Welcome to Culture Crash, where we examine American culture – what’s new and old in entertainment…
Writer/director Alex Garland first burst onto the film scene in 2002, after he wrote the screenplay for the movie 28 Days Later. He then continued to write screenplays for years and made his directorial debut in 2014 with the truly magnificent movie, Ex Machina.
In 2018, he directed an adaptation of Jeff Vandermeer’s novel Annihilation. Through it all, Garland has pretty consistently managed to combine intelligent and mind-bending scripts with stunning imagery. Which is why when his latest work, the show Devs showed up on my TV, I immediately hit play.
Devs is an FX on Hulu exclusive, meaning it was in production at FX but has been moved to Hulu, and Garland wrote and directed it himself. The miniseries combines incredible visual spectacle with a tale of secret tech development and international espionage. It only premiered on March 5, but it has already become appointment viewing in my home. It tells the story of a young tech employee taken under the wing of the company’s mysterious CEO and shown an ultra top secret project. The young employee then goes missing, and his girlfriend is left to figure out what exactly happened to him.
The sci-fi series presents a very grand look at humanity, dabbling in the nature of human existence itself and how far we can push technology, and, if that sounds like your kind of thing, then I cannot recommend the show any higher. I must also recommend Garland’s other works, specifically Ex Machina and Annihilation, which explore ideas of a similar nature in similarly grand fashion.
Devs is now streaming on Hulu. New episodes premiere every Thursday.
I’m Evan Rook.
Culture Crash 20-12: The New Sci-Fi Mystery Series "Devs"
Writer/director Alex Garland first burst onto the film scene in 2002, after he wrote the screenplay for the movie 28 Days Later. He then continued to write screenplays for years and made his directorial debut in 2014 with the truly magnificent movie, Ex Machina.
In 2018, he directed an adaptation of Jeff Vandermeer’s novel Annihilation. Through it all, Garland has pretty consistently managed to combine intelligent and mind-bending scripts with stunning imagery. Which is why when his latest work, the show Devs, showed up on my TV, I immediately hit play.
Devs is an FX on Hulu exclusive, meaning it was in production at FX but has been moved to Hulu, and Garland wrote and directed it himself. The miniseries combines incredible visual spectacle with a tale of secret tech development and international espionage. It only premiered on March 5, but it has already become appointment viewing in my home. It tells the story of a young tech employee taken under the wing of the company’s mysterious CEO and shown an ultra top secret project. The young employee then goes missing, and his girlfriend is left to figure out what exactly happened to him.
The sci-fi series presents a very grand look at humanity, dabbling in the nature of human existence itself and how far we can push technology, and, if that sounds like your kind of thing, then I cannot recommend the show any higher. I must also recommend Garland’s other works, specifically Ex Machina and Annihilation, which explore ideas of a similar nature in similarly grand fashion.
Devs is now streaming on Hulu. New episodes premiere every Thursday.
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