HBO's THE NEVERS to air in April 2021

[Werthead]

12 hours ago, Lord of Rhinos said:

There's nothing low-key about Master of None.  Its Netflix's most critically acclaimed comedy and if Anzari decides he wants to do more then Netflix will happily let him.  Regardless he's not out there doing press for the show  which is the thing you said was utterly preposterous.

Lucifer (apparently officially classified as a comedy, so okay), Sex Education, Santa Clarita Diet, Grace and Frankie, Atypical, Big Mouth, Bojack Horseman, The End of the F***ing World, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Russian Doll and American Vandal seem to be generally better-regarded than Master of None, especially given the generally middling-to-negative reception Season 3 has so far received.

As I also said, the situation with Anzari is significantly different to that of Whedon. You seem to be keen on conflating a one-time event where there seems to be have been misunderstandings on both sides to a visible pattern of behaviour continuing over a period of over twenty years, which is a different level of seriousness.

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I judged whether or not a movie was mostly forgotten when people are nominating it for awards six months later.

But for Hugo Awards? That's not an award I'm ever going to be paying attention to for TV shows and movies. Books, sure, but for TV shows and movies they're pretty much just whatever aired in the prior year that vaguely qualified, and 2020 was very, very slim pickings for films.

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Lasseter has a writing credit on Toy Story 4 which came out a year and a half after the story of his serial harassment came out and I don't recall anyone caring.

You do know the lead time for writing an animated film is 3-5 years, I trust?

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Literally from your link "Season 1 was undoubtedly a success for HBO, but the creators and network initially agreed on making it as a limited series. When season 2 was proposed, the network never anticipated expanding it beyond the current story arc. " Reading comprehension is your friend.

Season 2 was also amberlit and they had scripts written for Season 2 and holds put in place for the actors to return, pissing off the writers and actors when the show was passed on after HBO indicated it would be going ahead.

Reading comprehension, rather than cherry-picking to avoid inconvenient facts, is also your friend.

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When general guide lines loosen up business guide lines follow suit.

Not according to the actual business guidelines I linked above.

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Oh, also, this is an interesting featurette if one's interested in more detail on the VFX design of a particular something-or-other from the finale, plus some details from Jane Espenson that seem to head off some of the more out there theories I've seen:

Annoyingly, not available in this country.

[Zorral]

20 hours ago, Ran said:

 

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Radio. The discovery of the electron. The telephone. All those theoretical physics geniuses of the late 19th/early 20th century. Those are the standout differences, to my mind. And it's far back enough from WWI that one can hope to avert that in due time.

 

Spoiler

 

Perhaps more to the point, the switch to petroleum based fuel and power, from coal (steam) and horsepower? The brief era of the coal-fired steam war ship era was 1871 to 1914.  The Queen Elizabeth was already oil powered in the 1910's.

But coal is as catastrophic to the health of the atmosphere, land and lungs as oil, so?  Coal was powering the steam locomotives, warming for decades already with impenetrable blankets of pea soup thick smog.  Thus the theory, for this supposedly timeline of this alternate history stub doesn't seem to bear much scrutiny.

 

 

[Ran]

@Werthead

@Zorral

Spoiler

Yes, power generation is going to be an issue, but starting with technology to do carbon capture and filter out particulates, refining, etc. to jump start the move to clean energy -- the first electricity-generating windmills already exist by the time of the show, but with Galanthi-led developments in material sciences they could probably quickly ramp them up -- seems like a feasible idea. Getting materials science to the point of of creating commercial-grade solar cells will, of course, take longer. Probably the biggest issue of an all-renewable energy usage will be batteries... but Penance seems to have figured that out. Although she might be very much an analog of the X-Men's Forge, whose power is invention, but he's not exactly a genius -- he can see how to make things to create particular effects, but he doesn't necessarily understand the why or how of it working. He just knows it works. Penance might be similar.

 

[Ran]

Long interview with Olivia Williams from after the airing of the 6th episode. It's a good one... and at the 11:06 part she talks about Lavinia's relationship to Augie in a way that implies some very spoilery things:

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Can't help but think that this has to do with Augie's appearance  in the Galanthi-sent vision.  Which suggests that she's aware of the fact that Augie's personality relates to someone having hitched a ride and affected it somehow?

Also around 19:20 she also revealed that she had from Whedon the knowledge that there were three key pieces of information concerning Lavinia that would be significant about the back half of the season, while claiming that she doesn't in fact know the full details of Lavinia's motives regarding the Touched.

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One must of course be whatever it is she knows about Augie. 

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Ran

[Ran]

Okay, pondered the interview a bit and I have now come up with my own kooky theory about Augie:

Spoiler

Given that Williams claims she doesn't know what Lavinia's motives are, re: the Touched, her remarks about Augie's personality requiring her to protect him and keep him close have made me consider the possibility that it has nothing to do with his being Touched (which I think Tom Riley has remarked in interviews he doesn't believe Lavinia knows about).

