The Nevers had had quite a bit of attention in recent months. The long-anticipated series from Joss Whedon has been in various stages of production and completion since first announced back in 2018 and at the end of last year came the news that Whedon would be stepping away from the show – the reason given being ‘exhaustion’.
British screenwriter Philippa Goslett has stepped up to replace Whedon as show-runner and Doug Petrie, Jane Espenson, Ilene S. Landress and Bernadette Caulfield remain as executive producers.
The Nevers is set in Victorian England and sees a disparate group of women who find themselves with unusual abilities, relentless enemies, and a mission that might change the world. Some see their new abilities as gifts, others as an affliction, but either way, they create a lot of attention and a shift in the country’s power-structure. Whedon explained the title and concept of the show to an audience at the 2018 SDCC...
“They, themselves are not called that [The Nevers] in the show. It’s a phrase that’s meant to evoke a sort of reaction to their oddity, to what is considered unnatural. The idea that you should never be like this, you should never have existed. Something is not the way it should be, and you don’t have the right to have whatever weird power or ability that you have. And that idea, that some people are not of the natural order, is fascinating to me. I don’t agree with it. But to me, it’s one of those things where you take something negative, and you wear it as a badge of honor, basically. Certain things could never happen – they’re happening. And the people they’re happening to are taking their place in the world…”
The cast includes Laura Donnelly, Ann Skelly. Olivia Williams, James Norton, Tom Riley, Rochelle Neil, Eleanor Tomlinson, Amy Manson, Pip Torrens, Denis O’Hare, Zackary Momoh, Elizabeth Berrington, Kiran Sawar, Anna Devlin, Viola Prettejohn, Ella Smith, Nick Frost, and Ben Chaplin.
This week the first real trailer for the series – which will debut on HBO in the US and Sky in the UK in April – and it promises a lot. From fire-ball throwing figures to steampunk cars, from umbrella-wielding martial-arts to a grave-site surrounded by people of all shapes and sizes (look carefully and there’s a giant!) it appears that there’s a solid mixture of VFX and traditional derring-do.
The show was originally commissioned for a ten-episode first season, but only six episodes were completed ahead of the COVID delays. The second part of filming (which may run beyond the remaining four) will be over-seen by Goslett with those episodes seen at a later date.
