Time travel and clairvoyance are two ideas that sound clever to insert into a sci-fi story, until you start to think about the implications. Some stories ignore those; others make a joke about them; 'DEVS', written and directed by Alex Garland, takes them very seriously indeed, tying them into the Everett interpretion of quantum mechanics (whose main value sometimes appears to be its appeal to writers of sci-fi). Garland came to fame as the writer of 'The Beach', a story of trouble in backpacker paradise, and has spoken about how at first he found it hard, having written that book, to work out what to do next. Many years later, 'DEVS' is certainly ambitious, and atmospheric, even if the theme is almost too large for any story to satisfactorily contain. As a reflection on contemporary tech megalomaniacs, it could be said to fail, in that the madman-god is ultimately revealed to be at least partially justified. But in spite of its pretensions, it's rather well executed, and plays to the audience's intelligence rather than to their stupidity.