HBO Lands Joss Whedon Sci-Fi Series ‘The Nevers’

I hope it is good. I'm cautiously intrigued.

#metoo

I'm anticipating bosom-heaving lesbos, but not a gay man in sight.

Yeah it is a given one of the women will be lesbian/bi r3.

It's also a given that one of them will be mentally abused, another raped, and that most of them will be berated for having a vagina whilst they'll have their special abilities to "balance" it out a create THE PERFECT FEMINIST TALE. Let's be honest, Whedon's writing of female character hasn't changed much from the 90's - aka, where it should belong.

And yes, I have watched BTVS. But I also watched, BTVS, Angel and parts of Dollhouse & Firefly.

[quote] a gang of Victorian women who find themselves with unusual abilities, relentless enemies, and a mission that might change the world.

Wasn’t this an episode of Sherlock?

Of course there will be gays and lesbians and bisexuals. The thing that's weird to me is that it sounds like he intends to direct everything. Maybe hire a woman to helm an episode here and there? And he should really get some female writers while he's at it.

r5 That's my fear, i.e. that it's going to be dated because he'll want to write everything.

R6 Maybe you're thinking of Doctor Who?

The plot sounds like a rip-off from Pride, Prejudice & Zombies and yeah Doctor Who and the Alien Lizard detective and her human companion.

r8 I think R6 was making a joke about Freeman and Cumberbatch.

r9 Seems similar to 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' to me.

Not sure there'll be any gay men, R7. There were none in Firefly or Dollhouse and only blink and you miss them characters in the many seasons of Buffy and Angel (and no, I don't count 'coded-gay' characters like Andrew and Lorne).

It sounds woeful already.

Yeah it is definitely true Joss Whedon doesn't have a noteworthy history of gay male representation.

He fucked up a lot of the little details about Victorian Spike. Hope he does his research this time.

r12 But that was ages ago when it comes to gay representation. I'm telling you, he's going to lean extra hard into it this time around. He knows how awful it is that there wasn't a single gay guy on Buffy.

Buffy was always a mess on that front; it took them 7 seasons to get a decent, recurring black character and apparently Sunnydale was devoid of Asians and Latinos* even though it's set in California.

*unless it was time for some thematic ancient evil/curse episode.

"victorian women with superpowers"?? Really? Are we in a particularly retarded episode of Family Guy?

That was hardly Buffy specific, just indicative of the era. TV shows were a lot whiter then. I mean can you imagine "Friends" starting now with an all white cast? It wouldn't happen.

HBO still loves its super white shows. Looking at you, Succession.

R19 Friends is not the show that's constantly being hailed as being so innovative, inclusive and ahead of its time - though.

Buffy was innovative and ahead of its time on several fronts. Of course, time catches up with everything, plus we've discovered how important inclusivity, diversity, and representation can be since then.

We only got our first gay guy on Star Trek last year, and that show was designed to be ahead of its time in all sorts of ways, but especially when it comes to societal issues.

I don't know how he manages to be so bland and repulsive at the same time. It's like somebody vomited up an egg white omelet and it became famous.

R22 Except for #4, Buffy just wasn't that innovative... which is flagrant if you knew of the shows that came it and actually broke new grounds.

Buffy's greatest "innovation" is the combination of shows that existed before it did/got successful.

I don't know, I think Todd VanDerWerff and Caroline Framke kinda know what they're talking about there.

R25 Buffy is a mix of Scooby-Doo & The X-Files with a soap inkling. Its success and mainstream apeal influenced quite a lot of teen shows, but also led the networks to consider them viable.

Shows like Twin Peaks (serialized tv), I Love Lucy (sitcom), Law & Order (procedural), The X-Files (mix of arcs and procedural), My So-Called Life (teen show not dumbing down characters), Desperate Housewives (network dramedy) would be what I call INFLUENTIAL. You could even add Lost, but I see it more as phenomenon, like Heroes was, than an intrinsic influence on TV.

