Entertainment
‘Severance’ Meets ‘Fallout’ in Apple TV’s 3-Part Sci-Fi Series
There are so many incredible sci-fi shows out right now. Shows like Pluribus, Star City, Foundation, and Alien: Earth are all blowing people’s minds with their inventive storytelling and exciting plots. The sci-fi genre is a fantastic way to escape our own reality — even if a dystopian setting makes us even more scared of the future. There’s one sci-fi show on Apple TV that mixes the post-apocalyptic setting of Prime Video’s Fallout with the mind-bending mysteries of Severance, and it’s begging for a binge-watch.
What Is ‘Silo’ About?
Silo is a dystopian drama that premiered back in 2023. It’s based on Hugh Howey‘s trilogy of novels, also called Silo. The sci-fi hit follows a community that lives in a giant underground silo after an apocalyptic event has occurred. Taking place more than a century after the world basically ended, this group of 10,000 people coexists in the 144-level structure. There are specific rules set out to help govern the place, but the peace in the silo starts to come to an end when several citizens begin to question what the outside world is really like.
Holsten Becker (David Oyelowo) is sheriff of the silo, but his life becomes much more complicated when his devoted wife, Allison (Rashida Jones), starts to get more curious about the laws surrounding their everyday lives. She crosses paths with the taciturn Head of IT, Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins), and his ruthless fixer, Robert Sims (Common), who play critical roles in the silo’s survival. As the first season unfolds, we also meet the true protagonist of the series, Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson), who works as an engineer to keep the silo functioning. Silo is a fascinating drama with twists and turns, and storylines that demonstrate that no one is truly safe within the walls of the silo.
‘Silo’ Combines Some of the Best Elements of Other Sci-Fi Shows
The most obvious comparison to another sci-fi series is Fallout, which first dropped in 2024. That drama also takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, where survivors are relegated to underground bunkers to escape deadly nuclear fallout. The world has become fairly uninhabitable, and the people who have been smart enough to endure it are both cunning and terrifying. When the outside world is depicted, it portrays people who have divided into factions. This is similar to the setup of Silo, since there are groups of people that have lasted generations in their chosen fields. They’re mostly determined by lineage, but even in the silo, this constitutes a sort of strict class system. These separations create even more fractures and conflicts, representing a very realistic social system in a microcosm of the silo. Just like Fallout, Silo also illustrates the characters’ hopeful need for wanting to see what the outside world holds. From the very first episode, the desire to find out what has become of the rest of the human race is a driving force for the narrative.
At first, the only connection to Apple TV’s other massive sci-fi hit, Severance, would seem like the twisty storytelling itself. But there are also definitely higher-ups who rule with an iron fist and with an extremely secretive nature, just like the folks over at Lumon Industries. Later episodes of Silo include more technology-focused plot points, which reflect Severance‘s modern complexity. And now that Silo is in its third season, the biggest link to Severance is the way the series is diving into the fascinating topic of memory. Without giving too much away, Juliette experiences a total wipe of her memory when Season 3 opens. Just like the severed characters on Severance, much of Juliette’s identity is erased because she has no context for her past. She has no familiarity with the people in her life, even those who have loved her since she was young. The battle of the season becomes trying to bring Juliette back to who she was, which is a compelling exploration into how our memories help to define us.
There are only 20 episodes to binge before you can start Season 3 of Silo, which means that it’s actually an easy show to get caught up with. If you want a gritty, complex sci-fi series that presents unique problems and mysteries like Severance, or highlights the hardships that exist when a population is forced to live in close quarters like Fallout, Silo must be added to your watch list now.
Silo is available to stream on Apple TV in the U.S., with new episodes dropping every Friday.
Silo
- Release Date
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May 5, 2023
- Network
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Apple TV
- Showrunner
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Graham Yost
- Directors
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Morten Tyldum, David Semel, Michael Dinner, Aric Avelino
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