HBO's THE NEVERS to air in April 2021

[Annara Snow]

11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Why this repressed aggression? I'm just pointing out what I don't like and don't find convincing in a TV show. You can deal with it in a manner that doesn't involve building straw men.

It is kind of silly to overlook or downplay how a creator is referencing or ripping off his own work. Such things do not happen by accident. But if you like those parallels - go for it. One can praise that show by pointing out how alike Buffy and Amalia are - or how much of Drusilla is in Maladie. But I don't like that and don't consider that kind of thing to be particularly innovatory.

And the problem with the setting just is that the lighthearted tone and meta-humor stuff doesn't really fit well with a setting that one is supposed to take seriously. It clearly isn't an over-the-top fictional Victorian Era with demons and monsters ... but just the real world changed by time travellers and aliens. That is a setting one should treat more seriously than the Buffyverse, say.

I think the show can only profit if we get less Whedonesque dialogue in the future and folks start to treat the matter at hand more seriously.

We could point very general parallels between characters from different works without trying to imply that makes them the same characters or a "ripoff" and trying to make it sound like something negative, but that was not what you were doing.

You also seem to believe that 1) characters not being grim all the time and occasionally cracking a joke (which doesn't even happen that often in this show) means that a show is "not taking the setting seriously",whatever that means, 2) that a supernatural show set in a universe similar to the real world should be "taken more seriously", 3) that the world of Buffy was not taken seriously (by whom?), which are all head-scratchers for me. I'm really not sure what your problem is here. It sounds like you have a problem with any genre-mixing and you also have this idea that any drama not set in an outright fantasy universe has to be 100% devoid of aby humor or even remotely lighthearted moments - which is a bizarre view, IMO.

And I'm not "creating Straw Men" by simply reiterating what you've been saying. If you meant something else - sorry, I can only go by what you are actually writing in your posts.

[Annara Snow]

9 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Nice finale. I don't think it quite outdid the previous episode for me, but it was close.

It's a pity we'll have to wait so long for the next episodes, because the show, although decent, does not really warrant that long a wait. At its core, as Lord Varys said, it doesn't have a particularly complex story, and I would add, not a particularly subtle one either. It's still Whedon's concept of women kicking ass and being witty, only this time in a Victorian setting - that is obviously not taken seriously.
 

Same question to you as to Lord Varys: not taken seriously by whom? What does that even mean here, "taken seriously"? What would be the signs of this seriousness? Is it characters being grim and stern all the time? Never cracking a joke? Should the score be darker and gloomier? Should the lighting be more literally dark?

[Rippounet]

24 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Same question to you as to Lord Varys: not taken seriously by whom? What does that even mean here, "taken seriously"? What would be the signs of this seriousness?

Actual research on the period to produce credible situations and reactions to the events unfolding rather than relying on tropes and clichés (?).

Whedon has always had this tendency to project supernatural events in specific situations while drastically underestimating the impact such events would have on regular people (their reactions, but also their ideas and projects... ), and/or showing very limited reactions in secret organisations/societies.
As an example, at least half of the events taking place in Buffy would have led to international media coverage within days, as well as heated political reactions and debates. But in a Whedon-world, this doesn't happen, because... Well, because Whedon's worlds are fictions, and the viewer is implicitly required to suspend their disbelief to focus on the foxy lady kicking the bad guy's ass (and her inner turmoil, and her gang/relationships...).

In the case of The Nevers, it's obvious that this isn't an actual Victorian setting but a collection of clichés about the Victorian era. The powerful old men in their club, the aristocrats and their garden parties, the debauched aristocrat and his sex orgies, the grumpy conservative aristocrat and his dark secret, the underworld and its dodgy leader, the shy aristocrat and the pretty commoner...
I personally don't mind too much: it's entertainment, and clichés get the job done. But their accumulation gives Whedon shows a kind of cartoonesque quality.

[Annara Snow]

26 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Actual research on the period to produce credible situations and reactions to the events unfolding rather than relying on tropes and clichés (?).