I'm hesitant after Dollhouse. That turned out to be a big mess.

It's strange - he gets lauded for his portrayal of strong women.

But, I've always gotten the undercurrent that it's more akin to gamers who always create female characters when they play games. It's actually pretty common for hardcore gaming guys to choose to play female characters because they prefer to watch the women and the cliched "girl fight."

He's raping me with his new series! Why won't he just retire?

Buffy was a really complex and iconic female character r28. Joss does deserve credit for bringing that to television.

But then he gave us Marti Noxon and the last several seasons of Buffy, so it blew all that to shit.

R30 Buffy was developed enough, but calling her "very complex" is a stretch and a half.

[quote]Buffy was a really complex and iconic female character [R28]. Joss does deserve credit for bringing that to television.

Setting aside whether I agree or disagree that Buffy was either complex or iconic, it doesn't negate my point or the undercurrent to his storytelling.

All women? Nope, not a fan of an all women cast (with a few exceptions, Charmed being one). You can just bet one of them will be a lesbian. Still hardly any gay male characters on tv while we're overflowing with lesbians... fun stuff.

Victorian era hmm? So he picked it so he could keep it white and misogynist as possible while going ~it’s true to the era!!!!!1!!~

So, it's like some anti Handmaid's Tale? Handmaid's Tale is really hot right now.

Whedon's idea of "feminism" is to feature hot, young, mainly white chicks that fanboys can wank over.

His idea of being "pro-gay" is to have said hot chicks be lesbian while still being very hot and feminine, many of whom will have had relationships with men. No gay men allowed.

It's all straight boy wank material and none of it is progressive in any way.

And isn't he another metoo creeper?

Wonder which of his faves will join the cast? I wouldn't mind seeing Eliza and Dichen be part of the show.

Casting kicks off with Laura Donnelly, recipient of the Best Actress award at the 2018 Olivier Awards. Loved her turn on Outlander; she's a fierce one!

[quote]UK actress Donnelly will play Amalia True, the most reckless, impulsive, emotionally damaged hero of her time. A menace to stuffy Victorian society, she would die for the cause and kill for a drink. “Laura Donnelly has charisma, wisdom and an anarchic precision that not only captures Amalia but defines her,” said Whedon. “She’s fierce and she’s funny – and I need both for the journey ahead.”

[quote]Whedon, who serves as showrunner, executive produces with Jane Espenson, Doug Petrie and Bernie Caulfield.

Espenson and Petrie are also writers on this, which makes me hugely optimistic.

While it's great that he creates strong women characters in his stories, there's something about it that doesn't sit right.

He's like those gamers who ALWAYS creates a female alt in the character creator and play as girl. Not the T issue, but more like some madonna-whore complex, except with strong women and wanting to dominate or control them or something.

Where his female characters always fail is that they don't have strong male characters. The women are strong because the men are weak(er). Agents of Shield does it a bit better with characters like May or Stargate with Col. Carter or of course, Ripley and Sarah Connor.

Joss Whedon basically has one type of strong female character, so I don't understand why people still consider him such a feminist.

Buffy was groundbreaking.

Twenty years ago.

LOL at the box-ticking going on here. If he’s to be truly PC, you know there’ll be trans, too.

She's just his type, re: R39. Amy Ackers must no longer appeal to him, ahem.

R23, your comment was perfect.

Amy Acker was no Olivier Award winner before getting cast on Angel. If you want to speculate who Joss is or will be fucking this time around, you'll have to wait for more casting announcements.

As long as Jane Espenson's involved, and Marti Noxon's allowed nowhere within a hundred yards of the script, I'm prepared to give it a chance.

Buffy was also just a better TV series than it had any right to be r41. The best episodes of Buffy are iconic, Joss has some real talent so people are interested in what he does next.

Joss has never worked for a medium like HBO, don't know if he is going to stick to his same style or make it more "adult" because he can.

