User Reviews

I started Devs last night and stopped cold in episode 3. A helicopter lands. Forest, the eccentric tech founder, walks out to meet it. A senator steps off. He is polite, almost deferential. She already knows the map: his company didn’t just win the quantum race, it wiped out the field. She has hearings. He manages her. The scene works as plot. It also follows a rule that runs through a lot of prestige TV in recent years: when a minority woman is put in institutional power, she arrives composed, briefed, and intellectually airtight. Doubt, vanity, and moral gray stay with the white male lead. His flaws are character. Her having any would be an insult. I am 65. I remember when minority roles were written as servants or afterthoughts. I also remember the long institutional "corrections" that followed. This is the later habit: repair turned into a convention. The people who made those choices usually call the motive benevolent. But that does not stop the scene from reading like a statement. You are no longer only watching two people negotiate a secret. You are watching an industry tell you what authority is supposed to look like. Devs did not invent it. It is one clean example. Once you see the pattern, the helicopter landing is hard to watch as just a scene.

Devs is certainly an unusual series. In general, you don't expect anything else from Alexander Garland. This is how his projects attract their attention. But Devs starts as a very interesting Sci-Fi with a philosophical subtext, and immediately fascinates. And it ends with the fact that you, as a viewer who came here for Sci-Fi, is betrayed. The last 8th episode completely destroys all the logic. As if they wanted to squeeze the viewer with the idea of determinism, and then suddenly throw a philosophical melodrama into the final. That's the difference between Devs and Dark. Devs merges and falls apart because of such a finale as an integral work, and Dark goes to the end into a solid Sci-Fi and gives the best and most thoughtful finale in Sci-Fi series. The first 4 episodes are top, but then less and less logic and consistency and more and more chatter and philosophical subtext. As a result, it turns out that Devs almost perfectly asks the main question, what torments a person. But I'm afraid to give him an honest answer.

I loved this. Great sci fi, in that it has one big banger technology and then explores the impact on people. The last couple episodes especially really make you feel what the actors are feeling. Amazing cinematic photography and sound, I loved the atmosphere and slow burn and I didn’t mind all the casting. Good acting all round, especially the kid who plays the young genius programmer, amazingly natural. Only thing that i didn't like was the whole violent storyline with Kenton - I just hate how everything from America has to have murders going on - it’s an obsession. If you like seeing people being hurt and murdered then it was done well, I guess.

Started off strong but quickly lost **** concept of the show had potential, and I genuinely liked the core idea, but the execution fell short. As the episodes went on, the story became less engaging and more drawn out. The lead actress delivered a weak performance, and unfortunately, the same goes for the supporting Asian actor—both of whom made it hard to stay invested.Several scenes dragged on unnecessarily, making the pacing feel sluggish and, at times, downright boring. It felt like they were just stretching the runtime without adding any real value. The ending was also underwhelming and didn’t tie things up in a satisfying **** a positive note, the cinematography was impressive—but great visuals alone aren’t enough to carry a show. This could’ve worked much better as a short, tight three-episode mini-series.

Within the genre of films based on the nature of reality - this is probably one of the best efforts. The casting was weak, in my opinion. Zach Grenier who plays the role of Head of Security is the most recognizable and generally the most highly regarded actor - but, I'm not thinking that role was cast as well as it should have been - and the rest of the casting was no better. Alison Pill performing the role of the Lead Designer was interesting. Most individuals watching the film will struggle with the way philosophical and scientific issues are portrayed. If you happen to be someone with like a PhD in physics - well, you'll just have to suspend your intellect.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

A very clever sci-fi series. I enjoyed it a lot. The ending is a bit disappointing because the whole series has been spent on hyping the ending. But of course it had to be that way, no ending could live up to the levels of mystery and hype that was built up.

A slow start, but worth the pay off and a must watch for psy fi. Truly thought provoking.

It's pretty to look at and the performances are mostly very good, but it can't quite stick the landing and winds up feeling a piffle.

This is another series in the new trend of low-key, intellectual sci-fi shows. The mysterious titular organization is working with quantum theory on time travel, until a young coder gets in the way (after her boyfriend is murdered). This was created by Alex Garland, who's responsible for Ex Machina (my review) and Annihilation (my review) and this series features many of the hallmarks from those films: Glacial pacing, ominous creepiness and promising tech. To drag out the drama, the inventor (Nick Offerman) is struggling with the loss of his family (one of the tiredest tropes in tragedy). Most of the time is spent in low-key dialogue with sprinklings of special effects and mild violence to keep us hoping for a payoff. Sadly, there aren't any revelations til Episode 6 and even then, it isn't really worth it. The disruptive discordant sound design just adds to the flailing suspense.

