The Nevers

[Palanan]

Never heard of this before:





But I confess, I'm dazzled. I never thought I'd be tempted to sign up for HBO, ever.

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…but Laura Donnelly, Eleanor Tomlinson and Nick Frost?

Victorian lady X-Men in steampunk London?

Yes, please.

[Dire_Flumph]

It was a project Joss Whedon was working on before allegations started coming out against him and he stepped down. I'm looking forward to it as well, but seriously, if you do subscribe to HBO Max there is a HUGE backlog of great TV series to go through. The Wire alone remains one of the very best series I've ever watched.

[tomandtish]

It was a project Joss Whedon was working on before allegations started coming out against him and he stepped down. I'm looking forward to it as well, but seriously, if you do subscribe to HBO Max there is a HUGE backlog of great TV series to go through. The Wire alone remains one of the very best series I've ever watched.

Have to second The Wire. It's an awesome show.

I wish someone would release Homicide: Life on the Street in a streaming format but no joy so far.

[Palanan]

Watched the first episode, and that was…odd.

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Interesting, generally fun, but uneven in terms of tone and pacing. It never felt completely comfortable with itself, and it often felt strangely muted, as if certain moments were meant to zing but simply fizzled. The music in particular missed the mark—neither elegant nor sprightly, but falling somewhere in between, and never able to find the right mood, much less a personality of its own.

And yet, there were other moments which were quietly stunning, and there were hints of a truly otherworldly feel, even genuine wonder. Coexisting, sometimes, with echoes of an oddly modern sensibility. So uneven, yes—but also intelligent, and promising.

Laura Donnelly is good at playing complicated, difficult-to-like characters, and that’s certainly in evidence here. Unlike most of the Touched, it gradually comes out that she has two abilities—she’s a precog, but also supernaturally durable, which allows her to drop unharmed from several stories…and leads to an inevitable superhero landing.

Her partner in not-quite-crime is more interesting, “the Inventress,” as she’s called—essentially a female Victorian Tony Stark, with gadgets and devices that are just barely believable, which she creates using a subtle and fascinating talent.

The London they inhabit is not yet altered by the Touched, even though there are apparently hundreds of them, but much is made of the fact that it’s 1899 and the world is changing rapidly. But despite the costumes and the top-flight actors, this London itself doesn’t feel fully convincing—at least, not to those of us who are familiar with the period from British series set around this time.

Even so, it was enjoyable, if a little wobbly, but overall a promising start.

[Hopeless]

Forgive me but is this supposed to be the X Men in the 19th century?

Did they provide an explanation for their abilities or should we be on the look out for Mr Sinister and Apocalypse?

I'm not dissing this I'm simply providing the best explanation for what I watched in that trailer.

Well here's hoping its great!

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Hopeless
Forgive me but is this supposed to be the X Men in the 19th century?

Not directly, no.

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There is no “school” per se, although the main characters are providing refuge for some of the Touched at an orphanage. It’s a little unclear what they’re doing, other than finding Touched one by one and bringing them to the orphanage.

Originally Posted by Hopeless
Did they provide an explanation for their abilities or should we be on the look out for Mr Sinister and Apocalypse?

Yes, sort of—and no, probably not.

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There is at least a partial explanation at the very end of the first episode, which I’m still thinking on.

But there are no obvious supervillains being set up in the 20th-century sense, although there are certainly Dark Forces Afoot^TM.

[Zalabim]

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There is at least a partial explanation at the very end of the first episode, which I’m still thinking on.

But there are no obvious supervillains being set up in the 20th-century sense, although there are certainly Dark Forces Afoot^TM.

The beginning of the episode reminded me of The Misfits with its odd lightning storm, and the end of the episode did not not remind me of The Misfits, despite the differences.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Zalabim
The beginning of the episode reminded me of The Misfits with its odd lightning storm, and the end of the episode did not not remind me of The Misfits, despite the differences.

I am still not sure what to make of that ending. From the hints in the trailer and at the beginning of the episode, I assumed it was your standard spooky meteor that gives people weird powers.

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But what we got…was exquisitely beautiful, and I can’t work out if it was deliberately seeding the city or if it disintegrated over the city—or even crashed into the Thames.

It’s also not clear if everyone remembers what they saw, or if only the Touched did, or if no one does. You’d think that seeing a [REDACTED] piercing the clouds, scattering sparkly dust and maybe plowing into the river would, you know, be worth some headlines the next day, if not figure as a major turning point in the history of science, religion and humanity overall.

But that apparently didn’t happen, so the question is why. More thoughts and speculation below.

I watched it again, and enjoyed it more this time, although I still can’t bring myself to like the music.

But I had a better sense of how some things fit together, especially one monologue that had seemed random before—but instead might be the beginning of understanding it all.

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The first time I watched it, Maladie’s ranting on stage seemed like a delusional psychopath trapped in her own private reality.

But watching it again, with the upcoming ending in mind, it seems clear she’s talking about what she and everyone else in London saw that day—but which only she seems to remember. Everything she said describes what she saw—“He was all light,” etc.—and she recognizes that what she saw is the cause of the Touched.

And she knows that everyone else can’t remember, which means she’s not entirely disconnected from reality. She may be one step closer to understanding it than anyone else thus far.

One other aspect really stuck out to me:

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The costumes were very well-done and seemed period enough, with one glaring exception. The fire-throwing woman with Maladie, who I’ll call Hot Stuff, was wearing a costume that was somewhere between Mortal Kombat and a James Bond villain. It was overwhelmingly modern, and while it would fit right into an issue of X-Men from 1986, it was downright jarring in the London of 1899.

Fact is, Hot Stuff looked like she stepped out of a Pathfinder supplement on sorcerers. She looked great on her own, but unless she was also Touched with seamstress powers, I have to wonder who she found to actually make it.

And speaking of visitations, memory loss and the Great Whatever:

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The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced the Whatever was deliberately seeding London. Its passage over London was too stately and controlled, and the release of the glowing dust was too deliberate, almost like a crop-duster making a pass. After that it seemed to dissolve itself and plunge into the earth, but that also felt very deliberate.

Combine that with the near-total memory wipe that seemed to take place among the witnesses—with the sole exception of Maladie. We know that she was already having mental issues before the Whatever appeared, and it seems likely that her insanity prevented the memory wipe from having the intended effect on her.

So whatever the Great Whatever is—alien starship, celestial being, time traveller, etc.—it seems to have had a plan. Maladie isn’t part of that plan, but she’s trying to find answers, using methods natural to the criminally insane. And I can see her doing her unhinged best to undermine it once she works out the truth.

I’m really starting to like this show.

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