Devs

When Lily Chan's boyfriend dies under unclear circumstances, she starts investigating the secretive development division at her San Francisco tech employer. The unit operates behind tight security, strange laboratory setups and an unusual mix of computer science and theoretical physics. Lily's search for evidence pulls her into a world of guarded engineers, shifting loyalties and experiments that raise uncomfortable ethical questions. The series keeps focus on methodical unraveling rather than melodrama, letting clues and technical processes lead the way. Alongside the central mystery, the story raises questions about how far technology should reach into prediction, privacy and the nature of human choice.

Devs premiered in 2020 as an eight-episode limited series, created, written and directed by Alex Garland from an original idea. The show stars Sonoya Mizuno as Lily, with Nick Offerman, Jin Ha, Cailee Spaeny and Stephen McKinley Henderson in prominent roles, presenting a tight, auteur-driven production.

The series didn't win major industry awards, though it drew attention from critics and genre outlets for its craft. Reviewers often highlighted the show's technical achievements, naming cinematography, production design and the electronic score as strengths, even when they disagreed about pacing and narrative clarity.

Devs sparked steady conversation about determinism, free will and the ethical reach of predictive technologies. Its clean, clinical visual style and the recurring images of the machine's inner chamber stuck with viewers, and it became a frequent reference in essays and podcasts debating how speculative tech gets portrayed in fiction and what those portrayals imply for real-world tech policy.

Audience scores sit around 7.3 out of 10, reflecting mostly positive reactions tempered by divided opinions on tone. Critics praised its intellectual ambition and visual consistency, while some viewers found the pacing austere and the atmosphere chilly. Major themes include determinism versus agency, the ethics of computational power, grief and the philosophical limits of knowledge.