A good idea by Garland that never becomes a great series as unfortunately it has a weak script, with frequently excruciating dialogue and pretty wooden acting.

Good Science Fiction, good Philosophy Fiction and good Thriller. The music is strange but I like the atmosphere. Good visual design. And scenes of disturbing violence in the style of Alex Garland: violence without decorative choreography, without disguises, only direct and raw violence. This has impressed me as the scene of the slow stabbing in Ex Machina.

I feel like the series didn't quite know what it was. The elements of crime / conspiracy thriller really worked for me. However the Sci-Fi / metaphysical aspects didn't quite convince me. Nevertheless the production is flawless, the acting very good and the effects very well done

DEVS was great, a return to form from Alex Garland for me after the confusing and completely unsatisfying ANNIHILATION. This is top notch SciFi, it doesn't get much better than this. I don't feel as if they stuck the landing 100% so I'm giving it a 9, but it earned all of that. Was transfixed from start to finish. I highly recommend this, and hope for more form Garland soon.

Devs would be much better if it didn't take itself way too seriously about the sci part of sci-fi. It would be much better if it left it more vague in terms of answers or at least keep it more logical but instead for the last few hours of the show it devolved into a rampage of utter nonsense regarding how quantum mechanics and even basic logic works that it make it a passable fantasy-fiction story but absolutely horrible sci-fi. At the end of the day the show is not bad and it deserves a generous 7/10 but it could be so much more if it could at least take itself less seriously it terms of giving explicit answers to its enormous question because the actual execution of the production from acting to fimmaking while not the best it was decent.

Лично для меня интерес пропал окончательно когда начали обьяснять принцип работы компьютера. Мол "история уже известна", вот только наша история это всего лишь размышление на тему, что было раньше и чем дальше углубляться, тем сложнее доказать истину. Для христиан Исуса распяли, для атеистов Исуса не существовало, для другой религии была своя история и так далее. Каким образом копьютер может основываясь на догадках выбрать правильный вариант мне не понятно. Если записать физ свойства в комп, он этого не выдаст, тут как минимум психология людей должна быть изучена так сильно, чтобы предсказывать любое поведение человека, но в сериале она явно так не изучена. Я понимаю, что все это очень сложно даже нафантазировать, но зачем тогда с серьезными лицами в течении 8 часов так поверхностно и неправдоподобно все расказывать? Не скажу что сериа прям не понравился, чувства скорее смешанные, но говорить, что это умный сериал и превозносить его за это как то странно.

Something's way off. If I had to diagnose it, I would say it would be the script, full of characters *telling* us how strong, clever, and funny the protagonist is, all while *showing* us a protagonist who is clearly a wet noodle. With such a dud of a lead, it feels like watching a series where perhaps in another universe, DEVS was originally shot to prominently feature a now-disgraced lead actor who was digitally removed from the entire series after their scandal. An odd feeling. | I don't get why someone would cast the actress who was perfect as "creepy, wooden, emotionless sex doll" in their previous project as the lead in a thriller about industrial espionage, but she's got a terminal case of the blahs, for when she speaks, she's got about as much charisma as a shopping cart wheel with a stringy bit of mop stuck in it. It'd be one thing if her instance was the only case of the hollows here, but additionally, both of the central protagonist's love interests are bland and generic, too, and honestly, it's hard to not want to see everyone we're supposed to care about here be severely abused, post-haste. To wit, episode six features perhaps the cringiest, wimpiest delivery of the line **** off" you could ever hope to hear from a leading man, and seven features enough magical negro prophecies to make Bagger Vance blush. Contrasting DEV's hipster cast with something like this year's "Emma," the pretty, rich, young characters on display here simply can't elicit an ounce of sympathy from the audience for all their first-world problems. Among these casting and writing head-scratchers, it also seems like Garland seems intent to bring every song from CSN's debut album to screen one project a time, puzzlingly. And speaking of needle-drops, episode 7 opens with perhaps the worst I've ever heard. I *love* some Alex Garland, and I rock Beak's entire discography, but this project reeks of nepotism and ill-advised creative freedom. If you took Ex Machina and made it sloppy and gaudy, then took Annihilation and removed all the bits in the "reach," leaving only the navel-gazing treatise on marriage and fidelity that comprises Natalie Portman's **** have some idea of what this show is like. Hats off to the bad guys in this show, who light up the screen menacingly and pull the entire operation away from its focus on Mary and Gary Sue's bumbling, window-hopping emo romance, seemingly devoid of chemistry, consequence, or charm. My advice for Garland would be to have a beer, get laid, and get over his stupid fixation with household drama. He's not Noah Baumbach, he's Stanley Kubrick. He seems to be stuck in a desperately feminist mode, where you get the sense he deeply wants to impress his wife / girlfriend but can't quite figure out how. The production has this air of righteous self-importance that doesn't always translate to coherent ( or at least compelling ) storytelling. It's a very bad sign when the only interesting character on the side of the "good guys" is a homeless man who lives in front of their building. Plot's not bad in and of itself, and that goes without saying in a Garland work. Apparently, a bulk of the show's flaws were all intentional, but Garland overreaches -- he can do hipster romance, and he can do cerebral sci-fi thriller, but stretch his scripts to eight hours and tack on the added weight of directing actors (and especially actors playing characters on the spectrum) and the whole machine breaks down and spits out pure caca

