The Devil's Plan

I was done with those reality shows where the temp in the room is higher than the avg is. It is a breath of fresh air to see both intellectual with good emotional intellect, playing the games without constantly betraying each other or being mean and all over the place. Such a wholesome group of people with genuine interaction, strategies.

I particularly loved the games designs, their ingenuity and how it all comes together. There was no smart exploit that ruins it for one player, it was either you're good in a field needed or you aren't. No tricks. They pushed all the participants to their limits making them all likeable as they displayed weaknesses to each other.

Anybody going into this looking for the typical American, Big Brother type show is going to be disappointed. This is not a bunch of brainless people who say "like" every other word, or competitions where people stand against a wall and get rained on. THIS show is intelligence based. The games are crazily complex. Yes, the instructons are very long-winded and complicated, but once the gameplay starts, you can pick up on the concepts fairly quickly. Every contestant on the show is extremely intelligent, and I found something to like about each and every person. I even found myself getting quite emotional every time someone had to leave. I was hooked from beginning to end! Very hopeful for a second season!

We've become accustomed to how reality games like this work. Deceit, betrayal-- it's all fair. We might tut-tut, but part of the fun of these shows is that opportunity for self-righteousness: how could they do that? I would never! And we believe that, behind the scenes, the producers are doing whatever they can to promote that drama. It makes for engaging viewing. Of course, the producers like to keep mum about it; they'd rather we judge the contestants for any moral failings, not the show for incentivizing them.

Devil's Plan is a little different. It explicitly invites deceit from the beginning. The plan is to turn the contestants themselves into devils. But is it possible that DP is not playing completely above the table here? Is it possible that DP's goal is instead to demonstrate how clever one must be to be a saint?

The heart of DP are two games played daily. The first, ostensibly competitive, pits players against each other in cleverly designed games that include challenges both mental and social. If they win, they gain or lose "pieces" which allow them to remain in the game-- when they lose their last piece, contestants are eliminated. The second game of the day, explicitly cooperative, raises the prize pool.

But there are hidden games as well. Unbidden, contestants discover new puzzles in their environment. What is the prize for solving these challenges? On this, our show's hosts are, so far, silent.

DP is a game about puzzles, and if you like good puzzles, I think you'll like to play along-- DP certainly invites you to, never revealing secret information until the game is already won or lost. The cooperative puzzles are somewhat interesting, but purely mental in nature. But where the game shines is in its "competitive" puzzles. Why the quote marks? Because these puzzles typically contain carefully designed (and carefully shrouded) Prisoner's Dillemmas. If you like to solve puzzles the wrong way, if you've ever heard, "Yeah, okay, but I don't think you're supposed to play the game that way," then you'll love these puzzles, because I'm pretty sure DP's designers really, really want us to solve them the wrong way. (We home viewers can think about the rules at leisure, finding the creative solutions, but unfortunately, DP's contestants are not yet finding all the strategies. Their schedule is strict.)

For people who are not into puzzles-- particularly, not into political puzzles-- there is probably not much here, just another reality show. But for me, there's a lot, and I'm greatly looking forward to the rest of the season.

Let me start by saying that I loved the show from start to finish. The intro theme to each episode is extremely catchy and fun. Totally sets the tone for the show and what you are supposed to expect.

The cast was excellent they all had their own strengths and personalities. Each of them felt unique and personable in their own right.

The games were challenging but not difficult to understand. If you are looking for shows with mysteries/puzzles you should at least expect them to offer novel puzzles that can keep both the audience and the players on their toes. I appreciate that the creator, director, producers felt confident enough to hold the audience to a standard. If you are looking to watch something that microwaves your brain into mush, like most other shows on netflix, this is not the show for you.

The game itself, overall, never leaned too hard on either side of cooperation or direct competition. This is perhaps the biggest reason the game felt so balanced. The challenges ranged from highly cooperative to much more individualistic.

The Devil's Plan is leagues above other game-shows like Big Brother, The Amazing Race...

I enjoyed the whole show, I was at the edge of my seat the whole time. I highly recommend it and hope that it gets 10 more seasons with hopefully more novel games, intricate puzzles, and with just as interesting and personable of a cast.

This show is bonkers! And I'm hooked!

It felt authentic and unlike other competition reality shows. This series focuses on mental strength rather than physical ability, so it's chalk full of brainy players. The contestants all seem to have different plans and strategies to reach the end.

The first game the contestants play made me laugh pretty hard. Not the actual game, but the explanation on how to play. The announcer begins to explain the rules and it starts out simple. But the explanation continues with more rules and more rules and then even more rules. About 7 minutes into the explanation for playing the game, it felt like satire! If you watch this for no other reason, it's worth it to see how complicated and elaborate the rules for the game become...it's genuinely one of the most insane things I've ever seen on a competition reality show.

With that said, even without understanding the rules to the game, it was a lot of fun to watch.

This show is nuts in the best way. I'm fully onboard to watch it until the end!