Whedon has always had this tendency to project supernatural events in specific situations while drastically underestimating the impact such events would have on regular people (their reactions, but also their ideas and projects... ), and/or showing very limited reactions in secret organisations/societies.
As an example, at least half of the events taking place in Buffy would have led to international media coverage within days, as well as heated political reactions and debates. But in a Whedon-world, this doesn't happen, because... Well, because Whedon's worlds are fictions, and the viewer is implicitly required to suspend their disbelief to focus on the foxy lady kicking the bad guy's ass (and her inner turmoil, and her gang/relationships...).

 

And you know that because... there are actual records that you can find by "research" of how Victorian people would have reacted to the existence of people with superpowers? And you've witnessed how people in our times would react to credible evidence about the existence of vampires?

M'kay.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Annara Snow

[Ran]

Obviously, the premise requires suspension of disbelief because a dark, grim story of superpowered people being hunted and burned at the stake and so on is not the vibe the show is intended to have, and it's not what HBO was sold on. It is a "comic book" level sort of world -- none of the big superhero comics really make sense, because the world doesn't work that way, but then, it's a fictional world and it can work as the creator wants.

But the thing is, this isn't a problem. Fiction does not need to be consistent with reality. I'm not sure why it should be seen as a negative that the setting of the show is an example of hyperreality, much as Disneyland was seen as a hyperreality by Baudrillard and Eco. Is this how mysterious superpowered women would really be dealt with in the Victorian era? No, of course not. Does the conservative nature of imperial, patriarchal Victorian England contrast well with the story's female leads who are thrust into positions of unusual and transgressive prominence and fit into the popular image of the era? Yes. 

[Annara Snow]

51 minutes ago, Ran said:

Obviously, the premise requires suspension of disbelief because a dark, grim story of superpowered people being hunted and burned at the stake and so on is not the vibe the show is intended to have, and it's not what HBO was sold on. It is a "comic book" level sort of world -- none of the big superhero comics really make sense, because the world doesn't work that way, but then, it's a fictional world and it can work as the creator wants.

But the thing is, this isn't a problem. Fiction does not need to be consistent with reality. I'm not sure why it should be seen as a negative that the setting of the show is an example of hyperreality, much as Disneyland was seen as a hyperreality by Baudrillard and Eco. Is this how mysterious superpowered women would really be dealt with in the Victorian era? No, of course not. Does the conservative nature of imperial, patriarchal Victorian England contrast well with the story's female leads who are thrust into positions of unusual and transgressive prominence and fit into the popular image of the era? Yes. 

Thing is, we have no idea how people would actually respond to things like the existence of people with superpowers, or the existence of - or credible evidence of the existence of -r aliens or supernatural beings  or whatever. We can only speculate.

You would think we'd know how people would respond to a pandemic, or climate change. But reality proves to be far more 'unrealistic' than we could imagine it to be. If so many people are able to deny and/or ignore a pandemic that's been going on throughout the world for over a year and taken over 3 million lives, who says they wouldn't be in denial about the existence of supernatural creatures, as people were in Buffy? 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Annara Snow

[Rippounet]

35 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

there are actual records that you can find by "research" of how Victorian people would have reacted to the existence of people with superpowers?

Yes.

24 minutes ago, Ran said:

Obviously, the premise requires suspension of disbelief because a dark, grim story of superpowered people being hunted and burned at the stake

Victorian England was not late 17th century Salem.
I haven't read the works of historians describing Victorians' relationship to the supernatural, but the research exists, and some elements of it are well-known.
Even I (who's never cared much about the period) know that Victorians were fascinated by spiritualism and the supernatural, and have heard about the Society for Psychical Research, about Madame Blavatsky, or about Aleister Crowley* - for instance.

Not that I'd want historical celebrities to pop up in a TV show, but the idea that something like the "Event" would happen in 1896 London, of all times and places, and that three years later the Touched would be hidden away in an orphanage while a bunch of old men discuss them in a secret club, is quite ridiculous to begin with.

