LTTP: DEVS (or "is that a piece of fairy cake?")

[Mezentine]

I finally got around to watching this this week, despite Alex Garland being my favorite new filmmaker, and I sure stayed up until 4am one night because I just kept hitting play on the next episode. What a fucking aesthetic treat, I'm so glad someone gave him the budget to just do his thing for eight hours, even if the plot got a little bit shaggy towards the end.

Not a huge fan of the actual ending ending (Forest got off way too easy, he just got what he always wanted) but the thing that's stuck with me the most is just how good Garland seems to be at merging science fiction premises with real world ideologies. What I mean is that Ex Machina is a very tight integration of the reality that many powerful men are violent misogynists with the idea of artificially created life to tell a story about literal objectification.

DEVS pulls a similar trick, where the "determinism" that Forest believes the DEVS system locks him into echoes the rhetorical trick that Silicon Valley and the new breed of mega-corps have been echoing for a few years now: their own complete lack of agency in shaping the future. This seems to be the new way to dodge accountability; slick entrepreneurs who present their plans for gig work, or content monetization, or AI powered surveillance systems as "What the future is", and their own role as merely the facilitators of an already-determined future. I've been unable to avoid seeing this since I had it pointed out to me, and literalizing it felt like an uncannily accurate portrait of what's going on, even if the metaphysics are obviously ridiculous.

Did anyone else end up watching this? I was planning to spend a week on it, and burned through the whole thing in one night lol

 

[Heazy]

I thought it was a really interesting show. Not soemthing that's really stuck in my head, but really enjoyed the ride.

 

[Arkestry]

I finally got around to watching this this week, despite Alex Garland being my favorite new filmmaker, and I sure stayed up until 4am one night because I just kept hitting play on the next episode. What a fucking aesthetic treat, I'm so glad someone gave him the budget to just do his thing for eight hours, even if the plot got a little bit shaggy towards the end.

Not a huge fan of the actual ending ending (Forest got off way too easy, he just got what he always wanted) but the thing that's stuck with me the most is just how good Garland seems to be at merging science fiction premises with real world ideologies. What I mean is that Ex Machina is a very tight integration of the reality that many powerful men are violent misogynists with the idea of artificially created life to tell a story about literal objectification.

DEVS pulls a similar trick, where the "determinism" that Forest believes the DEVS system locks him into echoes the rhetorical trick that Silicon Valley and the new breed of mega-corps have been echoing for a few years now: their own complete lack of agency in shaping the future. This seems to be the new way to dodge accountability; slick entrepreneurs who present their plans for gig work, or content monetization, or AI powered surveillance systems as "What the future is", and their own role as merely the facilitators of an already-determined future. I've been unable to avoid seeing this since I had it pointed out to me, and literalizing it felt like an uncannily accurate portrait of what's going on, even if the metaphysics are obviously ridiculous.

Did anyone else end up watching this? I was planning to spend a week on it, and burned through the whole thing in one night lol

Click to shrink...

I really really loved it, but I disagree that Forest got off easy.

Spoiler: Ending Spoilers

Sure, he got off easy in some versions of the simulation, but in others he's tortured for eternity. The entire reason he was so dead set on our universe being deterministic was because he wanted to avoid his eventual fate: that in some of the versions of reality he has his family back, and in others he doesn't. And everything in between and beyond. In the end he had to accept that some versions of him will be happy, and others will be beyond miserable.

 

[Brass Body Dave]

Hated the end, but it was ok.

 

[Gernau Morat Gurgeh]

The episodes were overly long but I liked the premise

 

[5taquitos]

It was good but it definitely didn't need to be stretched into 8 episodes, there's some serious fluff in there.

 

[Tagg]

The show was needlessly long with extremely point subplots intended solely to confuse, the ending was interesting but ultimately unsatisfying, plus the lead actress was terrible. One of the most disappointing series I've ever had the misfortune to watch.

 

[AncientReptileBrain]

i'm not sure what it was: the script, the editing, the acting... it felt like i was watching an a CG movie or something. like, the production quality was so high in some ways, but in others it just felt so sloppy. it's one of those "less than the sum of its parts" situations.

 

[Jack Scofield]

I enjoyed Ex Machina and adore Annihilation, but I did not like Devs at all. It was overly indulgent and the lead actor's performance was bizarre. It seemed like she was sleepwalking through the entire thing.