His own ex wife wrote a piece which seemed legit only a year or so ago about what a nasty piece of work he was, fake feminist using his 'woke' cred and power as a show runner to bed many young actresses - yet he gets a #meetoo pass and companies in a bidding war over his new show?!

r47 Crap, you're right. Yeah, it will be interesting to see if he takes it in an (even more) adult direction.

The only thing he has been accused of his cheating on his wife r48. No woman has come forward saying they felt assaulted by Whedon.

Exactly. The wife felt (rightfully) bitter as she had been the joke of the town for so long, and so penned that letter. I don't blame her but let's not compare this to actual instances of sexual assault. Also, not one actress came forward and said she felt like she needed to have sex with him in order to get/keep her job.

He's a hopeless pussyhound like Seth Macfarlane and we might all be repulsed by that, but there's no #MeToo to be found here.

It may not be #meetoo level, we just dont know. However he based his entire brand, reputation and subsequent very well paid work on being a woke feminist, whilst he fucked all the young starlets hoping for a leg up in the business ( coerced or not)

- i have decades of experience with guys like this, i would put money on him having used his position inappropriately whilst getting work writing 'feminist' roles. Lefty woke male feminists are the worst.

Well, until someone comes forward, I'll assume that wasn't the case. The pre-MeToo era was murky and gross when it came to showrunners casting their concubines in their projects, or starting to fuck them during production. It was an established and tolerated system and everyone just kind of went along with it, even the woke lefties. I'm sure that has changed a lot since then and everyone is more professional (read: careful) these days.

Yeah, his wife's letter and the subsequent media coverage gave the perfect opportunity for some women who worked with him to speak out. No one did.

Someone cheating on their spouse is not a crime nor something I care about as long as the sex was consensual.

Sure Jan. Just a bit of light extra marital cheating. Nothing to see here...

Whilst ignoring the fact he built his entire brand on being feminist - most of whom i would have thought didnt think it ok to fuck the people who work under them, but whatever.

What he did to his wife was abusive enough for me. It made me sick to read about it. He truly gaslighted her. She developed full PTSD from his act. This was no typical cheating on your wife scumminess. It was full on psychological abuse and it went on for years.

And he definitely promoted the careers of actresses he slept with. He may not have forced them, but he is part of the system and made full use of his privilege. He gave jobs to girls he had sex with, expanded their roles, and abandoned them professionally according to his own whims.

I want no part of a human being who does that kind of thing and won’t watch his stuff any longer. I am disappointed in HBO for taking him on. There are better writers out there, but privilege begets privilege.

R37 said it best— Whedon’s oeuvre is for straight men to wank over. He’s a false feminist.

How many misogynistic showrunners are out there who also fucked younger actresses and defintiely didn't give us an iconic character like Buffy? I don't know about you but I'll save my tiki torches for those first... when someone comes out with an allegation. Until then, what they do in their bedrooms is private business between adults.

[quote]Whedon’s oeuvre is for straight men to wank over.

Which definitely explains the gay following Buffy has. For sure.

Yes of course you are right you fucking apologist ( and possible friend of Wheldon from your refusal to even see that a modern day equivalent of fucking the help is not ok) - we should all be basing our discretion for this sort behaviour on the creative output on the man involved, you want to give him a pass because he created Buffy? Seriously?

And this Ladies is why we still live up to our armpits with sexist cunts taking advantage everywhere.

Oh goodie, more work!

Just make sure my IUD is in place.

Apparently he's the reason Alyson and Amber didn't get along during Buffy. He liked to stir trouble between the actors. I always wondered why Sarah didn't seem to be a big fan of him.

Never heard that R61. But you have to pity his wife's timing. IIRC, she penned that letter a few months before ME TOO took off. If only, girl.

Jillian Morgese (right) was almost certainly one of his. Her first role was as an extra in Avengers, then a lead in his next film, and almost nothing since.

I thought SMG and Whedon got along okay. It is Boreanaz who loathes him due to money issues and the way Charisma was treated.

