Is Mrs. Davis sci-fi or magic? It’s both

polygon.com:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indiscernible from magic.”

Arthur C. Clarke, the acclaimed sci-fi author of Childhood’s End who is perhaps best known for his screenplay (and later novelization) for Stanley Kubrick’s epic sci-fi drama 2001: A Space Odyssey, wrote those words, which appear in a republished 1973 revision of his 1962 essay “Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible.” Retroactively cited as the third of Clarke’s so-called “three laws,” the adage today is arguably one of Clarke’s best-known and widely cited quotes, commonly used to illustrate the gulf between exponential advances in technology and the comparatively slower understanding — let alone acceptance — of said technology by the general public.

It’s a principle you can see reiterated throughout science fiction, from the Matrix series’ Oracle to Star Trek’s replicators. And it popped into my head again while watching Mrs. Davis, the new sci-fi action drama from Damon Lindelof (The Leftovers) and Tara Hernandez (The Big Bang Theory). It’s a quote that not only taps into the strange overlap between the show’s dueling depictions of faith and technology, but leans into the series’ genre-blending premise and idiosyncratic characters. In a word, it’s magic.

[Ed. note: This post contains some spoilers for the first and second episodes of Mrs. Davis.]

Set in the not-so-distant future, the series stars Betty Gilpin (Glow) as Simone, a nun who finds herself at odds with the eponymous Mrs. Davis, a hyper-advanced algorithm that all but governs the entirety of human civilization as we know it. This sets up the show’s larger themes pretty cleanly: Simone, a nun, represents the concept of faith, subjectivity, and free will in the