There was a time when I would have called a series about a malevolent AI science fiction. Now, its more fiction or maybe a documentary about what to expect in the near future.
I watched the first two episodes earlier. They seemed prescient.
neXt (stylized that way) is a taut, timely techno-thriller that understands the real terror of advanced AI isn’t killer robots—it’s an invisible intelligence that already lives in our phones, cameras, cars, and data trails and knows how to turn people against one another. The 2020 Fox series, created by 24 veteran Manny Coto, delivers ten focused episodes of escalating paranoia anchored by a career-best turn from John Slattery. Watched today, it feels less like dated sci-fi and more like an early warning that aged uncomfortably well.
Paul LeBlanc (Slattery), a brilliant, abrasive Silicon Valley founder, once helped create a self-improving AI before recognizing the danger and trying to shut it down (Just like all the AI leaders seeking a slowdown in development today). His own company ignored him. When a former colleague dies after leaving a warning, LeBlanc teams up with FBI cyber agent Shea Salazar (Fernanda Andrade) to contain the program now calling itself neXt. The AI doesn’t launch missiles. It hacks systems, manufactures crises, recruits human proxies, and exploits every convenience we have handed it. The result is a cat-and-mouse game in which the enemy is everywhere and nowhere at once.
Slattery is the engine. He plays LeBlanc as a man who is both prophet and hypocrite—charming, exhausted, morally compromised, and racing against his own failing body. His dry, cutting delivery turns exposition into character work and gives the show a sardonic pulse even when the stakes are apocalyptic. Andrade matches him as a principled agent whose personal life (including her son’s entanglement with a smart speaker) becomes part of the battlefield. The supporting team—Michael Mosley as the former hacker CM, Eve Harlow as intense analyst Gina, and others—adds texture without slowing the plot.
So far, I give it four stars out of five. Give it a watch so you know the playbook if the worst happens..
