, but not sarcastic, Jordan Gavaris.

THE FLICKCAST: Can you talk about playing Felix, and will you also be going deeper into the character in this new season?

JORDAN GAVARIS: Hugely deeper. I think Season 1 Felix was very much an integral cog in the mystery and the conception of the story and in Sarah’s journey, and now I think what Season 2 helps to do is establish him outside of the clones, establish him as an individual with his own identity and as a multifaceted human and not just a plot device or not just someone who’s there to facilitate whatever Sarah’s crazy idea is that day or, you know, be the person that she calls when she’s in trouble, that he gets an identity outside of all that which is really important because he’s a living, breathing person.

I think that he has kind of just gone along and been that person who picks up the phone at 3:00 in the morning, and I think it’s safe to say that the relationship with Sarah is going to come to a head, and there’s a really tough decision that’s going to be made, and there are many tough decisions that are going to be made, and it’s not going to be easy. So, yeah, there’s a lot of relationships that are tested, particularly, Sarah’s and Felix’s.

TFC: You’ve got some of the most loyal fans, not only the Clone Club but critics as well. It was amazing how fast the show caught fire.

JG: When you are talking about the bloggers and Clone Club and everybody, too, the critics, like the endless list of people, like you guys [the press] who kind of championed the show, in the beginning you told five people who told five people who told five people who like told Dalton Ross who shoved it down EW’s throats in the office and like made everybody watch it. It made a big difference, like a huge, huge difference.

Hannibal hasn’t even completed its second season, but with good ratings and a strong critical response, NBC has shown the good taste (pun intended) to pick it up for a third. The show has produced enough twists and turns and a few WTF moments to keep any audience satisfied.

Hugh Dancy plays FBI profiler Will Graham, who is entrapped in the serial killer’s games. This is good drama and the byplay between Graham and Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) is worth the time and effort.

Hugh Dancy reflects on his character and the challenges of doing Hannibal.

The Flickcast: Can you talk about getting into the head space of Will because he’s a terribly troubled character?

HUGH DANCY: Yes. He’s not the happiest character I’ve ever played. Well, there’s obviously – other than Bryan’s [Fuller/Executive Producer] scripts, there’s Thomas Harris’s book, Red Dragon, that I went to before we started filming the first season, and that’s been the template ever since.

It was just, as a description of a character from the inside of his head, the most rich material that you can hope for as an actor.

Breakfast with Hannibal. That’s not what the NBC press reps were calling it, but the journalists present for the early morning Q&A panel on the show had a field day speculating on the possible culinary choices. Unfortunately the breakfast menu was the normal hotel convention food, but thankfully the panel made up for it.

Hannibal, now in its second season, is based on the Thomas Harris novel, Red Dragon, which investigates the early journey of forensic psychiatrist/serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) and FBI agent Will Graham (Hugh Dancy).

Hannibal is probably one of the most well know psycho villains in the world. We all know what’s going to happen…eventually, but the road trip to reach that final act is fascinating, startling and sometimes very disturbing. It probably also says a lot about us, the audience, as well. We are the ultimate voyeurs.

Mads Mikkelsen is an excellent choice for this early version of the pervasive serial killer. After the panel he thoughtfully answered more questions from the press.

The Flickcast: Do you think Hannibal hits all of the points of being a psychopath, or what is he?

J.J. Abrams was supposed to talk to the press to promote his new NBC series Believe, but we couldn’t resist asking him questions about some of his other projects…such as Star Wars VII. Getting any good responses out of him isn’t easy as we all remember with the secrecy regarding the last Star Trek move. Mr. Abrams is a master of obfuscation, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t try.

QUESTION: Where are you on the Star Wars script? Is it done?

J.J. ABRAMS: Yeah. We’re working really hard. We’ve got our script and we’re in deep prep. We’re full steam ahead. We’re working real hard on it and it’s quite a thrill.

Q: What are some of the craziest rumors you’ve heard?

ABRAMS: God, there have been so many of them. Honestly, I don’t know. It’s amazing to see how many there are. It’s really remarkable. But it’s sweet because it shows that there’s an interest in this movie that we all obviously know is there. It is an incredible thing to see how many crazy things get thrown out that people then often write commentaries about how happy they are or how disappointed they are about something that’s completely false. But it’s a lot of noise, frankly.

How have writers’ for episodic television ever gotten along without the help of witches? It’s hard to find a good genre show these days that doesn’t feature a witch or two, either good or bad or… It’s become so de rigueur that it almost makes you wonder if the PTB don’t have a few witches consulting in the Programming Department.

Not that witches haven’t always been popular as leading characters or narrative catalysts going all the way back to the lovely Samantha of Bewitched (1964), the beautifully evil Angelique of Dark Shadows (1966), the resourceful Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) and the Halliwell sisters of Charmed (1998). A witch even ruled a children’s show with Witchiepoo of Pufnstuf (1969).

But now they’re all over the place, more powerful and more empowered. American Horror Story: Coven has its highest rating in three years in a New Orleans set witch fest. Witches pop up in Sleepy Hollow, The Originals, Grimm, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, Once Upon A Time and even occasionally Supernatural. (But everyone knows Dean Winchester hates witches.) But that’s not the end of the witch craft explosion. CBS has announced a remake of Charmed and WGN America is currently shooting Salem, about the famous 17th century witch trials.

BBC America is running a marathon of Doctor Who episodes this week celebrating the 50th anniversary of the show culminating in the worldwide showing of Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor on Saturday, November 23. But on Friday evening, the 22nd, they will show An Adventure in Space and Time, which is a dramatic recreation of how The Doctor and his Companions finally made it to the “telly” 50 years ago.

Space and Time was written by Mark Gatiss, directed by Terry McDonough and stars David Bradley as William Hartnell, the very first Doctor. It also features Jessica Raine as producer Verity Lambert and Sacha Dhawan as director Waris Hussein.

An Adventure in Space and Time gives a glimpse of why and how Doctor Who has become a fan favorite all over the world. The show is an amazing feat, a one of a kind experience, but it almost didn’t happen. The first pilot never aired, they didn’t think Hartnell was right for a children’s show and that’s just part of the story.

“The film does cover quite in detail how hard it was for our three main characters to get the film made originally,” McDonough explains. “And also the problems they had on getting it broadcast. The first time the episode was made Sydney Newman [creator and Head of BBC Drama] insisted that they reshoot the whole thing. He just wasn’t happy with the quality of it.