*it's fun to remember that Crowley ends up in charge of hell in Supernatural.

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Does the conservative nature of imperial, patriarchal Victorian England contrast well with the story's female leads who are thrust into positions of unusual and transgressive prominence and fit into the popular image of the era? Yes. 

It would be nice if TV shows helped develop the "popular image of the era" instead of reinforcing silly clichés about it.
Women did not wait for a supernatural event to challenge the patriarchy. 15 seconds of google tell me the Kensington Society was renamed the London National Society for Women’s Suffrage in... 1867.

[Ran]

13 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Thing is, we have no idea how people would actually respond to things like the existence of people with superpowers, or the existence of - or credible evidence of the existence of -r aliens or supernatural beings  or whatever. We can only speculate.

I mean, if you want to go that route, sure. But to me it would be obvious that in that era, these people would be considered unnatural, but there must be some scientific explanation, and also there's a chance whatever caused it is contagious. This leads to their being gathered, quarantined, and studied. I don't see the government shrugging and letting them run around freely. The registration thing that has happened now would have happened long ago.

The thing is, most people don't ever see a pandemic or clear evidence of climate change. Yet hundreds of people in central London having powers and doing stuff with it? It would be noticed. Just consider the extremes of lock downs in the urban  places in Italy or Spain where there were spikes.

Regardless, the fact that I don't think the show is realistic is not at all a problem. The Victorian setting presents various symbolic details that are used to provide texture to the story.

  

2 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Victorian England was not late 17th century Salem.

I was being facetious.

 I do think the setting would have been far more restrictive to these characters from the get-go, rather than trapped in what seems like a long period of just puzzling over them and letting them mostly just go on with their lives.

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Women did not wait for a supernatural event to challenge the patriarchy. 

I mean, no one said that no one was challenging the patriarchy before them. The patriarchy still existed, however. Suffrage for some women didn't happen until 1918 (the same year the first female MP was elected), and or all adult women until 1928.

This is a deeply patriarchal era. 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Ran

[Annara Snow]

14 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Yes.

Victorian England was not late 17th century Salem.
I haven't read the works of historians describing Victorians' relationship to the supernatural, but the research exists, and some elements of it are well-known.
Even I (who's never cared much about the period) know that Victorians were fascinated by spiritualism and the supernatural, and have heard about the Society for Psychical Research, about Madame Blavatsky, or about Aleister Crowley* - for instance.

 

You actually think "how would society react to actual people with superpowers" (hint: it's never happened, we don't know) is the same as "there were societies of people fascinated by spiritualism and the supernatural"... 

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Women did not wait for a supernatural event to challenge the patriarchy. 

And no one said they did, so I'm not sure who exactly you're arguing with.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Annara Snow

[Annara Snow]

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

The thing is, most people don't ever see a pandemic or clear evidence of climate change. Yet hundreds of people in central London having powers and doing stuff with it? It would be noticed. Just consider the extremes of lock downs in the urban  places in Italy or Spain where there were spikes.

 

I would think that the huge numbers of people being in hospital because of COVID and the huge numbers of people dying from it would be enough for people to believe there's a pandemic, but apparently not. Even some government officials were laughing about the virus just before things started getting serious.

There are also people who seriously try to convince you that it's all a conspiracy, and people who claim that vaccination is all a secret ploy by Bill Gates to put chips in people and monitor them, and there are people who think the Earth is flat... So I've stopped thinking any hypothetical scenario in TV shows aout how the public would reac to this or that, is unrealistic.

Not that "realism" is such a huge issue, as you point out, for something that's basically X-Men in Victorian times. And I don't see many people complaining about superhero movies and comic books being 'unrealistic'.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Annara Snow

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, Ran said:

The confirmation bias of the very online set holds little weight with me.

The "very online" phenomenon usually refers to a situation where online opinions hold little to no weight in the real world, although that seems conflicted (the storming of the Capitol in January has been described as "very online" whilst also having severe and criminal real-life consequences). In the case of television and film, were discussion, PR and marketing is all very heavily oriented around "very online" venues, where viewer feedback is a key part of the discussion, so it is very important to the making of modern media.

