Watch the trailer for Joss Whedon’s fantasy HBO show The Nevers
By Dan Selcke
This could be interesting. Joss Whedon, the guy behind beloved TV series like Buffy and the Vampire Slayer and Firefly — not to mention the director of the first two Avengers movies — is returning to television with The Nevers, a show about a group of people — mostly women — living in Victorian London gifted with special powers, “some charming, some very disturbing.” They become known as “the touched,” and they are up against it, as the official synopsis makes clear:
"Among [the Touched] are Amalia True (Laura Donnelly), a mysterious, quick-fisted widow, and Penance Adair (Ann Skelly), a brilliant young inventor. They are the champions of this new underclass, making a home for the Touched, while fighting the forces of… well, pretty much all the forces – to make room for those whom history as we know it has no place."
The series has been percolating for a while, and today, HBO finally released a trailer. Check it out:
There are plenty of Whedon-y staples in there, namely quippy dialogue and women kicking ass in the face of oppression. I’ll watch it.
The Nevers has fewer episodes than originally intended
That said, there are some caveats. One is that, although the first season was originally going to consist of 10 episodes, COVID-related production problems mucked things up, so they’re only going to air six, with more possibly to come after. That could give HBO the opportunity to judge how well people like the first six episodes before committing to making more, since the show is pretty lavish and expensive.
The other is that Whedon is no longer involved with the show. He announced he was stepping down as showrunner in November, citing exhaustion and the difficulty of making the series under pandemic conditions. (It also may have had something to do with accusations leveled against him by Justice League star Ray Fisher, but it’s impossible to know.) HBO hired British screenwriter Philippa Goslett to replace him.
So the show has had an interesting journey already, and the first season hasn’t even premiered. In addition to Donnelly and Skelly, The Nevers has a big cast that includes Olivia Williams, James Norton, Tom Riley, Rochelle Neil, Eleanor Tomlinson, Amy Manson, Pip Torrens, Denis O’Hare, Zackary Momoh, Elizabeth Berrington, Kiran Sawar, Anna Devlin, Viola Prettejohn, Ella Smith, Nick Frost and Ben Chaplin.
The Nevers airs on HBO and drops on HBO Max in April.
Next. George R.R. Martin made huge progress on The Winds of Winter in 2020. dark
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