HBO’s “The Nevers” drops at a time when its existence will have to fight a more intense battle than anything on-screen against the stories about its creator, Joss Whedon. While the man behind “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” and “Dollhouse” left the show in November as stories about his on-set behavior on “Justice League” were just starting to surface, his fingerprints are all over the four episodes of the new series. Fans of his work would know that this was either a show by Whedon or one heavily inspired by his breakthrough television.
Once again, here’s a story of empowered young women, people deemed different or chosen, not unlike Buffy Summers herself. And with the revelations that would follow those early bad reports on “JL” from “Buffy” and “Angel” cast members like Charisma Carpenter and Michelle Trachtenberg, it’s hard to shake the increasingly common belief that Whedon is once again burying his significant flaws as a human being in the shield of feminist, progressive television. HBO is going to have a tough time convincing people that supporting “The Nevers” isn’t supporting Whedon himself, although it should be noted that there have been no reports of bad behavior from this set, and, of course, many other people were involved in this production, including “Buffy”-verse regular collaborators Jane Espenson and Douglas Petrie. But the Whedon shadow undeniably looms over the show at the beginning. Only time will tell if his latest heroines can escape its darkness.
Trying to disassociate the stories about the behavior of its creator from the show itself may be tough, but there are things to like about “The Nevers.” It’s often very clever, anchored by a young cast who all seem to get what the show needs to be. They don’t overplay either the modern sensibility or the period detail, finding a register in the middle that works for their characters. If people fall in love with “The Nevers,” it’s going to be because they fell in love with Amalia, Penance, Mundi, and other memorable characters. After the somewhat rocky series premiere fails somewhat to get its hooks in viewers, the show really settles into itself in the second chapter and gets better with each subsequent episode. (The first season will be broken up into 6-episode and 4-episode runs thanks to COVID-19.)
“The Nevers” takes place in Victorian London in 1896. An unexplainable supernatural event has given certain people who become known as the “touched” magical powers, and most of those people are women. A psychic widow named Amalia True (Laura Donnelly) becomes the de facto leader of these X-Women with her closest super-ally Penance Adair (Ann Skelly). The two women undeniably have a Buffy/Willow energy with Amalia taking her responsibility in a dark-but-driven manner and Penance being a brighter counterpart. Both Donnelly and Skelly are excellent—charismatically balancing the show in a way that works increasingly well with each passing episode.
They are far from alone in the large cast for this big-budget show. Olivia Williams clearly enjoys playing Lavinia Bidlow, the woman who ends up funding Amalia’s “orphanage” of lost girls; Ben Chaplin is fantastic as a bitter police detective who gets caught up in a chase for a touched who seems to have dark intent; James Norton finds a nice air of lascivious apathy as the proprietor of a sex club that uses some of the special powers of the touched in, well, unique ways; Denis O’Hare nails his part as a deranged doctor who seems to enjoy the opportunity to experiment on young women. Nick Frost, Tom Riley, Eleanor Tomlinson, Zackary Momoh, Amy Manson – there are good to great performances all through “The Nevers.” It’s a show in which the whole cast seems to really get what its creators are going for, striking just the right balance of character and theme.
However, “The Nevers” doesn’t always seem like it knows what to do with its powerhouse ensemble. It struggles to maintain consistency at the beginning, often repeating themes and plot points through simplistic dialogue. Some of the scenes of rich, old white men talking about the “feminine plague” almost border on parody. They might as well be twirling handlebar mustaches. And some of the effects can be a bit dodgy. For example, one of the touched basically just became a bigger version of herself—like two stories bigger—and she rarely looks like she’s actually sharing the same frame as the other characters. There can be broad tonal shifts too. There are times when the show feels almost like it could dip into Young Adult fiction in its portrayal of empowered young women, but then it drops in a scene or two that have enough gratuitous nudity to remind viewers that it’s on the same network that aired “Game of Thrones.”
Much like the fate of its newly empowered characters, it’s hard to see the future of “The Nevers” after only four episodes. At the end of this run sent for press, it feels like it’s finally finding its voice, ironing out some of the early tonal imbalance and allowing its most interesting characters to shine, some thanks to a few very unexpected plot turns in episodes three and four. Now that the themes are set and the people in this world are being given space, it can finally focus on the storytelling that’s lacking a little bit in the “set-up” episodes. However, one has to wonder how Whedon’s mid-season departure will impact the six episodes left to air this season. Or if viewers will be able to get past his name in the credits to watch more than one episode. Sometimes these revelations about creators can derail a production before it even hits the air. Sometimes the show can overcome them through sheer quality, but it’s hard to envision this being the kind of smash “GOT”-level hit that completely silences the naysayers, at least for the first month. After that? You never know. [B]
“The Nevers” debuts on HBO on April 11.