Showtime's 'Penny Dreadful' Renewed for Season 3 in 2016

Showtime’s Penny Dreadful seems horribly short year after year, at only eight or nine episodes apiece, but we can at least count on one more trip through the Demimonde in 2016. Showtime has officially renewed Ethan, Vanessa and their monstrous friends for another round, bringing Penny Dreadful back for Season 3.

According to Showtime’s official announcement, Penny Dreadful will return for Season 3 in 2016 with another order of nine episodes, to begin production in Ireland. As of yet, two episodes remain in the second season, which comes to a close on June 28 with “And Hell Itself My Only Foe.”

In the meantime, so reads the official Season 2 press release:

PENNY DREADFUL returns with ten episodes and will find Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) and Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett) forming a deeper bond as the group, including Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton), Dr. Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), and Sembene (Danny Sapani), unite to banish the evil forces that threaten to destroy them. Meanwhile, Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney), the Creature (Rory Kinnear) and Brona (Billie Piper) are all waging battles of their own.
Patti LuPone will guest star as a mysterious character of great importance in Vanessa’s past. Helen McCrory returns as Evelyn Poole (a.k.a. Madame Kali), the seductive spiritualist who will pose a unique threat to our protagonists this season, along with Simon Russell Beale, who is back as eccentric Egyptologist Ferdinand Lyle.
Additional guest stars include Douglas Hodge as a Scotland Yard investigator; Sarah Greene as Poole’s powerful daughter, Hecate; and Jonny Beauchamp as a man with a singular past.

Well, did Penny Dreadful deserve a third year? How might the Showtime monster-mash series scare up new iconic characters in Season 3?