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Garland leading us up the garden path to nowhere again. Unconvincing characters in unrealistic locations with an incoherent story line. It went entirely down hill 40 minutes in.

Best part is the photography, it's gorgeous in every frame. production values are top notch-editing, sound, acting, sets all are perfect. Nick Offerman is the best actor and carries the show, I don't know how he does it with such a monotone. I read he is a carpenter, like Harrison Ford, who he reminds me of in ways. Alex Garland always does an excellent job.

The Lockdown was simply brilliant timing for this hypnotic journey inward. Beautiful to look at and spellbinding to watch. Mr Garland should be very proud. I was very happy.

I love this show! It should have a better rating, the way they explore determinism and free will is super interesting if not a little confusing. But some shows should be a little confusing, having to do some research to understand all the shows themes is probably a deterrent for some but I salute the fact that the show isn’t dumbed down. Learning something isn’t so terrible! Kudos to Alex Garland for making a unique, fascinating and suspenseful show.

Boring af. It literally feels like it was written in a drunken depression. Every word of dialogue is spoken so goddamn slowly. It’s weird. Music ****. Overall tone ****. Plot is not entertaining and there’s zero characters to root for. Not to mention the format feels like standard network tv yet it’s trying so much to be edgy and sophisticated. Reading these episodes before they get made could have prevented this colossal waste of money and time. It’s a shame no one in hollywood reads anything.

This show has some beautiful cinematography. There are some really intense moments that manage to get a reaction out of me. I like most of the characters, I’m a bit unsure if character motivations make sense. Overall a great time.

Super original and visually stunning. Garland tackles some complex ideas in a masterful manner while perilously balancing them on a number of classic themes and some superb acting from Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman and Jin Ha. If you're hunting for something new then definitely give it a go.

Amazing visuals and score in this unique thriller about a secretive dev team and their CEO visionary. If you loved Legion, you'll love this.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This is compulsively watchable television for me. Love every performance, especially Nick Offerman & Zach Grenier. Sonoya Mizuno is perfectly understated, Jin Ha is another great rooting interest. Sure, it's a little self-consciously cerebral, but at least it's about something genuinely challenging -- the reality of a deterministic universe -- and that's a welcome step up from most shows that wouldn't even attempt to explore such a thought-provoking theme. Five episodes in, can't wait to see how it ends.

I am afraid Mizuna cannot carry her role. The artifice shows through. The music is distracting instead of complimenting. While the show attempts to be deep and intriguing it shows only a shallow nod to both physics and philosophy.

Ugh. Based on the 1st episode, this show is trying too hard to be intense and "important." It shows, right down to the annoying soundtrack. If you're wanting to see a thoughtful show about hacking and developers that implicitly critiques the deification of technology, Mr. Robot is probably a better choice. And Alex Garland? I don't understand the hype. He's certainly not without talent, but he hasn't shown himself to be a visionary, either.

My thoughts of writing a proper review were scattered by the fact that an already amazing writer and director decided to feature Dark Souls 2 gameplay in his TV series. So now my rational thinking is gone, and I have to leave a 10 here like a nerd I am to bump up the score for some completely insignificant amount until the series is over, and I'll hopefully stop being one of those lame individuals who review stuff that is not yet finished.