 

[thesoapster]

It was interesting, but I hated the ending. It didn't seem to make sense with what happens in the 10-15 minutes or so leading up to it.

 

[Rendering...]

Cool show. Great atmosphere and production values. Really neat subject matter. It explored some heady ideas about determinism and quantum computing as well as I would expect for a mainstream series.

I thought Devs was worth my time, and that it had a satisfying payoff. It didn't play coy with the audience in terms of revealing mysteries, which I very much appreciated. The show would have been frustrating if it had indulged in its own sense of profound mystery for too long. It was well paced. They probably could have compressed it down to six episodes without losing too much, though.

 

[Burly]

For only 8 episodes it really felt they were stretching to fill time.

 

[Robotnik]

Loved the premise and cinematography but it was way longer than it needed to be, had some really bad dialogue and the lead was really underwhelming. A shame, because it's so rare to get hard sci fi these days.

 

[onpoint]

I liked it, Im surprised by the negativity here.

It made me sad in the end.

Spoiler

Despite how real it feels, his family is dead and he will always know this no matter how hard he pretends or tries to ignore it. Spending infinity in denial sounds like Hell to me.

 

[Wollan]

The main actress was terrible unfortunately. Nick Offerman was great.

But the series had some great emotional highs where acting, music and the scene comes together. And then there's the more ambient scenes as well. Garland like Danny Boyle knows how to use music.

 

[teruterubozu]

I really enjoyed Devs. It was different. Very moody, plus it introduced me to this mesmerizing song.

 

[mujun]

I loved pretty much everything about it. I need to rewatch it.

 

[guise]

Incredible show. I'm a huge fan of the style and tone of Garland's work and didn't have any problems with the pacing.

I accidentally saw the start of the trailer and hated that

Spoiler

it showed Lilly entering DEVS. With determinism being a major theme of the show - why reveal a major decision/plot point from the final episode? It really detracted from my enjoyment.

I liked the ending. I didn't initially realise that

Spoiler

the lift always dropped because Stewart shut it off in both the projection and reality.

 

[hydruxo]

I enjoyed it. I don't think it was a home run by any means, but it offered a lot of concepts that really made you think and the atmosphere of the show was excellent. I wish they had cast someone else as the lead though because I never felt like Sonoya Mizuno had the acting chops for that role. It was actually distracting more often than not. Nick Offerman and Allison Pill were great though. I'd say overall it's like a 8/10.

 

[Dalek]

It was really stretched out and I got bored quickly. Good actors, good performances and it looked great-but I was really tapping my foot.

 

[Rodney McKay]

For only 8 episodes it really felt they were stretching to fill time.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, feels like it should have just been a movie.

The initial mystery was great, what the machine showed could be really effectively haunting and powerful, and the visuals were incredible.

But the spy storyline sucked, it wasn't interesting watching Lily (I think that was her name) solve her boyfriend's death since we as the audience already knew, and the murder-happy company security manager was ridiculous.

And there was just a few too many WTF moments like that kid standing on the edge of the dam putting their faith in the many worlds theory. Made for a good visual, but as a seemingly intelligent character it just seemed like a stupid thing to do.
Or the programmer who lives in the RV, was he in on Nick Offermann's final plan based on what he did at the end? I assume so since why the hell would he have done what he did?

I loved it at first, but as it went on the show just felt like it was stretching the concept further than it maybe should have been stretched.
Ending was solid and at least wasn't something I saw coming which was refreshing.

 

[Deleted member 21709]

Watching the first episode - got curious after being spoiled (I think) by an IGN video. My bad.

I wanted to post here because the main character just got assigned his work space, and they are using these keyboards recessed into the desk. My wrists ache looking at it. It looks cool, but an oversight if you ask me.

 

[Deleted member 3542]

I really liked it, though like others it kind of ends on a whimper. But any epsiode/scene focused on Nick Offerman and his story was some of the best TV I've seen in a while. Wish the rest of the show lived up to that, but even then it's a damn good watch.

 

[Deleted member 21709]

I wanted to like it - I love Garland's aesthetic, but nothing worked for me here.

The casting, photography ( some great work, but other than key shots and a lot of neat editing/moments - it looked rough overall), and writing were awful.

