by chance i saw a trailer for never have i ever on netflix and i'm really glad that i did because
this is not something i've been made aware of and i don't really know if i would have watched it
had i found out about it because it's about a high school teenager a high school girl and i
tend to not watch tv shows where they're the protagonist because i just feel like
i can't really relate anymore but i saw the trailer for this uh or a clip of the first episode
and just thought actually yeah kind of need to give this a go and i'm glad that i did it's not
perfect but there's a lot about it that i want to praise now i've only seen the first episode
i am only discussing the first episode there will be yes there will be spoilers in this for what
happens in the first episode so if you just want to know whether or not i think it's worth watching
yes because it's creative it's very unique i've never seen a show like this the one thing i will
say is that i'm struggling to place the target audience because it deals with put it this way
you wouldn't find it on nickelodeon or the disney channel but it's not really you know with a high
school casting it's not really aimed at adults so i don't really know where to place it i guess
there's this there are a lot of shows like this on netflix actually where it's kind of a hybrid
target audience of more mature high school age people uh teenagers they're called um or maybe
young adults or somebody looking for something that's just really funny even if they can't relate
if that sounds like you give it a go let me know what you think of the first episode so spoilers
from now this is about a character called devi uh or debbie it's pronounced in the episode and yeah
i still can't pronounce it properly and what's particularly interesting is the way in which
this is narrated um i'll get to that in a moment but basically she is a first generation indian
american going to high school this is apparently inspired by mindy kaling's own experiences
she co-founded co-founded co-created this with lang fisher so there's a name on there
that you know kind of inspires or instills a bit of confidence and the first episode
is called pilot it was released in 2020 and it basically introduces us to the character of davey
i have to say she was quite likable and i think in a way she's the every teenager
because well because of why she's called the um's um she and her two friends are referred to as the
uns which is not very nice nickname but i think it's a position that a lot of people maybe feel
they would be in as well and in a way because she's not part of the popular clique she's not
necessarily the nerdy clique um she's kind of in the middle and it works really well the character
writing across the board i think works really well um but it's her first day um as a sophomore
and her plan is to become one of the cool kids and we meet her friends
who are kind of being robbed into this mission where this year they will become popular and
to do that they're going to get boyfriends and this is kind of this theme of the first episode
but what's also interesting is that she's trying to shake off an old label and i don't know why
this happened i don't know if this is something that mindy kaling went through
and it's inspired by her own childhood or if this is a fictitious aspect please tell me if you know
uh if it's something kaelin went through wow um if it's something that was made up for the show
not really sure how i feel about that but anyway previously we learned that davey was just randomly
paralyzed she became paralyzed from the waist down for no known reason and then a year after
spending a year in a wheelchair she just could walk again pretty impressive and now she's trying
not only to get a boyfriend but to shake off that label of being the girl in the wheelchair
and we get to see a lot about her she's a very raw character her emotions are very much on the
surface and she has a grief counselor who she opens up to a lot about those scenes are not
depressing as they sound they are actually very comedic because of davey's personality i find
that she's very open she's very outspoken maybe a bit too outspoken she's not shy and reserved
she is very forward and i kind of liked the character and i think that's why it worked
for me and a lot of the humor comes from her dialogue or a lot of things that she kind of
internalizes um and then just shouts out about to herself i think it works very
well i think the costuming is great the set designs are great we spend a lot of time both
in her house and at the school everything works really beautifully everything looks really nice
the editing is particularly good as well there's one thing that i don't really understand
and that's because i'm just watching the first episode but it's narrated by
john mcenroe who is a name i was aware of his name i was aware of who he was um
he's a former professional tennis player it's kind of hinted at why he was narrating this
but not really and i kind of hope that they go into more details about that
because it's a little bit unusual that you'd have this former tennis player narrating the
story of a teenage girl and that is a little bit jarring sometimes because usually when something
is being narrated it's the protagonist's voice over maybe their internal monologue but to have
could i say an old man that's offensive amy to have an elderly man or at least an older man um
narrating this it feels a little bit unusual but it it's also kind of easy to forget
to forget that is not the same voice and also to remember that he's narrating her story
and it works so much more than i thought it would do and i'm so impressed with it
and there are a lot of things in this that are quite creative and unique that work really well
one thing that i love because i was coming towards the end of the first episode and i was thinking
will i continue with this will i keep watching this i'm not sure
but then right towards the end and i said this contains spoilers
she decides to walk up to somebody and say will you have sex with me
and obviously this guy says yes even though it's a very unlikely pairing and that's basically the
end of the episode and now i'm thinking wait what is that going to happen will they go
through with that if they do what's the moral of this message what is davey going to learn
there are a lot of questions that i have after that first episode and i really want to find
answers to them so it's really clever in making me want to watch more so i think i probably will
i think i will continue with the next episode at least i'm not
100 sure if i will watch all of it by which i mean i'm not so hooked in
that i'm desperate to binge watch the entire first season that are i believe two seasons um
but so far i am certainly very curious to see what happens and they've done that very well
it's very well put together really enjoy it if you have heard of it but have not made up your
mind about watching it definitely give it a go i think you'll like it if you hadn't heard of it
check it out let me know what you think a lot more impressive than i thought
very creative as i said struggle to kind of identify well i'm struggling to pigeonhole
it but then maybe that's not a bad thing nothing in life should have to be pigeonholed
i enjoyed the first episode of never have i ever looking forward to watching the next