I guess there are many opinions about Whedon nowadays, with all that gossip behind the scenes of Justice League and Buffy and some claims he is not the easiest person to work with, in best case. It's hard to know the truth about what happened and it's very easy to judge. Any intense interaction with people over long periods of time can lead to some complications. So I don't want to say anything about Whedon on a personal level, don't know him, have no idea what he is like, he may as well be a toxic despot and unbearable person to work with. Don't care. I am here to judge his creative results, I only hope all the rumors are greatly exaggerated.

And so, from the creative perspective I can safely say that the man is a true visionary, a world creator. He may not be a great director, not even close, but you cannot take away from him the fact that the man has brilliant imagination and unique vision, and he creates entire universes full of life. The width of his vision is just enormous, his worlds can support huge number of characters and events, and every story will be amazing and interesting to reveal.

After watching all 12 episodes I admit that The Nevers is unevenly paced, not always coherent and sometimes dull, overly melodramatic in some places too. It is demanding watching experience, not easy to watch, and it is completely unsuitable for a one episode per week type of release. Watching the show is like a long meditation, you need to disconnect, need to remove all distractions from your surroundings, you need to give it all your attention for its entirety and you need to watch multiple episodes at once to fully appreciate what is being done here. This show is not for people that have to check their phones constantly or to pause the show because they can't sit in one spot without moving for more than 3 minutes. For such people the show will have no logic, they will not be able to understand what is going on in front of them and they will be bored out of their mind.

Whedon's brilliance is in constructing the entire world from the biggest picture to the smallest details. When writer creates such a world he is not worrying about feeding the viewers with a spoon, he is slowly revealing the world and all its details when the story needs him to. In that aspect Whedon is anti-Kurtzman, who understands that he needs to stimulate his viewers every 3 minutes with something that will keep their attention for another 3 minutes. But while Kurtzman's shows are only good for few first episodes, after which it's clear that beyond cheap tricks and stunts Kurtzman's worlds are flat and have no real substance, Whedon's worlds are just so rich and complex and you can't fully comprehend everything that they mean.

The Nevers and Firefly are probably the best example of Whedon's unconformity to the common storytelling forms and concepts that are required from the TV writers if they want to see their show renewed. The brilliance of his vision is not immediate, it takes time and repeating viewings to fully digest it and realize what a masterpiece his shows really are. His characters are flawed, complex and flexible, and can undergo extreme changes over their lives. For the writer, it's incredibly hard to do, to plan the character's arc in correlation not only to the created world, but also in correlation to all other characters. It's very hard to build up the characters in the ever changing world and navigate each and one of them inside the story with meticulous attention to all the events, even smallest, that can change them, even if the event is part of the story of another character. And Whedon is capable of doing that and the result is so very interesting and amazing to watch. I mean, in what show would you see a character like Maladie/Sarah? What writer will ever think to write a dialogue like hers? This titan of a character, among the best that Whedon ever created, will be lost and never properly appreciated because no one watched the show.

Indeed, The Nevers was doomed from the start, even without the rumors about Whedon. 10 years ago HBO would've been a great platform for Whedon not to care about ratings and how many viewers. But HBO today is not the HBO of The Wire and The Sopranos, they can't invest money into production that no one can watch during the original run and then hope that people will binge it when all episodes are available. HBO today does some interesting shows, but the network that keeps renewing crap like Westworld has no place for the show like The Nevers. The results should be immediate, or else. This is why creators like Kurtzman or Jonathan Nolan get money to run multiple shows at the same time, they got the formula that makes their superficial shows popular for a short time and then they move to the next show. Viewers today have too much options and they won't waste their time on the show that demands attention from them. Too bad, because The Nevers may not be best show on the TV, but it's written by a visionary mind and not so long ago it was important enough to give it a better chance.