Idiot Boxing: Devs, season 1 (2020)

No Spoilers - Read Away!

Director: Alex Garland

Solid, cerebral sci-fi that offers some meaty food for thought, even if the pacing and dialog aren't always enhancing the story as much as they could.

Written and directed by Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation), the story takes place in a not-too-distant future and follows Lily (Sonoya Mizuno), a young programmer at the tech company Amaya. Her boyfriend, Sergei, has just been promoted into Amaya's most secretive and exclusive division, known only as "Devs." Before long, things take a turn for the worse, leading Lily to greatly fear for herself and start looking into exactly what Devs is. This also brings her closer to the somewhat enigmatic owner of Amaya, Forest (Nick Offerman), who has a vision that goes well beyond using tech for getting faster emails and business transactions.

Devs was an engaging watch, though one that came off as feeling that it was a bit smarter and sleeker than it ultimately was. Don't get me wrong - there are some really compelling speculations in the story. They mostly revolve around just how far predictive algorithms might go and the ever-growing reach of big data. And they take these themes into some wondrous and frightening places, in terms of their impacts on humans. But there are more than a few moments when the pace, tone, and dialog lend an air being overly didactic. One particular episode was little more than a slow explanation of causality, complete with innumerable long, pregnant pauses between thought groups and characters simply repeating the other's question back to them. It became rather frustrating, especially since the dialog in the show is nothing special (this has never been one of Garland's areas of strength, though he's fantastic at many other aspects of film-making). Despite the occasional narrative drag, the mystery and greater themes carry the story through its eight episodes pretty well.

Forest and his chief scientist, Katie. These two can be more
than a little intimidating, though the show does try to give
them a bit more depth than your run-of-the-mill, dubious
STEM types.

The look and feel are what one might expect from Garland, if you'd seen his previous two films. There is a slick aesthetic at work, though not one without warmth and life in many places. The camerawork is solid, and the visuals can be quite stunning at times. There are, however, some sections and even whole episodes of the show where the settings are a bit bland. And without the benefit of sharper dialog to distract one, it can lead to a few moments that feel overly long and dull.

The acting is very good, though the cast sometimes had to work with dialog that wasn't allowing them to show off everything they were capable of. Sonoya Mizuno shows decent range, though the story never fully explores  or utilizes a genius that is mostly hinted at in earlier episodes. Nick Offerman is excellent as the imposing, obsessive tech mogul Forest, often easily shifting between seemingly down-to-earth everyman and detached egomaniac. Peeling back the layers of his backstory and personality is a big part of what keeps the show engaging through the series.

I do recommend this one to fans of cerebral science-/speculative fiction. It's not perfect. It's not even as good as Garland's best work. But it certainly has enough to feel fairly rewarding, including some troubling themes and commentary on our ever-more digitally connected world.