HBO's THE NEVERS to air in April 2021

[karaddin]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

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.

A shorter piece referring to, and linking to, that was actually where I saw that she was in it and led to me watching it. I've had that open in a tab for the last week while I had time you watch it and can read it now lol

[Lord Varys]

After having watched Firefly - which I enjoyed pretty much - and nearly all episodes of Dollhouse I must ask you folks whether I and some other people on this thread are the only ones who see how much Whedon recycles and reuses similar characters/plots?

Buffy and Angel were different in tone and setting, and Firefly definitely has a new and ingenious setting as well as Dollhouse ... but one cannot say the same for the characters. This doesn't only involve the more obvious characters like the various variations of the 'mad woman' - which we have in Buffy/Angel, Firefly (with River), Dollhouse (both with Whiskey as well as Bennett), and The Nevers. One can see parallels between Maggie Walsh and Adelle DeWitt and the Trio geeks from Buffy and Topher Brink. The trope of the evil, faceless company/organization is represented by Wolfram & Hart, the evil Alliance Academy from Firefly, the Rossam Corparation in Dollhouse and Lavinia's secret experiments from The Nevers.

Then we do have the serial killer/psychopath guy with Angel, the bounty hunter and Niska from Firefly, Alpha and Nolan Kinnard from Dollhouse and Maladie (and perhaps other characters) from The Nevers. The concept that a monster or dangerous power is the result of evil experiments/machinations is used not only a couple of times in Buffy/Angel - especially with Adam but also with Cordelia's Frankenstein footplayer boyfriend earlier and also Drusilla in a sense - but reused again and again in later shows: River is a (failed) experiment/creation and Alpha and Maladie, too.

Amy Acker - who I really like to see in shows - also plays pretty much the same character in Angel and Dollhouse. Fred is mentally scarred - and in that sense Bennett Halverson strikes me as a variation of the character - whereas Claire Saunders/Whiskey is physically scarred. The effects are the same.

The kind of postapocalyptic setting of the last episode of The Nevers feels like ripoff of Dollhouse's Epitaph One & Two.

I'd say all that indicates that Whedon's ability to come up with new characters and plots is definitely limited, especially since I don't think he consciously based (m)any of those characters on the others.

[Werthead]

20 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The kind of postapocalyptic setting of the last episode of The Nevers feels like ripoff of Dollhouse's Epitaph One & Two.

I did strike me very much that it feels like Whedon did not get to execute his Dollhouse plan properly and was grumpy about that, so he looped around and came at it from a slightly different angle in The Nevers.

[Lord Varys]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I did strike me very much that it feels like Whedon did not get to execute his Dollhouse plan properly and was grumpy about that, so he looped around and came at it from a slightly different angle in The Nevers.

Do you know anything about the plan he had for that show? The entire revelation around Boyd strikes as something that was made up on the fly since it had literally no buildup nor did it make any sense. The character is played slightly differently in season 2 (getting less screen time and being no longer in the center of the plot in the Dollhouse), but the idea that he could be the big bad disguising himself as one of the good guys to hang out with them is completely nonsensical. I could see there being more to the character than met the eye ... but this kind of thing just never makes any sense. Big guys who run evil corporations do not disguise themselves as their own tertiary goons for months and years.

Also, in the end, Echo is just another version of the Slayer idea. The Watchers used and discarded special women they themselves created for ages ... just as the Rossum Corporation uses and discardes their actives. Echo is as much the Chosen One ending a seemingly neverending cycle as Buffy was. And the idea to use the power of all Slayers - like Echo is using the power of all her personas - is used twice in Buffy, first when she confronts Adam in season 4 and then in the great finale when the First Evil is defeated with the strength of the potential Slayers turned into Slayers.

River would also have been the one to end whatever evil shit the Alliance was doing in Firefly. She would have been the one bringing down the evil guys with her super powers if that show had gotten off the ground. She even effectively does that in the Firefly movie.

And we can be reasonably sure that Amalia True would not turn out to be the villain of The Nevers, either.

You are right that The Nevers definitely has conceptual similarities with Dollhouse considering Amalia becoming another person.

[Annara Snow]

"Whedon's characters are kinda sorta similar to each other, in that they sort of embody the same archetypes; let me complain about it as if it's not true for every other writer out there" - such an original, never-seen-before idea. 

[Werthead]

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Do you know anything about the plan he had for that show? The entire revelation around Boyd strikes as something that was made up on the fly since it had literally no buildup nor did it make any sense. The character is played slightly differently in season 2 (getting less screen time and being no longer in the center of the plot in the Dollhouse), but the idea that he could be the big bad disguising himself as one of the good guys to hang out with them is completely nonsensical. I could see there being more to the character than met the eye ... but this kind of thing just never makes any sense. Big guys who run evil corporations do not disguise themselves as their own tertiary goons for months and years.

I haven't seen Dollhouse all the way through - it started off as a pretty weak show - but my understanding is that the overall plan was what we see in The Nevers: the show starts off as one thing and then bait-and-switches into another thing, with dual timelines which may (or may not) interact with one another (Agents of SHIELD actually did the same thing, at least with the bait-and-switch, though Whedon was only loosely involved at the start).

Quote

You are right that The Nevers definitely has conceptual similarities with Dollhouse considering Amalia becoming another person.

Yeah, the key difference is that (as far as we know) time travel was not in play in Dollhouse, so the dramatic tension came from how to do we get from "here" to "there" over the course of the series. The Nevers seems to indicate that changing time is possible so that future can be averted or mitigated, and that's where the dramatic tension will come from. Can they change the future or not?

