WatchSeeLookView Binge Edition - Devs

Finding stuff to binge watch at the moment is not really a problem. There’s a plethora of series to sink your teeth into on a wide variety of streaming platforms. The only problem is that often there are several series worth of stuff to get through before you’re up to date / at the end on a particular show. For the most part, that’s great at the moment while we’re not going anywhere but sometimes you just want something longer than a film but with a beginning, middle and end that doesn't run on forever. Devs fits quite handily into this mold.

Devs
Season One, Eps 1-8
In A Nutshell:- A programmer uncovers something sinister going on at tech company Amaya…

The Good:- It’s television that unfolds at it’s own pace and isn’t afraid to let viewers dangle a bit as they work out what’s going on - in pacing terms, it’s more reminiscent of something that would have produced in the 1970s by the Beeb or ITV rather than a modern American drama (given that I’ve been spending my time watching quite a bit of classic cult TV from the 60s and 70s, I clearly don’t think that’s a bad thing). Nick Offerman channels the quieter side of Ron Swanson into something effectively menacing and Alison Pill is suitably creepy, giving a performance that manages to be suitably creepy. There’s a distinctive sense of style and effective use of looping and overlapping characters during some scenes, combined with a score that amps the unsettling feeling of the whole thing.

The Bad:- The flipside to it being paced like a 70s BBC sci fi show is that, if you have a low tolerance for that sort and want your drama to be -pelted at your eyeballs at high speed, this might not be for you. Sonoya Mizuno as Lily doesn’t really vary her expressions much between stunned and stunned-but-with-a-scowl which I was beginning to find a little tiresome by the end.

Side Note:- I didn't actually binge this one as such (i.e. I didn't watch a chunk of episodes back to back). I watched an episode a day and that seemed to work quite well for this - stretching out over a week fitted the languid pace of the show.

The Verdict:- If you want something that takes its time to tell the story it has to tell, has its sci fi elements rooted in modern concerns and has a defined ending (if there’s a Dev 2, I’ve got no idea what else they could do with it) then this is worth the eight episodes of your time.