Renegade Nell

In the main, Renegade Nell is tight, bold and full of heart. I can’t see viewers feeling robbed.

With a bold premise and an array of fantastic performances, Renegade Nell is an action-packed, fairy tale-tinged swashbuckler with something to say.

The production looks as good as any serious period piece, and the comedy is all the better for the persuasive richness of the setting. To borrow a word from the highwayman’s infamous greeting, “Nell” delivers.

While the first half is tighter than the second (with a bit of wheel spinning around the Episodes 5-7 period), thankfully we rise back up to full volume for a rousing finale that’s only marred by the usual streaming show faults (abysmal lighting during exciting and needed-to-be-seen action scenes). But despite the blemishes on Renegade Nell’s jacket, its charm wins out.

Renegade Nell is well-paced and energetic, has a rollicking soundtrack, and delivers satisfying twists and turns en route to a crowd-pleasing finale as Nell finds herself confronting a deadly plot to destroy Queen Anne.

Renegade Nell is clever, well-paced, funny, and well worth the watch.

Renegade Nell is, clearly, a romp and not meant to be taken terribly seriously.

We hope is that Wainwright manages to balance the whimsical parts of Renegade Nell with the more dramatic parts. It feels like the whimsical dropped off quickly by the end of the first episode, and it needs to be there for the series to be watchable. But it’s off to a good start.

Like a lot of period pieces these days, the show is amusing, intelligent and very well executed, and it shrewdly exploits its comic and magical elements to get away with audience-friendly anachronisms of language, behavior and casting. The corollary, and perhaps the consequence, is that it feels like an exceedingly clever card trick — well worth the “Ooh,” but unlikely to linger in the mind.

Brisk, 40-minute episodes — shared by directors Amanda Brotchie, M.J. Delaney and Ben Taylor — ensure the show remains this side of genial, however, and “Nell” eventually shrugs off the burdens of worldbuilding to reveal what in the sterile context of Disney+ originals resembles something like an authored personality.

The opening episode is strong, grounding the story in Nell’s family life. The further we get into the supernatural stuff, though, the more it feels like a rejected episode of Doctor Who. A truly memorable heroine is left battling through a script that isn’t worthy of her.

It’s great to see an action-adventure with a young woman in the lead role as Disney+’s “Renegade Nell” offers. But this series is too violent for its intended audience of kids, teens and families.