Moving forwards, no TV show or movie with Whedon's involvement can attempt any kind of PR or publicity without people immediately asking questions about his behaviour, the on-set environment, whether it's insulting to the people he worked with previously that the project is continuing etc. You can see that in the PR for The Nevers already, with the cast having to spend x amount of time of each interview talking about Whedon rather than the show, and clearly being pissed off (but resigned) about it. It's a distraction, it's bad for the brand and for the studio. As the project continues forwards, as they move past the episodes made by Whedon or written under his leadership that will subside and three seasons down the road (if the show is a success) his name won't come up any more. That is why I'm not convinced that the show is inevitably going to be cancelled; I think HBO will see particularly in the back six that they can move past the Whedon issue and the show can then stand on its own, and thanks to COVID they effectively have two seasons already to gauge the response (and I'm sure they are happy with the relatively positive reaction to the Season 1 mid-finale).

I mean, the idea that in 2021 - or even moreso five or ten years from now - you can have a new TV show or movie where the head writer/showrunner/director can't be interviewed or talked about by his cast or crew is utterly preposterous. That is not a situation anyone else will put themselves in.

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John Lasseter went on his sabbatical after the furor over his repeated, years-long pattern of sexual misconduct, left Disney at the end of 2018... and was hired to run Skydance Animation at the start of the next year.  In the course of that  and the online furor, that Netflix film so many people loved, The Old Guard, happened to have a little-remarked "Produced by John Lasseter" credit.  Apple have since picked up two of the animated projects developed under his leadership. 

He disappeared awhile, he expressed regrets, he came back. Zero reason why Whedon can't, short of his not wanting to do it when his biggest crime is having been a jerk sometimes. He's not Brett Ratner. He's not even Scott Rudin.

 

Multiple actors, animators and staff have refused to work with Lasseter and Skydance, some resigning from projects that were in progress. In addition, Lasseter's behaviour, although complained about, has not resulted in legal or even internal disciplinary procedures, whilst clearly Whedon's behaviour generated that in at least two different areas (with Fisher and Gadot) on Justice League alone (and we don't know what internal procedures may have been followed on Buffy and Angel in the 2000s, given that Whedon's behaviour was known about at the time, just not publicised).

Skydance also hasn't released any material with his name attached yet as director, and I doubt will do so in the future. And you have to dig pretty deep in the credits of The Old Guard (not exactly a high-profile film that set the world on fire) to find Lasseter's name; he was not involved in any significant capacity.

I think you have a point that in the past studios have turned a blind eye to credible claims of outright criminality, let alone "being a jerk sometimes" (which feels like an attempt to trivialise the seriousness of the complaints against Whedon, and their extreme longevity), but I do think that's no longer possible. Bryan Singer has had a very long career despite near-constant reports of his behaviour around underage boys - which I would agree is far more serious than anything that's been said against Whedon - but that's now effectively ended (Singer has been unable to secure any new projects for three years). It's a very different world.

The beneficial thing here is that one of Whedon's best and most laudable skills was finding other writers who were talented and capable and nurturing that talent, resulting in many other writers coming up through the ranks who were as capable as he is, including Espenson and Petrie who both remain on The Nevers. I think the show will be fine.

[Rippounet]

27 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

And no one said they did, so I'm not sure who exactly you're arguing with.

I'm explaining why the Victorian era is not taken seriously by the show, providing very specific examples to point out what is missing if it wanted to deal with the supernatural and/or feminism in Victorian England seriously.

27 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

You actually think "how would society react to actual people with superpowers" (hint: it's never happened, we don't know) is the same as "there were societies of people fascinated by spiritualism and the supernatural"... 

Yes, because people at the time believed in, for instance, famous mediums being able to summon and talk to the dead, or others being able to levitate.

