Never Have I Ever – Made a Blog Post

Since there is a multitude of media, finding an average review scale to accommodate the media I will write about on this blog was a little difficult. However, I worked out a system in order to ensure that each review applies to all media, but is also able to properly judge the media it is intended for.

The ‘rubric’ I will be using to judge and review each media will include three categories. The three categories are characters, plot, and the most important category, enjoyment. Each category will be on a scale from 1-10 points. At the end, each category score will be added up for a total up to 30 points. But enough of the boring stuff, let’s get into the first ‘review.’

This week the chosen media I have decided to write about is a TV Show, or more specifically Netflix’s Never Have I Ever.

Never Have I Ever is about an Indian American teenage girl named Devi Vishwakumar, played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan. Devi and her two best friends, Eleanor Wong (Ramona Young) and Fabiola Torres (Lee Rodriguez), must navigate the difficult world of modern day high school. Never Have I Ever includes three seasons; the third season came out August 12 of 2022 and the fourth season is expected for sometime in 2023.

Characters:

Before I start actually reviewing the depth of the characters and their personalities, let me just get the obvious out of the way. The cast members of Never Have I Ever are all very attractive. The only issue with a cast being attractive is that sometimes the characters feel out of age for the role they are playing, but Never Have I Ever does well on maintaining a general ‘high schooler’ look.

Now that the obvious is out of the way, the main character for Never Have I Ever is Devi Vishwakumar. Devi is definitely, as they say in the south, a character. I’m going to state it simply, but the first two seasons Devi practically made every wrong decision. When given a choice Devi always picks the worst one, which left me irritated with her character. However, the writers knew how to also make Devi incredibly relatable. Devi lost her father recently and is just a normal high schooler trying to navigate growing up, which almost everyone can relate to, especially the intended audience of high schoolers and young adults. So despite Devi making all the wrong choices, the audience (including me), wants Devi to end up with a happy ending. Devi also expresses great character growth throughout the show, mainly in season three.

Eleanor Wong, Fabiola Torres, and Aneesa are all Devi’s best friends. Each character has their own little quirk and separate personalities that each add to Devi’s friend group. To me, the best way to determine if side characters are good or not is if they could stand alone in their own show. For these three characters I believe they all could have their own show because of their unique and entertaining personalities.

Devi also has a few love interests throughout three seasons. The main two love interest characters are Paxton Hall-Yoshida and Ben Gross. Paxton’s character is the classic ‘hot popular boy,’ but throughout the show the writers progress his character into something more. Ben’s character is highly complex, especially his relationship with Devi. Essentially both Ben and Paxton stand alone as characters apart from being Devi’s love interest. Both are seen as strong characters in the show, even when not playing the part of  ‘love interest.’

Nalini Vishwakumar and Kamala are both part of Devi’s family. Nalini is Devi’s mom and really gives the audience a rollercoaster of emotions. Nalini as a character helps relate the struggles of being a parent and losing a loved one. Kamala also is a strong character and shows struggles in her life that relate to people and helps influence other characters in the show.

Each character seems to be strong and special in their own way. They all interact in a different and unique way, which adds to the entertainment factor of the show. While the characters are all irritating at different points of the show, overall the audience wants each one to end up happy. For characters, the score is 8.

Plot:

I don’t want to spoil a lot, so I’ll keep the plot simple and to the point. The plot, just like Devi, is often irritating. It always seems like people should make better decisions and certain situations shouldn’t happen. However, each situation is reasonable to happen in a normal high school. While the plot can be irritating, it is always engaging and has fantastic resolutions. Since the plot is not only entertaining, but accurate to the real world and has good endings it gets a score of 7.5.

Enjoyment:

Despite being constantly annoyed with at least one character during the first two seasons, I enjoyed watching this show. Season three was overall the best season and really turned around my opinions of some characters and the opinion of the show overall. Never Have I Ever is entertaining, emotional, and features real life lessons and an overall positive story.

Devi’s life is different from mine in many ways, yet is also relatable in many ways. Which makes the show more impactful and memorable. The writing also adds to the enjoyment due to the funny lines. Along with the funny lines the writing also brings out the emotional side of the audience.

Due to the impact and overall humor of Never Have I Ever, I rate the show an 8 on enjoyment.

Final Score:

The final score of Never Have I Ever is 23.5/30, which I think is pretty good.

Thanks for reading and if you want to learn more (or read a more professional review) go to IMDB Never Have I Ever.