The story goes that SMG and Whedon both thought that the other didn't appreciate the their contribution for the show's popularity. But I think time has mellowed that.

Charisma has confirmed she was fired because she was pregnant, but IIRC, she'd lost pregnancies before and waited to tell the bosses until she was about 4-5 months along, so they didn't have much time to work around it.

As for Boreanaz, he cheated on his Playboy Playmate wife while she was pregnant and literally every story I've heard from a Hollywood underling describes him as a jerk to the "little people". He has lived a charmed life, as he has not been off TV since Buffy.

It wasn’t just pregnancy with Charisma Carpenters he was obsessed with her and harassed her non stop. It’s an open secret.

I've literally never heard that R65. And while Charisma is gorgeous, he's always had a TYPE

He sho' is ugly!

Charisma is too womanly, voluptuous for Joss's tastes. He likes those little tittied waifs like Acker and Glau.

Why can't he cast SMG??

I keep hearing mixed things about Charisma. There's a rumour that Joss thought she'd developed a drinking problem and wanted her to get help. Apparently it was an overreaction to what happened with Glen Quinn.

As for the pregnancy, I can see both sides. Charisma not wanting to tell Joss until the 3 months mark is perfectly normal. But the downside is that foreshadowing (which seems to be a rarity in tv shows) is one of Whedon's trademarks. To this day season 4 still gets a lot of hate lol. But I'm glad Cordy came back for season 5.

[quote] Why can't he cast SMG??

Lack of talent.

There was a blind item that came out a few months ago saying she wasn't going to be asked to appear in the Buffy reboot, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing. Has there been anymore info since they made the announcement? Besides the fact that she'll be black.

r69 SMG has kinda semi-retired from big acting gigs at this point.

R73 by choice? I enjoyed Ringer and I know she was supposed to be part of a Cruel Intentions tv show which fell through. Unless Foodstirs really is her true passion now.

r74 Yes, by choice. The baking/shilling community is her new tribe now. Has been for quite some time, actually. She still does some voice acting.

The new series sounds Five by Five.

Bette says tune in to “The Nevahs!”

R76 it could be if it's about Fray.

The Whedon divorce was VERY quiet until the Mrs. threw her grenade with that OP-Ed. They were making movies together and then...poof. About 6 months prior, Joss was overheard telling a friend very casually that they only communicate about the children through their housekeepers.

I'm sure she was hoping it would end up a Bill Cosby career-ending sitch, but no accusations came forward and he didn't fan the flames.

This was his most obvious case. Scroll down to the comments.

Those comments are indeed interesting. Seems like she was thirsty for it and look at where that thirst got her.

[quote]Joss was overheard telling a friend very casually that they only communicate about the children through their housekeepers.

Imagine the information loss when translating to Spanish and then back into English again. Those poor kids.

She hasn't done anything of note since. Bravo, thirsty girl

[Quote] This is a bit inaccurate. She had a fan-girl crush, coincidentally ran into him at the Marvel office during wardrobe fittings, told him what a fan she was and strategically conversed with him again on set. It wasn’t like he just noticed her out of the blue on the first day of shooting.

LOL

He really does have a type.

While she, Glau, and Acker don't look alike, they all have the same look.

R83 they played cousins and could pass for twins

Er, sisters, not twins. Fuck the lack of an edit button

Morgese was good in Much Ado. So was Acker.

Acker's good in everything.

He’s still gross.

R88 he's still getting jobs.

Cheating on your wife, while shitty, is not illegal or a career-ender. No one has come forward to say he harassed or assaulted them.

This is going to be amazing because - like I've said in the OP last year - Whedon will have something to prove. And HBO is going to be on his ass constantly to turn it out as much as he can.

But more importantly, we now know Espenson is involved. I just hope they fill the writers room with younger female writers as well, to make the problems and the themes extra relevant to today's audiences. This can't come across as dated in any way apart from the period setting.

[quote]Sunnydale was devoid of Asians and Latinos* even though it's set in California.