Since you're obviously too lazy to do the research, here's just a random extract from a (possibly unreliable, because I'm not the one who needs learning here so I don't care) internet page to give you an idea of what we're talking about:

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https://victorianweb.org/victorian/religion/spirit.html

Although the Victorian era is often associated with scientific and technological progress, many Victorians were prone to the paranormal, supernatural and occult, of which the most popular forms in the late Victorian period included mesmerism, clairvoyance, electro-biology, crystal-gazing, thought-reading, and above all, Spiritualism. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, like many late Victorians, was fascinated by the possibility of communication with the departed souls.

[...]

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert participated in Spiritualist séances as early as 1846. On July 15 that year, the clairvoyant Georgiana Eagle demonstrated her powers before the Queen at Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight. In 1861, the year when Prince Albert died of typhoid, a thirteen-year-old boy living in Leicester, Robert James Lees, who took part in a family séance, passed a message from Albert to the Queen in which he called her by the pet name known only to her and her late husband. Lees was invited to give séances at Windsor Castle during which Albert was called. After her death Queen Victoria was reported to send messages to her last surviving daughter, Princess Louise, through the medium Lesley Flint. [Buckland 340]

In the 1860s, Spiritualism became part of Victorian subculture with its mediums, specialist newspapers, pamphlets, treatises, societies, private and public séances which included table rapping, table tipping, automatic writing, levitation, and other communications with spirits.

In 1863, James Burns established the Progressive Library and Spiritualist Institution in Southampton Row in Holborn, London. The Spiritualist press in the late Victorian era included the British Spiritualist Telegraph, the Spiritualist, Human Nature, Medium and Daybreak, Two Worlds, and Light. Together with the emergence of the Spiritualist press, a number of Spiritualist societies were established in Great Britain, such as The Spiritualist Association of Great Britain (1872), The British National Association of Spiritualists (1873), The National Spiritualists' Federation (1890), and The Spiritualists' National Union (1901). London had the greatest number of Spiritualist societies: Charing Cross Spirit-Power Circle (1857), Christian Spiritual Enquirers in Clerkenwell, the East London Association of Spiritualists, the Marylebone Spiritualist Association, and others. (Owen 25)

 

So yes, we know how Victorian society reacted to people apparently having superpowers: they became celebrities.

[Lord Varys]

I just went through with it and watched the Firefly pilot last night ... and I've to say that I've to agree with @Werthead that Penance Adair is pretty much exactly like Kaylee insofar as the character is conceived.

Yes, Penance is Irish and lives on earth in a fake Victorian Age (where Queen Victoria actually seems to be dead, so it is, strictly speaking, not the Victorian but the Edwardian Age - assuming Edward VII followed his mother in that setting), but Kaylee is the same kind of naive girl from the country who believes in the good of everyone and who has the same intuitive connection to machinery Penance has.

I realized what I liked in the Whedon shows, though, with Firefly - the whole adoptive family/elective affinity thing of us against the world no matter what. That was at the core of Buffy & Angel - in a sense even more with Angel where you had the challenges of the great city where everybody was technically out for oneself, etc. In The Nevers this kind of thing seems to be missing, part, I think, due to the modern approach to things - tell multiple storylines at the same time which means you don't have so much a core cast interacting with each other but rather multiple leads with their own set of secondary characters which rarely interact and don't really form a larger group.

3 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

We could point very general parallels between characters from different works without trying to imply that makes them the same characters or a "ripoff" and trying to make it sound like something negative, but that was not what you were doing.

Of course this was what I'm doing. I'm criticizing the show on my own terms. You have to deal with that. I'm under no obligation to use your standards - whatever they may be - for that.

3 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

You also seem to believe that 1) characters not being grim all the time and occasionally cracking a joke (which doesn't even happen that often in this show) means that a show is "not taking the setting seriously",whatever that means, 2) that a supernatural show set in a universe similar to the real world should be "taken more seriously", 3) that the world of Buffy was not taken seriously (by whom?), which are all head-scratchers for me. I'm really not sure what your problem is here. It sounds like you have a problem with any genre-mixing and you also have this idea that any drama not set in an outright fantasy universe has to be 100% devoid of aby humor or even remotely lighthearted moments - which is a bizarre view, IMO.

