Devs fits right in with Garland's themes and style, and I love his work. I find cohesive, thoughtful limited series to be very enjoyable as they don't get repetitive or outstay their welcome as some shows can but have time to explore their characters and themes in considerable depth. Devs is squarely focused on determinism and the implications of perfect information about the predetermined future. Even more than Annihilation, Devs is more of an intellectual show that is filled with tension and interesting ideas than a show with an emotional hook. I don't know how much I like the climactic choice of Lily throwing the gun and breaking the perfect prediction, and that's treated as this crazy thing. If the model is perfect and is this world and not a many worlds prediction, then that shouldn't be possible. If the prediction was simply from a parallel world, then that should've happened earlier in some of the predictions Forrest and Katie watched, and there would be no reason for that to ruin the system. It's not a deal breaker but wasn't quite as satisfying as I was hoping. I do quite like the ending of them dying and being in a simulation, though. I'm definitely happy I watched it for the way it made me wrestle with the implications of determinism and am eager to see more content from Garland.
I was a bit bummed out that the core relationships that the drama stems from are pretty basic, but I guess that they were kinda necessary to have some grounding for all the crazy complex ideas to bounce off of.
The reveal about the name was real dumb, I really enjoyed that. The show has moments of obvious humor, like cuts & angles $ awkward interactions you'd see in a comedy, but it comes off as almost off putting in the context of the usual heavy droning abstract music, people staring into the camera mournfully aesthetic. The effect of that is unnerving and it feels like it should throw the tone off balance, but personally I found it made me more engaged. It's like the show telling me that it's not trying to be realistic or recreate known human emotions and dilemmas. Everyone talks so plainly and slowly & with a consideration that people in real life (or in most movies) only ever find briefly. The 'drama' of the show is mostly about people coming to terms with big metaphysical realizations, so I guess it makes sense that they just say what they think a lot.
I appreciate that the focus was always on the character reactions. The twists and revelations are presented as being wild and huge, and I guess I haven't seen all of them in the specific arrangement they have here, but each of the individual beats and ideas are common to a lot of sci-fi. The drama isn't "what are they going to do" it's "how would that affect a person". Like for as much as dweebs like Elon Musk will talk about 'what if the world was a computer simulation' or whatever, they never really extrapolate past that into the things that would be actually interesting to think about. I don't give a shit if Deckard was a robot or not, but it's really interesting to think about what it means for the world around him if he was, right?
After 2 episodes: Main couple has great chemistry, though you could tell everything from the huntress girl's face. So the twist that she knew all along wasn't a twist at all and I was shocked that they felt they need to do everything from her perspective so ppl knew she knew. Also, for very old vampires, the adults including the sister are so dumb/naive. Idk, this whole liver thing, I was 100% sure they're going to start believing she didn't kill her but somehow they were more convinced?! Like how?! Even with the mention of the brother I don't think he could be acting like her but doing such stuff so I find sooooo unbelieveble I couldn't watch. If it were a straight main couple I don't think I would be watching passed that point but well... I crave anything sapphic and I really want to give credit to the main actressess which are still unknown.
UPDATE after whole season: first and last episodes were the best, so the showrunners know how to make an impression, also I'm so disappointed that they stick to making Oliver bad, I really liked the twist with him not being responsible and I hoped they gonna leave it at that. I get that he might want the revenge but his last words about power wasn't that logical for me. Nevertheless, I didn't want him to be the bad one after the reveal of his past.
About the point with adults being dumb, it somehow vanished BUT there were so many moments when sth was revealed or sth just happened and I wondered how a person would react to this or if someone did sth I wondered "well, they still dont know about this" at it was revealed in the next convo that the adult already knows it. Like, it infuriated me not only bc it wasn't shown that the person get to know it but also it wasn't revealed HOW the heck they get to know the things. The least infurationg example is after Juliette's First Kill it wasn't even mentioned. The first thing is that in one ep the whole family believed she killed viciously and were afraid that she might be a murderer, then after 2 eps of lies Margot says that she knew all along that Juliette didn't kill anyone, and just another ep after that Juliette is after the First Kill, happy strong and without even hiding it and noone from the family asked who the heck she killed, only to be revealed at the 7/8 ep that she buried the body and Margot being shocked at the stupid idea. LIKE WTF!!! Idk if I just ask for too much logical behavior from a YA tv show after all those Riverdales and Gossip Girl and whatnots but jesus the parents are supposed to be old vampires !!!! HAVE SOME INTELLECT!!!
If you can turn off your brain maybe youll survive this.
These new Disney+ series are developing into the the modern, overbudgeted equivalent of direct-to-video films from the ‘90s.
In an age where popular and accessible television is continuously pushed to new and exciting heights (Daredevil, Money Heist, Ted Lasso, Stranger Things, Arcane to name a few), these recent shows banking on the Star Wars and Marvel brands feel amateurish, schlocky, and often read like bad fan fiction.
Look, Boba Fett in the original trilogy is nothing more than a visual.
He’s not really a character, I think he has about 4 or 5 lines, but he became popular because of his look.
You can’t just throw me in a story where he’s the main character and expect me to care without putting in the work.
It’s a show that operates in Disney’s new business model of throwing references, ‘member berries and empty spectacle on the screen, while the important and engaging stuff (character, story, drama, emotion, filmmaking) are reduced to an afterthought.
Granted, that’s pretty much the same problem that I have with a lot of IP related content from the past couple of years, but this show in particular feels so calculated, focus tested and cynical, it’s gross.
Even the production kinda sucks this time around (compared to The Mandalorian), it looks really ugly and washed out, more like Marvel than Star Wars.
Where is the voice of Jon Favreau?
Where is the voice of the director of Iron Man, one of the most character driven and vibrant blockbusters of the past 20 years?
This show is not even close to being up to par in just about every sense.
This is a trashy show. You don't start episode 1 of a TV show on The CW network expecting something from HBO or AMC. I'm not sure what all these negative reviewers were expecting when they started this show. If you take this show seriously, then you're watching it wrong. If you're watching it for fun, just to tap out at the end of the day, maybe to shut your brain off so you can watch an overdramatic storyline that will have no effect on your being, then do give this a try. The overall storyline is ridiculous and completely unbelievable, but this is a teen soap drama. For a teen soap drama, I think it's very well-produced.
Script & Story: 6/10 – Like I said, the storyline is ridiculous, but the story does get better.
Acting: 8/10 – The four main actors are still fairly early in their careers, and you can tell which ones are less experienced, but they do get better in the second half of the first season, when they become more familiar with their own characters. Plus, the acting from the parent figures (e.g. Madchen Amick, Skeet Ulrich) helps provide more emotional realism to make certain scenes more convincing.
Set Production & Costume: 8/10 – I love how they designed the "small town feel" to their filming locations. The natural wilderness of Vancouver, British Columbia helps a lot in some of their scenes.
Characters: 9/10 – I'm not crazy for the lack of development for Archie, but they did really well in developing both Betty and Jughead. The introduction of Veronica's father in the second season will definitely help Veronica's character development, and I'm very confident Archie's character will undergo some changes in the second season too.
Cinematography: 10/10 – Some of the shots in this show are truly beautiful, especially for a teen soap drama.