Edited June 2, 2021 by Werthead

[Lord Varys]

16 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

"Whedon's characters are kinda sorta similar to each other, in that they sort of embody the same archetypes; let me complain about it as if it's not true for every other writer out there" - such an original, never-seen-before idea. 

Sorry, but 'the mad abused woman with special talents' isn't an archetype. It is a rather specific character Whedon had to use again and again and again, apparently. The same with the young female heroine who kicks ass because of some special powers she has. Those aren't 'archetypes', they are rather specific characters.

And it is not that this is a thing I criticize specifically Whedon for.

14 hours ago, Werthead said:

I haven't seen Dollhouse all the way through - it started off as a pretty weak show - but my understanding is that the overall plan was what we see in The Nevers: the show starts off as one thing and then bait-and-switches into another thing, with dual timelines which may (or may not) interact with one another (Agents of SHIELD actually did the same thing, at least with the bait-and-switch, though Whedon was only loosely involved at the start).

I must say the original pilot of Dollhouse is really great. That's almost an art movie, very subtle, great music and directing, whereas the early episodes really cheapen the original concept of the show. Even if you don't watch the show - which you don't have to, considering how it ended - you should definitely watch the original pilot. It's really beautiful.

Quote

Yeah, the key difference is that (as far as we know) time travel was not in play in Dollhouse, so the dramatic tension came from how to do we get from "here" to "there" over the course of the series. The Nevers seems to indicate that changing time is possible so that future can be averted or mitigated, and that's where the dramatic tension will come from. Can they change the future or not?

From what I learned the first Epitaph episode served as a kind of final episode in case the show would be cancelled. Which I expect is part of the reason why it wasn't aired back then because this double setting really undermines the plot of the show. Knowing an apocalypse is coming - and knowing most of the characters live at least until the beginning of that if not also into the aftermath - really destroys the tension and interest in events. Why should I care if everything goes to hell, anyway? Who cares what the unseen evil guys want if all they accomplish is the destruction of the world?

The possibility to change the future is really not there in Dollhouse. But for The Nevers the possibility of a direct exchange between future and present is there. If you can time travel into the past you might also be able to travel into the future. Or receive directions from there, etc.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Lord Varys

[TazerFace!]

On 5/31/2021 at 7:31 PM, Lord Varys said:

Then we do have the serial killer/psychopath guy with Angel, 

Amy Acker - who I really like to see in shows - also plays pretty much the same character in Angel and Dollhouse. Fred is mentally scarred - and in that sense Bennett Halverson strikes me as a variation of the character - whereas Claire Saunders/Whiskey is physically scarred. The effects are the same.

Who? My  mind is blanking.

 

[Lord Varys]

3 minutes ago, TazerFace! said:

Who? My  mind is blanking.

The vampire Angel in Buffy and Angel is a psychopathic serial killer. Angel without his soul that is.

[Quijote Light]

21 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The vampire Angel in Buffy and Angel is a psychopathic serial killer. Angel without his soul that is.

I think he’s generally referred to as Angelus. 

[TazerFace!]

Oh, duh. For some reason I thought you meant ON Angel. 

[Ran]

Deadline reports that Andrew Bernstein has joined the production as an executive producer and as director. Prior credits include S2 and S3 of Fear the Walking Dead, work on Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, The Outsider, The Umbrella Academy, and (apparently) Apple's yet-to-be-seen Foundation (did a quick Google and it looks like they wrapped filming as late as March of this year, but Apple has said it'll air late 2021, so we'll see about that). 

Edited June 5, 2021 by Ran

[houseofthedragon]

Just watched the whole season! Every episode so far has been great, not a dull moment. I don't understand with the poor reviews by the critics. 

 

 

[Ran]

2 hours ago, [email protected] said:

Just watched the whole season! Every episode so far has been great, not a dull moment. I don't understand with the poor reviews by the critics. 

A lot of them were very clearly a kind of  group think concerning Whedon. It was very unfortunate, but the ratings seem to have held despite that. 

 

[Ran]

HBO has cancelled the show, and are pulling its first episodes off of HBO Max entirely. Apparently, they completed the back half of the season, and the new showrunner tried to basically wrap up the story entirely. Whether we'll ever see those episodes somewhere else is unclear, but it seems from the reporting that WB-Discovery may use it as part of a new free ad-supported streaming platform (like Amazon's Freevee).  

[Myrddin]

So... part two will... never(s) air (on HBO).

[Werthead]

The least surprising news ever, although I'd hoped they'd give the second set of episodes a chance to air first. But between the show being drenched in Whedon's toxic stench (annoyingly, given how good the actors were and the good job the other writers did) and Discovery's total clusterfucking of the HBO brand, really not shocking.

[Ran]

2 hours ago, Myrddin said:

So... part two will... never(s) air (on HBO).

I see what you did there! Heh.

Hooopefully it's true that it'll air on an as-yet-unannounced FAST network, and we'll eventually see it that way. Maybe they'll even fold it back into HBO Max outside of the US.

The wort case scenario is they decide it's more valuable as a tax writeoff by never airing the back half in any venue, as they've done with some high profile projects (like the Batgirl film).

[Lord Varys]

Bah, now it is really pointless to have ever watched this.

[Werthead]

20 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Bah, now it is really pointless to have ever watched this.

Reportedly the second batch of episodes will round off the story, so not really? The actors were great, the story was interesting and it was a fairly solid, entertaining show (for those who could divorce Whedon's personal problems from the product).