The Buffyverse clearly is a place that breaks down immediately if you pretend something like that could ever happen in our own world. Demons are real yet nobody seems to care? Not likely in reality. We don't get mayors transformed into giant snakes in the real worlds, for instance. This is not the kind of thing folks could just ignore.

In that sense, the Buffyverse is just a comicbook setting.

I was specifically talking about the Whedonesque meta-humor - that doesn't fit well with a Victorian setting which is supposed to be our world. I'd not complain in the slightest if this was clearly intended as a fantasy Victorian Age - but it isn't. That's why the pilot makes so much of the event that created the Touched. It is a singular event which changed the world forever on a fundamental level.

And something like that should be taken more seriously.

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Actual research on the period to produce credible situations and reactions to the events unfolding rather than relying on tropes and clichés (?).

Whedon has always had this tendency to project supernatural events in specific situations while drastically underestimating the impact such events would have on regular people (their reactions, but also their ideas and projects... ), and/or showing very limited reactions in secret organisations/societies.
As an example, at least half of the events taking place in Buffy would have led to international media coverage within days, as well as heated political reactions and debates. But in a Whedon-world, this doesn't happen, because... Well, because Whedon's worlds are fictions, and the viewer is implicitly required to suspend their disbelief to focus on the foxy lady kicking the bad guy's ass (and her inner turmoil, and her gang/relationships...).

Pretty much that - and in a quasi-comic setting this kind of thing does work pretty well to a point. Although as the Buffy and Angel progressed all that broke down with demons living with/among normal people in a casual manner - think of Clem in Buffy or Lorne's club in Angel.

That kind of eventually undermined the original Buffy setting where the supernatural world was sort of hidden from the average person ... which is why Buffy wanted to be normal and Joyce could effectively ignore what was *really going on* because it did not actually go on in a manner that was evident to the average person.

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

In the case of The Nevers, it's obvious that this isn't an actual Victorian setting but a collection of clichés about the Victorian era. The powerful old men in their club, the aristocrats and their garden parties, the debauched aristocrat and his sex orgies, the grumpy conservative aristocrat and his dark secret, the underworld and its dodgy leader, the shy aristocrat and the pretty commoner...
I personally don't mind too much: it's entertainment, and clichés get the job done. But their accumulation gives Whedon shows a kind of cartoonesque quality.

Yes, in the combination it just gives the impression of not being particularly original.

And even in comicbook setting - everything Alan Moore wrote about the Victorian Age is infinitely better than this. Off the top of my head I don't recall anything truly original or innovative in this show - Whedon is either citing himself or other works or he works with clichés.

It could have been great, for instance, to have realistically portrayed Victorian women with superpowers fueling their feminist agendas. But it had to be

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'a modern woman' imported into the era via time travel for some reason.

I guess the biggest problem I have with the setting in the end is the time travel stuff. Because I never like it when that's used as a plot device.

 

[Annara Snow]

@LordVarys Of course you have the right to criticize the show "on your terms". But I also have the right to say what I think about your criticism - and point out why it makes little sense, without you getting up in arms about my supposed "repressed aggression" (?). Not everyone is gonna always agree with you, I'm afraid. 

But anyway - I'm bored now. You don't like the show because you want it to he some other show with a different setting and tone. Fine. Maybe it's just not for you and you should pick something else to watch. Just my two cents.

[Derfel Cadarn]

I may give this a try tonight when wife leaves for nightshift (assuming daughter is sleeping soundly), Victorian supernatural being my thing

The rest of the series being unfilmed is what gives me pause.

[Ran]

Just now, Derfel Cadarn said:

I may give this a try tonight when wife leaves for nightshift (assuming daughter is sleeping soundly), Victorian supernatural being my thing

It's fun. Enjoy!

Just now, Derfel Cadarn said:

The rest of the series being unfilmed is what gives me pause.