So... okay ... first episode, when we first hear of Maladie, what's the context? A newspaper boy crying how Maladie had evened Jack the Ripper's record.

Following the law of Chekov's gun... was Augie the Ripper? Did Lavinia recruit Dr. Hague to fiddle with his brain surgically or galvanically to bury the psychotic outbreak? Is this why she was so adamant about his not having relations with Penance, and why she tries to keep him close and protected to prevent him from going wrong again? Is he now Jekyll to the repressed, murderous Hyde?

His affinity for murders of crows (and the whole discussion about that nomenclature in episode 1) may be a sneaky little play around with the whole thing...

And, probably random, but the first of the canonical Whitechapel murders took place at the end of August of 1888.

This doesn't explain things like Hague's cyborgs, of course, nor just why Lavinia is involved in the Touched.

 

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by Ran

[Rippounet]

@Ran

Very credible theory, because...

... Whedon has created this kind of character before. The shy, slightly awkward guy, who really is a repressed psychopathic killer...

But that would mean that Whedon has in fact blatantly ripped himself off... Because in this case Augie = Angel and Penance = Buffy. And if Penance ever shows too much skin, Augie will become the Ripper again, exactly like Angel lost his soul after having sex with Buffy.

I somehow fear you are right nonetheless. That Augie was "too nice" had already occurred to me. Whedon likes to muddy the waters a bit. As I said before, I fully expect Massen to eventually ally with "Amalia True" (well, Zephyr). Hugo Swann could go both ways, à-la-Spike. Maladie is another type of Drusilla, obviously.
It's Lavinia I'm not too sure about, but I'd say she's a misguided villain. Not truly evil, just unable to open her mind. A bit like Maggie Walsh.
And because Spike rose from his wheelchair, I can't help but expect Lavinia to do the same at some point.

[Zorral]

But why does any of this matter if this isn't our history the story's set in?

[Annara Snow]

35 minutes ago, Zorral said:

But why does any of this matter if this isn't our history the story's set in?

Why does any fictional story matter?

[Zorral]

Because of signposts that anchor who the characters are, why they are, where they are, their development and their inter-relationships, among other things.  It's different in different places and different times, always, in reality. So it would be in in our own history for historical fictions, or in fantasies, or -- alternate world/history with magic or whatever. Which is is why the first great big criticism against so much alternative history fiction is one thing was changed, but everything else remained the same.  Which just can't be, due to the flutter of butterfly's wings, among other things.  Or at least that's what currently thought now.  Who knows what it will be soon since alternate facts and condemnation of science and history, lies are truthful, but facts are lies, are being drumbeat into all of us all the time now.

If everything is made-up, fiction no longer matters because there is nothing to compare and contrast with, to provide even the teensiest bit of enlightenment.

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Zorral

[Ran]

@Rippounet

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“Every writer has only one story to tell, and he has to find a way of telling it until the meaning becomes clearer and clearer, until the story becomes at once more narrow and larger, more and more precise, more and more reverberating.” - James Baldwin

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In all seriousness, while the superficial similarity to Angel/Angelus came to mind, I think there's something quite different in a psychopath having his memory erased and his personality changed to "fix" his behavior, and then discovering what happens after the fact. You can get into the subject of the nature of the evil in a more human way than you could find the simple on/off switch of the Buffy storyline.

If this theory is right, well, there's the very fine Babylon 5 episode "Passing Through Gethsemane", but that was a one-off story. [Funnily enough, Jack the Ripper also figures in B5 in a very cool and (mostly) different way. I say mostly different because Robert Bloch and Harlan Ellison did a slightly similar thing in Dangerous Visions. ]

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Ran

[Annara Snow]

9 hours ago, Zorral said:

Because of signposts that anchor who the characters are, why they are, where they are, their development and their inter-relationships, among other things.  It's different in different places and different times, always, in reality. So it would be in in our own history for historical fictions, or in fantasies, or -- alternate world/history with magic or whatever. Which is is why the first great big criticism against so much alternative history fiction is one thing was changed, but everything else remained the same.  Which just can't be, due to the flutter of butterfly's wings, among other things.  Or at least that's what currently thought now.  Who knows what it will be soon since alternate facts and condemnation of science and history, lies are truthful, but facts are lies, are being drumbeat into all of us all the time now.

If everything is made-up, fiction no longer matters because there is nothing to compare and contrast with, to provide even the teensiest bit of enlightenment.

 

I'm not sure I understood any of it except "fictional universes - bad". I take it you dislike/have to interest in A Song of Ice and Fire/GoT then?

[Lord Varys]

Since I'm watching Firefly right now - is it just me or is River also very much another version of Drusilla? This plot device of the traumatized/raped woman with a special talent who is driven mad by her experiences really is a recurring theme with him.

