Netflix’s ‘Devil In Ohio’ Is Not Worth Your Time

Games Netflix’s ‘Devil In Ohio’ Is Not Worth Your Time Paul Tassi Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Sep 5, 2022, 08:26am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Devil in Ohio Netflix When Netflix goes through a content drought, I usually just end up watching whatever has made it to the #1 spot on the service. This week, that’s Devil in Ohio , a new limited series based on a book that at least in theory sounded like it could be something True Detective adjacent, the story of a Satanic cult in rural Ohio and a girl who escaped from it. Unfortunately, in practice, what may have been an interesting concept on FX or HBO, suffers from Netflix quality control issues once again.

The script, cast and production values here just don’t compare to similar, crime-based rivals. While it’s easy to see how this story could have been creepy and compelling, Devil in Ohio instead feels like an overly long Law and Order SVU episode. The show stars at least one actress you may know, Emily Deschanel of Bones fame, who plays a doctor who takes in a runaway girl, Mae, with a pentagram carved into her back.

The show does not really seem all that concerned with characters making logical connections, and Deschanel worries about where the girls’ parents are and why they haven’t filed a missing persons report. And she keeps worrying about this after the girl with the pentagram scar prays to Satan before a meal at the dinner table , implying that maybe her upbringing was a bit…off. Still, it takes half the show for everyone else to figure out that maybe, just maybe, her family is a little bit suspicious.

Devil in Ohio Rotten Tomatoes One main problem with the Devil in Ohio is that it’s not a very long series, eight 40-45 minute episodes, but it still feels bloated with extra storylines, like one daughter wrestling with her sexuality, another worrying about being popular at school. The father of the family, deep in debt, really needs to sell a big house he built. And all of this takes away from the actual, interesting central concept here, the extremely evil Satanic cult , which makes me wonder why all of theses extraneous storylines are there at all, even if occasionally Mae’s story dips into them.

MORE FOR YOU ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Finally Has An Actual 2021 Release Date Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Not A Sure Thing, Says Director ‘Genshin Impact’ Still Refuses To Increase Anniversary Rewards, Despite Fan Outcry The series, to me, represents the “Netflix divide” when it comes to content quality. I can easily see this same story being adapted into an HBO series like Sharp Objects, The Outsider or Mare of Easttown, and it share at least some DNA with Apple’s Servant, but it’s miles below the quality of any of those, again, like an overly long episode of the kind of network TV drama that we last saw Emily Deschanel in. But from the creepy premise and hell, even the title intro, I was expecting something more.

By comparison, even the also-not-great Echoes on Netflix, it’s last #1 series, might be better than this. Devil in Ohio, even as an eight episode limited series, is just not worth the 5-6 hours it takes to binge, when there are so many better things to watch. Usually on other streaming services, these days.

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