Screenshot: HBO Max
The Nevers was to be Joss Whedon’s triumphant return to television, his first original series since 2010’s
Dollhouse. In the interim, of course, he made
The Avengers and co-created Marvel’s
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series, but HBO Max’s new drama about female Victorian superheroes seemed to be a return to form for Whedon after nearly a decade entrenched in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But what’s ironic is that
The Nevers, rather than being an original new act, feels like someone else playing around in Whedon’s IP: an Orphanage setting reminiscent of the Dollhouse, down to the same overseer in actress Olivia Williams; a grating antagonist spouting Drusilla’s rejected dialogue from