Joss Whedon is about to make a spectacular return to TV.

The Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator, and The Avengers director, has an “epic” new sci-fi series that was just greenlit by HBO.

Titled The Nevers, the series is described as “an epic science fiction drama about a gang of Victorian women who find themselves with unusual abilities, relentless enemies, and a mission that might change the world.”

Says Whedon, who will serve as showrunner: “I honestly couldn’t be more excited. The Nevers is maybe the most ambitious narrative I’ve created, and I can’t imagine a better home for it than HBO. Not only are they the masters of cinematic long-form, but their instant understanding of my odd, intimate epic was as emotional as it was incisive. It’s been too long since I created an entirely new fictional world, and the HBO team offer not just scope and experience, not just ‘prestige,’ but a passionate collaboration. I could go on, but — I’m impatiently grateful to say — I have work to do.”

HBO won the series in a bidding war with rival Netflix, sources say. It gave the project a direct-to-series order, a relative rarity for the network