This had some qualities, sure, but on balance, it had more negatives than positives I think. This is what I thought:

For an emotive premise, the Devs cast seems to have been carefully selected and briefed to be devoid of emotion. It results in dry and deadpan delivery that’s a real turn off, and in some cases downright infuriating (see preachy, expressionless Alison Pill as Katie who seems to be trying her hardest to stop viewers wanting to engage at all). As a fan of sci-fi, I’ve come to expect some pseudo-science-philosophy-waffle, it’s often required exposition, but here, presumably in an attempt to be profound, the explanatory science and logic is told in a condescending, imperious fashion, and the line between confident, self-assured plot, and smugly complacent “we know something you don’t know”-ism is crossed time and again. It’s a shame and especially frustrating as predeterminism is not even a particularly challenging concept. There’s so much going on here, and some of it is brilliant (like the soundtrack, set design and Nick Offerman’s simmering performance), but unfortunately, it ties itself in knots trying to one-up the viewer, and ends up collapsing inwards. If this was a first draft, the potential would be so exciting, but as a finished product, it falls very far short.

Alison Pill is a strange actor. I am only aware of seeing her in this and Star Trek: Picard but both roles seem to express some form of vulnerable villain. Whether this comes from the writing, or casting or direction, or is something that Pill has decided is her niche, it is certainly a curious form of character acting. I can only speak for myself, but there is something deeply repellent about a girl looking like the girl next door behaving in thoroughly vile ways, all the while also projecting a core inner fragility. Is this what the creators of Devs actually intended? The character is certainly no kind of hero, anti or not. It's nuanced for sure, but is the result serving the drama?

I don't see it, as you did Benedict, that the characters were devoid of emotion. It's there, but pretty much everyone in the story is unlikable. It's a cavalcade of assholes basically. The problem, as I see it, isn't that there is too little emotion, but that the characters as presented allow the audience no room for empathy. In drama there needs to be someone who the audience can relate to, usually the protagonist . All that stuff about playing Go or flashbacks to moments with a now dead child were stolid. It didn't make me relate to all this regret: it made me want to slap them and tell them to get over it and to get back to telling the story.

I don't agree that determinism is an unchallenging concept. It did, after all, vex Bohr and Einstein in their notorious debates, and has been a core problem in philosophy since at least the time of Classical Greece. But that is probably not an argument for an entertainment forum. :-)

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

Alison Pill is a strange actor.

the choices we make are responsible for our actions. she does it for a living, user living in a cupboard

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

deeply repellent

My feelings exactly. I assume it must have been intended, but agree it's a weird choice.

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

I don't see it, as you did Benedict, that the characters were devoid of emotion. It's there, but pretty much everyone in the story is unlikable. It's a cavalcade of assholes basically.

Mostly agreed on all this. Have written about this very issue in a different thread!

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

I don't agree that determinism is an unchallenging concept. It did, after all, vex Bohr and Einstein in their notorious debates, and has been a core problem in philosophy since at least the time of Classical Greece. But that is probably not an argument for an entertainment forum. :-)

I only meant to imply the underlying concept isn't challenging. The philosophical debate around it is more as to whether it's credible as a theory, rather than because anyone struggles to understand what is meant by the term. But maybe I'm wrong. Certainly in the manner it's presented in the show it's not challenging, so the lengths they go to explain it are quite absurd. (I think "cause and effect" must be one of the shows most oft-repeated phrases).

Fair comments Benedict.

Spoilers... Obviously...

I think some of those seemingly "unnecessary" scenes are to show how deracinated and lacking in spirituality these characters are... The series deals with materialists finding a form of faith in order to reckon with their spiritual and emotional pain and emptiness... From the tech founder's guilt over the death of his daughter to Lily recognising how rootless and fake her life was, her only close relationships being spies playing her as an asset and her life being deterministic without will...

At the end, the movie is still tragic with both dying after Lily finds her will to life (very Camus), but at least there is the surface level consolation that the algorithm computes that the two main characters tech founder & Lily would have found some spiritual closure eventually...

It's a much more mature series than Garland's earlier movies, Ex Machina (good movie, cinematic and fun, but still fully materialist) and Annihilation (moody, but not quite philosophical or edifying)...