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And Maladie is exactly like that, too, it seems, as per the last episode which clearly set her up to be one of the first victims of Dr. Hague's joyful studies.

@Rippounet

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Whedon does seem rather fond of the whole subversion of expectation/reversal plot device - that was used to considerable effect in Firefly's 'Our Mrs. Reyolds' and also in quite a few episodes of Buffy (Ted and Family spring to mind). In that sense I'd indeed expect that we don't know everything at this point about certain characters - especially not the character who houses evil time traveller guy.

In relation to Lavinia it seems she is clearly not a villain as such, considering she was both revealed too early to be behind the evil machinations ... and whatever she does seems to have a double purpose. Experimenting on the Touched gives information about what makes them tick, teaming up with the Touched helps to form them into a group that could eventually be used to bring about change/do something only a team of those gifted youngsters can do. Why they hell they create weirdo zombie-like robot monsters nobody knows.

The entire brothel subplot seems to be completely disjointed to me at that point. I don't understand how this is supposed to connect with the other plots nor how Hugo Swann is important for the larger story. Are we do believe that Augie's involvement with the brothel truly has the potential of ruining him and Lavinia? If so, why should we care? No other relevant character besides Augie and Hugo even was at the brothel so far, so the entire enterprise seems like a waste of time. I guess there might be revelations coming involving either his father and/or his brother - the father could be half-mad because he is Touched and/or the host of evil time traveller guy. Or Hugo's brother just isn't dead.

But I don't think this show is ever going to use historical characters. They referenced Dracula once, but neither Bram nor Florence showed up so far ... nor did we meet any other historical characters that I recognized. In that sense, I very much doubt they are going to bother with Jack the Ripper business aside from references to him. It would also be rather cheap to drag him in.

Instead, I think both Lavinia and Augie are just ways to make the show a tidbit more diverse - like they do with the black doctor or the Indian woman. We do have a woman in a wheelchair and a young man who has considerable social issues.

 

[karaddin]

On 5/19/2021 at 6:58 AM, Ran said:

You have to pick one, man. "Ever working again" or "at the moment".

Chances of his working right now? Yes, slim to none.

Every working again? Very high.

 

At the time you posted this I would have agreed with Wert, but after the news about Kevin Spacey this week...not so much. The fact he's already getting work again is bad enough, but how fucking on the nose the role is? Yeah, Joss will probably be fine. The only thing that might make a difference is that Joss pissed off people with more industry power than him, instead of people with much less. 

On 5/21/2021 at 7:17 AM, Ran said:

 

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Radio. The discovery of the electron. The telephone. All those theoretical physics geniuses of the late 19th/early 20th century. Those are the standout differences, to my mind. And it's far back enough from WWI that one can hope to avert that in due time.

 

Zorral has brought it up a couple of times and people seem to be dismissing the "this is not our timeline" point, but it presents another potential explanation for why Victorian England...

Spoiler

Surely the divergences from our own time are at least potentially a plot point. Perhaps there's nothing special about that time period for why the Galanthi are trying to make a change there, and they have in fact attempted changes at multiple times through our history which explain the divergences that have already happened. What's special about this attempt which we're seeing isn't due to when it is, but what it does - presumably the other Galanthi interventions have had the effect that Zephyr describes - increased empathy and intelligence, but it hasn't broken the spiral. This intervention being special is an accident due to the torture and blood contamination, or whatever else made it different, not that its a particularly special time.

I'd not been particularly interested in the show due to the Joss effect, but saw that Claudia Black was in it (and some of the details, so I was partially spoiled) and that was enough to pull me in. I definitely enjoyed it, for all the reasonable criticisms that have been lobbed in this thread.

Ran - another point you were discussing earlier in the thread

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The voices in the vision - I'm 99% sure I recognise the male voice, but not as confident in identifying who it is. The closest I'm getting is Martin Sheen as The Illusive Man in Mass Effect, which I'm doubting as something they'd manage to keep under wraps if they've got him for a role in the second half. Definitely feel the twang of recognition though.

The woman's voice sounds like it could be Claudia Black herself with an even more exaggerated version of the accent she uses for Stripe? This is very much being influenced by the Claudia Black connection but it also feels maybe similar to Kate Mulgrew's Flemeth voice with the same accent hiding it as Claudia Blacks.

 

[Werthead]

18 minutes ago, karaddin said:

At the time you posted this I would have agreed with Wert, but after the news about Kevin Spacey this week...not so much. The fact he's already getting work again is bad enough, but how fucking on the nose the role is? Yeah, Joss will probably be fine. The only thing that might make a difference is that Joss pissed off people with more industry power than him, instead of people with much less. 