The conversations for the most part sounded wooden and artificial. I could see it working in a book, but it didn't work on screen.

The security guy villain was almost comical.

It was a complete miss for me, I loved the idea though. But I can see it work better as a Black Mirror episode - not 8 hours of TV begging for more production budget and time.

 

[SJRB]

Man I absolutely LOVE this show, and I still think about it very regularly.

Its concepts are just wild. The execution however ranges from mindblowing to barely okay to straight up awful. The highs in this show are ultra high, but goddamn if the lows aren't low as hell.

Half the story is incredible [everything involving the machine, getting it working, seeing its output, people talking about the workings of the machine], the other half is absolute garbage [basically everything involving Lilly, both narratively and acting-wise].

Ending was awesome, and kinda wild to wrap my head around. The "Aubade" bit is one of the best moments I've ever seen, as is the "one second projection" which was a moment of pure existential dread for me when watching.

If any this show opened a whole new world for me with its quantum mechanics, Everett interpretation, causality and all sorts of philosophical thinkpieces.

 

[Plax]

I thought the concept was excellent, and some of the visual effects were great.

But mostly I thought it was poorly acted and poorly edited. The ending was also very disappointing.

 

[digitalrelic]

I adored the show. One of my favorite single-season shows ever.

Also, that reveal that it was actually called DEUS on the end was fun, and makes it a really cool pairing with Ex Machina.

 

[yumms]

Finished it last night. Started off great, kinda lost steam towards the end. I agree with the above, there's no reason for this to be 8 episodes.

Now, the lead actress, is she made out of literal wood? Her acting was terrible, all her line deliveries were without any human emotions. In every scene, she had this confused look with half open mouth, like she was trying her hardest to remember her lines. I would've enjoyed the show more if she wasn't in it.

Even the way she walked was odd.

Maybe the lesson on the story was: if a piece of wood can make decisions for itself....so can a human.

 

[Ronnie Poncho]

Now, the lead actress, is she made out of literal wood? Her acting was terrible, all her line deliveries were without any human emotions. In every scene, she had this confused look with half open mouth, like she was trying her hardest to remember her lines. I would've enjoyed the show more if she wasn't in it.

Even the way she walked was odd.

Click to shrink...

I believe that's called acting!

This is the third time Alex Garland has worked with Sonoyoa Mizuno, so one can assume that what may appear to be wooden acting is in fact very deliberate as he probably wrote Lily with her in mind.

Related - she's got moves.

 

[Tuorom]

I enjoyed it. Garland is great with visuals and it is a feast. It is a very neat concept that he made the show around and I thought it was interesting.

I was thinking the ending was going to go a different way based on what we were learning about main character, with how she seemed to have a prodigious talent for picking the right move, as if she was outside of determinism. I thought maybe it would deal with themes of choice in life, though it's been a while since I watched it so I'm fuzzy on what I thought at the time. I posted in the OT about it.

The main character definitely had a strange acting choice, and it must be for a reason. Perhaps she was less emotive for a reason? I was never able to understand that.

Nick Offerman was fantastic, I loved watching him.

 

[BlueTsunami]

I believe that's called acting!

This is the third time Alex Garland has worked with Sonoyoa Mizuno, so one can assume that what may appear to be wooden acting is in fact very deliberate as he probably wrote Lily with her in mind.

Related - she's got moves.

Click to shrink...

She's also in Netflixs MANIAC and has an unfathomable amount of more charisma by comparison. It was most definitely a character choice in this show but it bordered on being bad.

And this is the type of show I dig when looking back on it but was a bit hard to stay with on those week to week releases.

 

[Zoe]

Finished it last night. Started off great, kinda lost steam towards the end. I agree with the above, there's no reason for this to be 8 episodes.

Now, the lead actress, is she made out of literal wood? Her acting was terrible, all her line deliveries were without any human emotions. In every scene, she had this confused look with half open mouth, like she was trying her hardest to remember her lines. I would've enjoyed the show more if she wasn't in it.

Even the way she walked was odd.

Maybe the lesson on the story was: if a piece of wood can make decisions for itself....so can a human.

Click to shrink...

Her American accent was awful to the point it made me wonder if it was holding her back because she was trying so hard.