Devs
Alex Garland's eight-episode FX limited series on a secretive Silicon Valley division building a deterministic-quantum simulation, used as a vehicle to interrogate surveillance, free will and corporate power.
- Creators
- Alex Garland
- Years
- 2020–2020
- Seasons
- 1 season
- Episodes
- 8 episodes
- Status
- Ended
- Language
- English
Available on
Watch this if
Viewers who want prestige TV that takes computing seriously: determinism, quantum simulation, the ethics of perfect prediction. Garland is one of the few showrunners writing science fiction in dialogue with current research, and the series rewards the patience it asks for.
Skip this if
Viewers who want fast pacing or technical accuracy at the line-of-code level. Garland uses computing as metaphor and aesthetic; the simulation hand-waves are not the point. The pacing is intentionally slow.
Key takeaways
- The show's central conceit (a perfect deterministic simulation) is the cleanest dramatization in popular media of the philosophical stakes around AI and prediction.
- Forest's surveillance state is closer to current FAANG operational capability than most viewers want to admit; the show makes the parallel uncomfortable on purpose.
- Determinism vs. free will is the thread the entire series pulls on; the way the resolution lands depends on whether you side with Lily or with Forest by episode eight.
Notes
Best paired with Person of Interest (Nolan) for the same surveillance-and-AI conversation in network-TV form, and with Black Mirror's harder episodes ("Be Right Back", "USS Callister") for the same texture in shorter form. Garland's earlier Ex Machina and his later Civil War continue the same authorial preoccupations. The score (Geoff Barrow / Ben Salisbury) is half of why the show works.