There is a new show in the town named SEVERANCE which made quite the buzz! Surprisingly it's on Apple TV plus! Every new episode got attention from celebs and critics on the twitter spaces and other sites. And after the finale, Twitter went nuts praising this show and its season-ending. So given that and seeing Ben Stiller behind the camera I thought to give this a go and as my expectations were high before watching this my experience was nothing but spectacular.
Severance is mainly a workplace dystopian Sci-Fi drama. The basic premise here is a company names lumen enabled a program called severance which can separate a person's work life and personal life. You go through the procedure and after that when you get into the office and enter the lift you will instantly forget your personal life completely during the 8 hours of the job and when you are getting out, the actual persona of yours comes back leaving the work persona and you go on living this to separate persona according to your work and personal time. So the story focuses on the four employees of the microdata refinement department at Lumon and how they operate there for 8 hours. One day a new worker joins the MDR department replacing a guy called petey (best friend of Mark) and then the abnormalities and chaos start to emerge.
At first glance, this idea actually seems great. Many people are troubled with their work-life which makes troubles in their personal life. Making it unbearable. And many people suffer and hampers their work due to the problems in their personal life. There is evidently no sure way to stop this from happening. But this idea of separating both this self solves this problem, right? Well, it does but it comes with some unwelcoming scenarios as well. While the outie (the actual person outside of Lumon) going through the procedure he or she is actually creating a whole new person called innie. And the innie will never know how they are outside of the Lumon. And nothing else matters regarding them apart from they being anything besides the mere employee of Lumon. So, what if some innie wants to communicate with their outie? Well, they can't. This fact bugs a little for sure but that's how the thing works. So, when a new employee comes along to work with Mark's team she is baffled seeing the setup of this. She couldn't believe her outie did this to herself. And she starts to struggle and attempts to communicate with her outie. But as those attempts go unsuccessful at every turn, she tries to do something extreme. Which shocks the Lumon headquarters a good amount. And as this mess created by the new employee catches the attention of the other three existing members of the team they gradually discover there are things that aren't supposed to be as it is. And another ex-severed employer somehow connects with the main protagonist and hence the drama continues.
First and foremost it's a successful sci-fi drama. It creates a world not far from our current one yet it makes a believable shift from our current reality. The office rooms, the endless corridor, and the big fat CRT monitor in the workroom all suggest that there are some changes at this point in history. The next best thing about this show is how it successfully creates an eerie, unsettling, and tense atmosphere all the time with just a little help from four employees, one rugged security personnel, and one scary-looking boss in an all-white endless corridor of an office. Even if they are doing mere works, the minimal use of dialogue and fantastic use of score at times builds a tremendous atmosphere. Although it was unclear how their batch finding of numbers in MDR works but you can sense their unpleasantness from their expression. When the newcomer comes and wreaks havoc at the normal pace of the office, it surely opens up all of these characters open wide. Their own personal discovery, doubts, and newfound mysteries all come to an epic reveal towards the end.
One can surely see the references or influences on this show. Specially Orwellian 1984's influences. And as the employees completely dissolve into being workers for 8 hours, it adds a new degree to the whole corporate slave idea. Plus their charm or their qualities besides being able to work will be pointless to their innies which makes for a very lifeless plan. And if you are ever being frustrated at work there is no way to compensate for it because once you leave the office, you won't remember any of it and the next day you will come back with the same level of frustration the work. By including all these ideas, Severance put together a balanced first season of mystery box TV including some great performances along the way.