Joss Whedon will be writing, directing, and producing a new show for HBO titled The Nevers about Victorian women discovering they have supernatural powers and kicking ass. I suspect the title The Nevers is like a combination of the #nevertrump and #metoo movements. Perhaps some horrible, horrible things happen to them, and some otherworldly or heavenly force bestows powers on the ensemble of women to exact revenge on their misogynist overlords. This show is probably going to be very good. He does need to survive a backlash that is currently going on in the media which reads as parody.
We’ll get to that in a second.
Joss Whedon understands and writes great characters. More importantly he knows how to write for ensembles. Perhaps even more importantly he also seems to write wonderful, believable female characters. He doesn’t just “think of a man and remove all reason and accountability” like Jack in As Good as it Gets. Whedon’s characters are well-rounded and fully developed by the time they leave us. I would have never thought I would enjoy Buffy the Vampire Slayer until two episodes started following my daily 6am routine of drinking coffee, smoking, and watching reruns of Northern Exposure on A&E back in 2001. That three-hour blast of greatness got my ass outta bed and off to class (most of the time).
Fast forward to Firefly and Serenity or what I used to market to my skeptical friends as “The Adventures of Han Solo“. Awesome show. Great Film.
Actually let’s back up a bit to Alien Resurrection, the very film that got many movie lovers into internet movie website scoops. Alien 4 is not a very good film. Whedon got the crew right but turned Ripley into a Terminator instead of the unstoppable mamma-bear in Aliens. It didn’t work. The crew were believable though, and they had relationships that predated the genuine horrors that go on throughout that film. Contrast that with the strangers in Predators showing pictures of their kids to each other during quiet moments. That Russian guy might as well have put a red shirt on and screamed “I’m going to die within 45 minutes, but it will be a good death.” That movie sucked.
But how about Marvel’s The Avengers!? A seemingly impossible task that ended up being one of the greatest movies of all time. Bravo, Joss Whedon.
Cabin in the Woods?! Awesome. Even the Whedon-produced Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D eventually found its groove and remains one of my favorite shows.
But some people would rather talk about how his philandering during all this fame and success should disinterest people. Actually that wasn’t the problem, there’s nothing wrong with consensual affairs apparently, kids be damned, what M.E.W. at Salon takes issue with is how he described the very real phenomenon of young needy women throwing themselves at a powerful rich guy who is clearly a shy geek. Has Mary ever seen Joss talk in an interview?
Look, a lifetime nerd with the cast of Charmed throwing themselves at him is going to break almost every single time.
Men like that don’t have a manual for this shit. Let Bill Burr describe the situation for me:
Anyway I am excited for his new show. Here’s a more complete story from The Hollywood Reporter that doesn’t pontificate too much like I just did.
Rock on you Victorian badass women, I know this is going to work.
Cheers!
-IDH
Thanks to www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com for the featured image.
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