Captain Marvel (2019) is set in California , apparently Asians and Latinos still don't exist.

R92 are you saying having SLJ wasn't enough?

Weren't there casting couch stories about Whedon a while back?

R94 about Acker and Glau?

Well, that's just silly. Nobody is going to notice the lack of Mexicans in Los Angeles.

R96 right?!

Let me guess - lots of quirky banter and snarky one-liners.

R98 that's his schtick. Although I don't think Dollhouse was as bad in that regard.

What confuses me is that this show is going to be on HBO. Doesn't it look a bit too tame and family friendly for them? It's basically a Doctor Who spin off rip off. Where's the edge?

[quote]Doesn't it look a bit too tame and family friendly for them?

They haven't seen a single frame of it so it can't possibly look like anything to them. However, there had to have been something in that pitch to trigger a bidding war and the show landing on HBO of all places.

[quote]Where's the edge?

Language, violence, nudity, adult themes being explored, all of that combined...

Ugh, it was more than simply cheating. Let that sink in.

I don’t give a shot about people’s personal lives or values unless there’s abuse involved. In this case, there was, even if it only involved the casting couch.

He’s slimy and there are better writers out there.

HBO should give some else a chance.

[Quote] I don’t give a shot about people’s personal lives or values unless there’s abuse involved. In this case, there was, even if it only involved the casting couch. He’s slimy and there are better writers out there.

Has Eliza ever said anything negative about him?

[bold]Joss Whedon Sets Full Cast for HBO's 'The Nevers'[/bold]

[quote]The 12 new cast members are James Norton (Grantchester), Olivia Williams (Dollhouse, Counterpart), Tom Riley (Da Vinci's Demons), Ann Skelly (Vikings), Ben Chaplin (Cinderella), Pip Torrens (Poldark), Zackary Momoh (Seven Seconds), Amy Manson (Once Upon a Time), Nick Frost (Into the Badlands, Hot Fuzz), Rochelle Neil (Episodes), Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark), Denis O'Hare (Big Little Lies, American Horror Story) join previously announced lead Laura Donnelly in the ensemble. Additional casting will be announced later.

James Norton, Pip Torrens, and Denis O'Hare, holy shit! Character breakdowns are in the linked article.

Sounds like James Norton's character is the show's Jack Harkness.

That's...not unappealing.

r105 Agreed. Has James Norton ever kissed a guy on screen before?

R106 Yes, in the Viriginia Woolfe thing a few years ago

LOVE Laura, she had like two scenes in The Fall Season One and she just shone, how followed her since and never disappointed LOVE HER

Olivia Williams is sophistication personified.

[quote][R106] Yes, in the Viriginia Woolfe thing a few years ago

Link please.

How are Victorian dressed women going to kick ass?

Stephen Moffat demonstrated that one on Doctor Who.

Also Josh Logan - Eva Green banished Satan fully dressed in Victorian attire, just by opening her mouth.

*JOHN Logan, Jesus!

R108 she was great on Dollhouse.

More than a dozen regulars, big cast.

R155 Six more! Character breakdowns are in the article.

[quote]Kiran Sonia Sawar, Elizabeth Berrington, Ella Smith, Viola Prettejohn, Anna Devlin and Martyn Ford are set to join a packed previously announced cast

That guy with the tats is.... wow. I would #MeToo him if I were a casting director, sorry not sorry. 🤤

R106: Norton played gay and kissed more than one man in the TV miniseries Life In Squares in which he played the Bloomsbury Group's Duncan Grant. I believe he also kissed a guy in the movie Bonobo.

Joss has "exited" The Nevers.

Damn that's crazy r118. I think they have finished filming the first season, so I guess if HBO wants to continue it they would have to find someone else to take it over. I am guessing it will end up being cancelled after the season airs. That really sucks for everyone else involved in the show.

R119 it's been a downward trajectory since Ultron. And i saw Ray Fischer bragging about it on twitter.