There are many great sci-fi TV shows out there, but this underrated sci-fi thriller with 82% on Rotten Tomatoes is a must-watch. The sci-fi genre is quite popular on TV, and it has brought some of the best TV shows of all time. Sci-fi often blends with other genres, which allows for a greater variety of stories to appeal to a wider audience.
Shows like The X-Files, Firefly, Black Mirror, and The Expanse are some examples of great sci-fi TV shows for different tastes, but there are also some gems that either went unnoticed or have been forgotten over time. Among them is the sci-fi thriller miniseries Devs, released in 2020 and which is one of the smartest, most intriguing, and engaging sci-fi shows in recent years.
Devs Is A Perfect Sci-Fi Series From Start To Finish
Created by Alex Garland, who also wrote and directed all episodes, Devs was released on Hulu in 2020. As a miniseries, Devs is only one season long, with just eight episodes. Devs introduces viewers to Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno), a software engineer at the quantum computing company Amaya.
Lily is dating her Amaya co-worker, Sergei (Karl Glusman), who dies on the first day of his new job at Amaya’s Devs team. While coping with his sudden loss, Lily investigates what truly happened to Sergei and what led to his death, and she makes an unsettling discovery.
Amaya’s CEO, Forest (Nick Offerman), has been developing a quantum computer in the secret Devs division, which is capable of predicting the past and future. However, Lily also discovers a conspiracy linked to all this, which triggers a philosophical conflict about free will and determinism. At the time of writing, Devs holds an 82% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Devs is a perfect sci-fi show from start to finish, thanks to its writing, how it builds up suspense and mystery, the satisfying payoff of these, its performances, and its themes, especially its philosophical ones. Of course, a large part of Devs’ quality is thanks to Alex Garland, one of the current sci-fi geniuses in the entertainment industry.
Garland is the mind behind movies like Ex Machina, Annihilation, Men, and Civil War, with Devs being his only TV show to date. Devs proves that sci-fi TV shows can be smart, have depth, and have overall high quality, while also leaving the audience with a lot to think about.
Devs Got To Tell A Complete Story
Despite being only eight episodes long, Devs tells a complete story, which is further proof of the talent of Alex Garland. As mentioned above, Devs covers complex philosophical themes, but Garland does it so brilliantly that the show doesn’t feel heavy or overwhelming – quite the contrary, Garland makes these topics easy to follow.
With such complex themes and a story with many mysteries to be solved, it would have been a huge challenge for Devs to tell a complete story in a very limited number of episodes, but it overcame that challenge. Devs doesn’t leave loose ends, but the audience is left wanting more of the world Garland created for it.
