TV - The Nevers (2021)

THE NEVERS is a theoretically on-going series created by Joss Whedon, although thanks to revelations about his behaviour on previous projects his name is used as little as contractually possible in publicity for the show.  It aired a short six episode series in 2021, a second series (produced without Whedon's active involvement) is allegedly in production but unscheduled.  Whether it continues beyond that is unknown at this time.

I generally think Whedon's work is... okay. Maybe not a fair way to state it. I think most of his work has some very good points, and can rise to excellence, but is always flawed in many ways, and I'm not sure he's ever hit a home run. Which makes him on balance... okay.

That's pretty much where THE NEVERS lands so far, as well. The series is set in 1899 London, three years after a mysterious event gave a variety of people in the London area (mostly, but not exclusively, women) random super-powers, called their "Turns", while those with powers are called "Touched". One group of these people have been gathered together in an orphanage, financed by a wheelchair bound matriarch and led by brassy young Touched named Amalia True, whose Turn involves glimpses of the future and clearly knows a lot more than she's telling.

A lot of this is really just X-Men meets Buffy in Victorian England, remixing old bits while adding just enough new things to make it not as stale. Amidst mostly bog-standard super-powers they manage to come up with a few clever "Turns" for the characters that I haven't seen before (but then I don't really keep up with the current comics, much less the dozens of TV shows now on).  The first few episodes are really promising, those that are written or directed by either Whedon or his frequent collaborator Jane Espenson. Seemed like a solid show at that point, if a bit too blatantly reveling in being free of the restrictions of Whedon's previous network/syndicated TV shows, with some nudity and swearing that seem more like an HBO mandate than organic.

Falls off a bit after that, parts of the middle of the season feel like a parody of old Buffy episodes.  Whedon's tricks are old but still effective, and have become part of the culture but are still very easy to mess up. Improves a bit in the penultimate episode, which has some of the best bits of the series.

Then the finale in the big turn, where everything you know is wrong, secrets are revealed and all that usual noise. I didn't care for that. It probably comes a bit too early in the run of the show, it needed a bit more to establish where we are before upending everything, and at this point I think it makes it a less interesting show.

I'm about 50/50 on whether I'll watch the next series of episodes if/when they're ever available.  There's enough stuff to like in the concept, but it did seem to need Whedon's direct hand, which will be absent. Well, I'll cross that bridge if I ever come to it.