PICK OF THE WEEK

Devs Neon

The cultural impact of Alex Garland simply cannot be overstated. This is the man who wrote The Beach, the bestselling novel that was adapted into a hit movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, for which Shaznay, from All Saints, wrote Pure Shores specifically for the soundtrack. Let that sink in: without Alex Garland, the greatest song of the late90s British girl group era would never have existed.

That’s the main thing, though he’s since written more books and made more movies — Ex Machina and Annihilation most recently. And now he’s written and directed a mysterious new sci-fi TV series, Devs.

The series takes place around a Silicon Valley quantum computing company called Amuya, one of those tech companies where nobody seems to know exactly what the company actually does. We know a handsome young couple called Lily and Sergei work there, Lily in encryption and Sergei in AI, and that their big boss, Forest, is played by Nick Offerman with a long, Mansonesque beard.

Then Sergei gets a promotion — he’s going to work in Devs, a department with its own separate office, a building that probably won’t look out of place on a 2040 season of Grand Designs. You have to walk through a forest just to get there.

“What am I actually doing here?” Sergei finally asks. “I’m not going to tell you,” Forest replies. “I won’t need to. Just sit, read code, take your time. Don’t worry, you’re going to figure it out.”

Sergei figures something out, that’s for sure, but exactly what it is seems to be the central mystery of the series. He doesn’t come home that night, and so begins Lily’s search for answers about what really happened to him. If you liked Westworld, this could be your next big, brain-bending tech mystery to unravel.