 

I did specify Hollywood; Spacey is coming back in an Italian film, because no-one in Hollywood will touch him. I can see Spacey developing into a Polanski-like figure of appearing in films abroad and maybe they get imported to Hollywood. But his last actual Hollywood-starring films were complete and total disasters. Of course, if the various legal cases against Spacey go the distance, things might turn out rather differently.

[karaddin]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I did specify Hollywood; Spacey is coming back in an Italian film, because no-one in Hollywood will touch him. I can see Spacey developing into a Polanski-like figure of appearing in films abroad and maybe they get imported to Hollywood. But his last actual Hollywood-starring films were complete and total disasters. Of course, if the various legal cases against Spacey go the distance, things might turn out rather differently.

Just to be clear, I very much hope you're right on both counts.

[Ran]

@karaddin

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

 

Spoiler

Perhaps there's nothing special about that time period for why the Galanthi are trying to make a change there, and they have in fact attempted changes at multiple times through our history which explain the divergences that have already happened.

 

Spoiler

I think the only concrete divergence we really know of is the reference to England being ruled by a king in 1899, but this could simply mean that Victoria dies between the Event and the time of the  TV show, rather than it being indicative of any longer-reaching changes.

I feel like we need more to suggest that the Event isn't the first and only time the Galanthi went to the past. With only 20 of them, and many of them apparently accounted for as having been killed by the Freelifers, it doesn't seem to me like there's a lot of room for more of them to have made trips into the past.

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Spoiler

The woman's voice sounds like it could be Claudia Black herself with an even more exaggerated version of the accent she uses for Stripe? 

 

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If you're guessing the male voice is Massen, I'm with you that that's him. And I do think it's supposed to be Claudia Black saying the second line... or if not her, yeah, someone doing her American/Canadian accent. Possibly it's someone we've met, who like Amalia has learned to speak "proper" English.... but when they reveal themselves in the future to Amalia/Zephyr, they'll take on their post-apocalyptic American/Canadian accent to emphasize the point, maybe?

But I think it's maybe Claudia Black speaking. 

ETA: And glad you enjoyed the show! It was treated very poorly by the media, to the detriment of all the people who worked on it. I finally found the ratings for the finale and it reached its highest Live+7 mark yet.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Ran

[Annara Snow]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

@karaddin

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I think the only concrete divergence we really know of is the reference to England being ruled by a king in 1899, but this could simply mean that Victoria dies between the Event and the time of the  TV show, rather than it being indicative of any longer-reaching changes.

I feel like we need more to suggest that the Event isn't the first and only time the Galanthi went to the past. With only 20 of them, and many of them apparently accounted for as having been killed by the Freelifers, it doesn't seem to me like there's a lot of room for more of them to have made trips into the past.

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If you're guessing the male voice is Massen, I'm with you that that's him. And I do think it's supposed to be Claudia Black saying the second line... or if not her, yeah, someone doing her American/Canadian accent. Possibly it's someone we've met, who like Amalia has learned to speak "proper" English.... but when they reveal themselves in the future to Amalia/Zephyr, they'll take on their post-apocalyptic American/Canadian accent to emphasize the point, maybe?

But I think it's maybe Claudia Black speaking. 

ETA: And glad you enjoyed the show! It was treated very poorly by the media, to the detriment of all the people who worked on it. I finally found the ratings for the finale and it reached its highest Live+7 mark yet.

Do you know how it compares to other shows on HBO?

[Ran]

3 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Do you know how it compares to other shows on HBO?

Comparable to Succession, from the looks of it. Not as good as Perry Mason. Pretty solid and with small growth but it hasn't broken out yet.

[Werthead]

Reportedly Succession's budget, at least in Season 2 onwards, was around $9 million an episode. The Nevers may be in that ballpark or even a fair bit lower, which would bode reasonably well. I don't see it being more expensive.

The ratings are interesting: pretty flat, all things considered, growing very marginally from 0.913 million to 1.110 million over the course of the season. Still, no decline either, which in itself is quite a victory. I think that'll reinforce the idea of wanting to look at the Season 1, Part 2 ratings before pulling the trigger. If they do pull the trigger earlier, that might be based on superior HBO Max results. HBO doesn't disclose HBO Max ratings, outside from the suggestion that Episode 1 picked up an additional 0.5 million viewers on Max. That's superior to Lovecraft Country and every other HBO Original's performance on Max to date, apparently. Assuming that holds true across the board, the rating of 1.5 would be very reasonable and comparable even to Watchmen, which was much more expensive but had HBO begging Lindelof for a second season (the critical cachet was off the charts compared to The Nevers, though).

[Ran]

Speaking of Claudia Black, a very very long interview with her at Collider. She talks about auditioning for the part, something she generally doesn't do for genre roles any longer, and working with Laura Donnelly, plus a very long exegesis on the topic of Joss Whedon, accountability, and healing. A good read, she comes off as really super analytical and thoughtful about the questions and her answers.