CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night’s TV: An evil genius stroking a fluffy white cat? So old hat!

Devs (BBC2)

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Rebuilding Notre Dame (BBC4)

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There’s no helping some people. They head directly for trouble like a driver blindly obeying his satnav right up to the point when he plunges over a cliff.

Computer programmer Sergei (Karl Glusman) was working for an evil genius in the nerdy sci-fi drama Devs (BBC2).

We all knew it would end in disaster from the moment his billionaire boss sat down, demanded an update on his Artificial Intelligence project and started stuffing his face with fistfuls of cress from a takeaway box.

Megalomaniacs used to stroke fluffy cats, but these days they’re more likely to signal their insanity by behaving strangely in front of underlings. Sergei ought to have grabbed his laptop and ran.

Yet the young computer whizz accepted a promotion, one that involved a security grilling from a swivel-eyed racist called Kenton (played by Zach Grenier).

He demanded to know why Russian-born Sergei was dating an American-Chinese woman.

In Kenton’s mind, Russians and Chinese are born to cause trouble in the Land of the Free. ‘Makes me nervous,’ he drawled.

Sergei should have been nervous, too, in case Kenton decided to set fire to a giant cross and conduct the rest of the interrogation in a pointy bedsheet.

Instead he headed off to his new lab with the power-crazed billionaire, who refused to explain what the new job entailed and sneered at Sergei’s guesses.

Call me a Jumpy Jeremy, but there were a few warning signs there, what the psychologists call ‘red flags’. 

When Sergei found a plastic bag being wrapped round his head later that day, shortly after discovering the fiendish plot his boss was hatching, he really had no right to feel surprised.

We shouldn’t have been surprised either when the script stopped off for a detour into puerile philosophy.

The billionaire (Nick Offerman) gave a droning speech about the impossibility of free will, spouting drivel that would sound dubious from a stoned hippy.

Bad dialogue is painful, and this had its share of awkward Millennial conversations about relationships, but monologues about the nature of the universe are unforgivable.

All this is a letdown, because Devs looks and sounds beautiful.

The soundtrack is apparently a choir of aliens performing medieval madrigals, and the sets are weird . . . especially the research lab in a forest, guarded by a 100ft plastic doll. 

That’ll keep the computer boffins on edge.

The real computer wizardry was on display in Rebuilding Notre Dame (BBC4), which explained the renovations with a series of CGI diagrams.

The cathedral’s incredible architectural structure was pared back to its skeleton, helping us understand how stonemasons 850 years ago built such an immense marvel.

For the carpenters and craftsmen working on these painstaking repairs, it’s an astonishing feat of engineering even today. In the 12th century, it was little short of miraculous.

French president Emmanuel Macron has pledged that the church will be restored within five years.

But the scale of the challenge gradually became apparent, as this documentary showed the damage done not just by the flames but by water and even molten lead.

Toxic dust from the metal is so dangerous that workmen must wear breathing apparatus and disposable overalls — discarding these and showering even to take a lunch break.

We got a hurried glimpse at the end of how Notre Dame might eventually look, perhaps with solar panels or even a stained glass roof.

The designs were so innovative that it seemed a pity to cram them into the final couple of minutes.