Yeah. Per reports, the first ten episodes were overseen by Whedon, but they have yet to start filming the final six... and that final two that got tacked on worries me. Yeah, could just be to give a minimum six episodes for the back half to make it not feel like a limited series. But could also just be a tacit "that's for the series wrap up." 

 

 

[Werthead]

29 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

I may give this a try tonight when wife leaves for nightshift (assuming daughter is sleeping soundly), Victorian supernatural being my thing

The rest of the series being unfilmed is what gives me pause.

They start shooting Episode 6 in a couple of months and then it's full speed through the end of the year in shooting the remainder of the season. So the rest of Season 1 will definitely be completed and will probably air in April-May next year.

We don't know how the rest of the show has done, but the first episode was a huge success on both HBO and HBO Max. On that basis they should have gotten a Season 2 renewal already, and are probably holding fire only because they have the second half of the season coming up to give them more data.

It's not an unprecedented situation, even for HBO: Alan Ball voluntarily quit True Blood after five seasons and another showrunner took over, with some of the same writing team stay on board. I doubt they would have bothered bringing on board a new showrunner from outside the production to just handle two episodes and then cancel it (as opposed to promoting one of the existing writers briefly; Espenson has showrunning experience, at least), and the costs in building the sets are considerable and better spread across multiple seasons. If they had really wanted to wash their hands of the show given "Whedongate" they would have done so after the first six, and could have saved face by pretending it was down to the cost of COVID protocols (which are considerable and killed off GLOW Season 4 on Netflix even after they'd started shooting and had finished at least one episode in full).

I mean, I wouldn't be gobsmacked if they did let the show go after one season, but that's far more likely if the ratings for the rest of the season tanked, which we haven't seen any evidence of so far.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Demons are real yet nobody seems to care?

We in the US only care about manufactured mass delusional monsters that don't exist.  See the 1980's mass delusion that pre-schools and the teachers were hotbeds of satanism where they led children into the underworld, where animals and children were killed and made to kill each other and drink the blood and other horrors.  This went on for years, with arrests, trials, convictions and imprisonments of people accused of nothing that even remotely happened.  It went on all over the US, with every state in the union launching investigations due to accusations by children led/suggested by the hysterical adults in their lives.  In spite, even, of massive FBI investigations, that found not a scrap of evidence for any of the accusations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/us/satanic-panic.html

And, shall we talk of Qnon?

This is the USA, from colonial era witch trials in New England to pedophile blood drinkers in pizza basements, to there is no covid-19.

Also -- Penance fills in the Kaylee and Willow deus ex machina function here, always able to come up with right machine or spell when necessary.

 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Zorral

[Ran]

Another featurette put out by HBO yesterday.

ETA: Interesting that Hugo Swann is not among the "villains" that this featurette deals with. 

Edited May 19, 2021 by Ran

[Derfel Cadarn]

7 hours ago, Ran said:

Obviously, the premise requires suspension of disbelief because a dark, grim story of superpowered people being hunted and burned at the stake and so on is not the vibe the show is intended to have, and it's not what HBO was sold on. It is a "comic book" level sort of world -- none of the big superhero comics really make sense, because the world doesn't work that way, but then, it's a fictional world and it can work as the creator wants.

But the thing is, this isn't a problem. Fiction does not need to be consistent with reality. I'm not sure why it should be seen as a negative that the setting of the show is an example of hyperreality, much as Disneyland was seen as a hyperreality by Baudrillard and Eco. Is this how mysterious superpowered women would really be dealt with in the Victorian era? No, of course not. Does the conservative nature of imperial, patriarchal Victorian England contrast well with the story's female leads who are thrust into positions of unusual and transgressive prominence and fit into the popular image of the era? Yes. 

Trivia: Witches weren’t burned at the stake in England, they were hanged as it was classed as a felony. In my third novel I needed a necromancer to be burned in the 16th century, so I had his enemies frame him as a Protestant.

They were burned in Scotland, but I believe they were strangled first.