The Frankenstein Chronicles (2015–2017)

“What if Frankenstein, but make it… a detective drama?”


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🎥 Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers, shall we?

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🕵️ Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

The Frankenstein Chronicles begins with a brilliant hook: a child’s corpse stitched together from several bodies, discovered on the banks of the Thames. Enter Inspector John Marlott (Sean Bean), a hardened detective who follows the trail into a world of grave robbing, body snatching, and aristocrats dabbling in resurrection. Sounds like Gothic perfection, right?

Well… not quite. Season 1 starts strong but quickly becomes a tonal tug-of-war. One half is the Gothic horror you signed up for. The other half is basically Law & Order: Victorian Crimes Unit. They jam William Blake, Mary Shelley, and Robert Peel into the narrative like it’s a Victorian celebrity cameo party, and while it’s cool for five minutes, it adds almost nothing to the story.

Season 2? That’s where things really fall apart. Imagine being promised Gothic horror and instead being force-fed endless political intrigue, aristocratic conspiracies, and courtroom drama. The monster angle — the thing literally in the show’s title — gets shoved aside so we can watch men argue in dimly lit rooms. It’s like the writers looked at the Gothic atmosphere they built and said, “Nah, let’s make it House of Cards: Regency Edition.” The result is jarring, messy, and a complete betrayal of the premise.


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👥 Character Rundown

John Marlott (Sean Bean) – A detective cursed by tragedy. Dies, resurrects, broods. Basically “Sean Bean, but make it Gothic.”

Flora (Eloise Smyth) – Represents the suffering poor, but often sidelined.

Mary Shelley (Anna Maxwell Martin) – Inserted because the writers wanted to scream “See? It’s Frankenstein!”.

Sir Robert Peel (Tom Ward) – The reformer politician who treats Marlott as a pawn.

Lord Daniel Hervey (Ed Stoppard) – The smirking aristocrat behind the resurrection experiments. Walks around untouched, basically twirling a mustache without the mustache.



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⏳ Pacing / Episode Flow

Season 1: Starts with genuine horror, stumbles with filler and random historical cameos, then limps to a finale that feels both rushed and unsatisfying.

Season 2: Slow, plodding, and obsessed with politics. Instead of Gothic chills, we get endless aristocratic scheming. You’ll be begging for another corpse scene just to break the monotony.



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👍 Pros

Sean Bean gives Marlott more gravitas than the writing deserves.

The gritty Victorian setting looks authentically grimy.

Season 1’s opening premise is genuinely chilling.

When the show leans Gothic, it works. The problem is it barely leans Gothic.



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👎 Cons

Tonal whiplash: half Gothic horror, half police procedural, half political thriller (yes, too many halves).

Season 1 villain escapes without justice. What was the point of the investigation?

Season 2 trades horror for politics and kills the momentum stone dead.

Historical cameos (Shelley, Blake) feel like gimmicks.

Sean Bean dies, resurrects, broods… repeat.



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💭 Final Thoughts

The Frankenstein Chronicles is like being promised a steak dinner and instead being handed a plate of soggy boiled vegetables with one bite of meat on the side. It could have been the Gothic detective masterpiece its premise suggested. Instead, it stitched together multiple genres that didn’t fit — much like its stitched corpses — and the seams are painfully obvious.

Season 1 keeps you hanging on with its creep factor, but the lack of payoff hurts. Season 2 abandons the horror completely, giving us political theater instead of Gothic dread. It’s the TV equivalent of putting “Frankenstein” on the menu and serving reheated leftovers.


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⭐ Rating

Season 1: 6/10 – creepy start, messy finish.

Season 2: 3.5/10 – politics killed the monster.



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⚠️ Spoiler Warning

Okay folks, let’s dig up the bodies 🪦


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💀 Spoilers

Season 1

The stitched-together corpse at the start is disturbing and sets up a promising Gothic detective mystery. Marlott follows the trail, uncovering child exploitation, grave robbing, and experiments in resurrection led by Lord Hervey.

The big letdown? After all the buildup, Hervey just… gets away. No trial. No comeuppance. Just a shrug and a reminder that the rich and powerful are untouchable. Sure, that’s thematically bleak, but dramatically it’s hollow. Fans were furious — we invested all this time in Marlott’s investigation for nothing.

And then there’s Sean Bean. Because it’s Sean Bean, he has to die. It’s practically his brand. But the writers realized the show was called The Frankenstein Chronicles and panicked: “Wait, we don’t even have a Frankenstein monster yet!” So they resurrect Marlott. That’s right — Sean Bean is now the monster. It feels both contrived and hilarious, like the writers were checking boxes: “Sean Bean dies? ✔️ Sean Bean comes back as monster? ✔️ Title justified? ✔️”

Season 2

So now Marlott is a pseudo-Creature, scarred and stitched. This should have been gold — the hunter becomes the hunted, forced to live as the abomination he once investigated. Instead, the show pivots to political conspiracies. Endless parliament debates. Aristocrats scheming in dark rooms. Long stretches where nothing Gothic happens at all. It’s like watching Frankenstein morph into Downton Abbey: The Gritty Years.

The horror is gone. Remember the stitched child corpse? That visceral terror? Season 2 trades it for endless bureaucracy. Marlott wanders around half-dead, but the show treats him less like a tragic figure and more like a gloomy plot device. By the finale, the Gothic promise has collapsed completely.

And let’s be real: Marlott’s resurrection is both the most ridiculous and predictable move ever. Sean Bean always dies, so the writers tried to get clever: “What if he dies… but doesn’t? Ha!” Except it just makes the show feel like parody. You expect him to look at the camera and say, “Surprised? I always come back.”

The irony is the show’s title. Season 1 gave us no Creature. Season 2 went, “Fine, here’s your Creature. It’s Sean Bean.” The execution is so forced it almost becomes comedy.


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So in the end, The Frankenstein Chronicles isn’t really a Frankenstein story. It’s a police procedural in Gothic cosplay that slowly morphs into a political drama. It opens with promise but ends with the whimper of a stitched-up mess that should’ve stayed buried.