Severance (Apple TV+) Season 1 Premiere TV Show Review

Every time you find yourself here it’s because you chose to come back

by Tom Davies

The most satisfying science fiction TV shows of recent years have been those which place themselves in a near-future/alternative present, shows which place future tech in juxtaposition with retro style.

Shows like Amazon’s Tales from the Loop or Netflix’s Maniac which, like all the best speculative work, took deeply human problems and applied them to sci-fi settings. Severance jumps right on this train with its depiction of the esoteric systems run by Macrodata Refinement and the very human, and frequently existential, anxieties of its characters.

On the severed floor of the Lumon corporation, the Macrodata Refinement team work on a project so secret that not even they know exactly what they’re doing. What’s more, their NDA is so strict that they must undergo a procedure to physically sever the memories of their home life from those of their work life. While at work they remember nothing of their family and loved ones and while at home the knowledge of their work is completely locked away.

It’s in this second hour that the story and the show coalesce into something really interesting.

Introducing us to its major players, the first episode swings back and forth between hyper-emotional reveals and sardonic wit. It’s an uneasy balance and, despite some tantalising hints at what might be to come, it doesn’t always keep its footing, feeling a bit unevenly split between the Mark of Lumon (known colloquially as his ‘Inny’) and the Mark of the real world (his ‘Outy’). Each scene individually holds at least some nugget of facetiousness, but they don’t necessarily add up to a substantial whole.

Despite a slow and slightly ponderous first episode, the show really kicks into gear with its second, revealing sinister new depths to the Lumon corporation and its labyrinthine series of severed offices and finding a more gracious balance between the day-to-day weirdness of the office and the greater mystery. Things start to get strange - well, stranger - for the workers, as migraines and hallucinations begin to plague them, and a few fun visuals tics are employed as the split between work and home becomes less concrete for some. It’s in this second hour that the story and the show coalesce into something really interesting.

Severance

It’s in the little touches that the genius of Severance reveals itself. Its little well observed social interactions, just heightened enough to make comedy of the awkwardness and pick at the clash of the middle-class pretentions of its characters. But more on point are its death-by-a-thousand-small-cuts observations of corporate culture, particularly in its hilariously seething depiction of the carrot and stick methods of middle management. Special mention must also go to one of the most inspired title sequences of recent years.

Adam Scott effortlessly drives the show, able to infuse both ‘Inny’ and ‘Outy’ Mark with varying degrees of existential despair whilst hitting the jokes right on the beat. Though Scott stands out as the key player, there’s not a single dropped note throughout the first two episodes with additional standout performances from the always mesmerising John Turturro as troubled office worker, Irving, and relative unknown Tramell Tillman as the effervescent yet slightly menacing supervisor, Milchick. Acting as a cypher is Britt Lower as new hire, Helly, and her incredulous performance generally hits all the right notes to string out the gradual unravelling of what exactly goes on at Lumon.

Reminiscent of something akin to Being John Malkovich
meets Office Space...

Along with the casting, the interplay of the stylised direction and the ideas-driven snark of the script are its most reliable core strengths. Ben Stiller’s direction plays easily between voyeuristic angles and impersonal wide open spaces lending emphasis to the artificial detachment of each of the characters as they move between their hollow personal lives and their cutely familial relationships with their co-workers.

Reminiscent of something akin to Being John Malkovich meets Office Space, across its opening episodes Severance’s allegorical bent might not have much new to say about family strife or office politics, but what it does say is as incisive and cutting as television gets.

The first two episodes of Severance are available now on Apple TV+ with further episodes dropping every Friday

Scores

Verdict

.
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8

8
AVForumsSCORE
OUT OF
10

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