THE ODD JOBS MAN
TWO CODING EXPERTS ARE INVITED TO THE WOODLAND RETREAT OF A CREEPY TECH GURU... BUT IS HE A MAD GENIUS OR JUST A PLAIN PSYCHO?
PICK OF THE DAY DEVS BBC2, 9pm
FROM Alex Garland, who wrote The Beach and Ex Machina, comes this creepy thriller about a top secret team at a quantum computer company.
The extremely weird escapist drama is set in a dystopian future where the mysterious tech firm is watched over by a giant statue of a young girl.
And if a disturbing girl statue doesn’t pique your interest, what will?
The story follows Sergei (Karl Glusman) and his girlfriend Lily (Sonoya Mizuno), computer whizz coders and programmers who work at Amaya, named for founder Forest’s daughter.
Nick Offerman is brilliantly odd as Forest, the bearded, bonkers boss who might well be an evil genius.
After showing Forest his latest project, Sergei impresses him and gets a job offer.
“You just predicted the exact behaviour of a living organism, 10 seconds into the future!” marvels Forest. No, we don’t understand any of this either.
However, all you need to know is that Sergei is promptly transferred to the top secret Devs section, hidden away and looking like a bizarre gold Stonehenge in the middle of the forest.
The security chief, Kenton, played by Zach Grenier, isn’t too thrilled about Russian Sergei, with a Chinese girlfriend, heading into Devs.
Once admitted, Sergei finds out some of its secrets, all under the watchful eye of Forest’s assistant Katie (Alison Pill). And then.. He doesn’t come home that night, leaving Lily more than a little alarmed. Continues tomorrow.