CNET’s Mark Serrels says that Apple TV+ is the place to find and watch “arguably the best TV show of the year so far.”
The show is, as anyone who’s watched it has already guessed, Severance.
From director and executive producer Ben Stiller and creator Dan Erickson comes Severance. Mark Scout (Adam Scott) leads a team at Lumon Industries, whose employees have undergone a severance procedure, which surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives. This daring experiment in “work-life balance” is called into question as Mark finds himself at the center of an unraveling mystery that will force him to confront the true nature of his work… and of himself. Exclusively on Apple TV+.
At its core Severance is a high concept show acutely focused on exploring that original idea — of split lives and artificially enforced, physically induced work-life balance. But despite its unique high concept, Severance also plays on the tropes established over the past 20 years of prestige television.
It operates on a number of levels. Severance is undoubtedly a “mystery box” show, like Lost. There’s a central mystery to be solved, and the show drip feeds the audience information, playing to the Reddit sleuths who love to figure out the twists before they unfold.
But Severance subverts that by also being… extremely funny. It never takes itself as seriously as a show like Westworld. It never wallows in its own self-importance. In many ways Severance takes its cues from (but also parodies) shows like The Office, which celebrate the day-to-day grind of office life…
That’s what makes Severance special. It gets to be compelling like Lost and funny like The Office. It gets to wax lyrical about the human condition, but also manages to parody the era it’s part of. In many ways Severance is the first post-prestige TV classic. It does everything.
If Severance keeps its narrative tight, and stays true to what made the show so compelling to begin with, we could be witnessing greatness. At the very least, Severance is my favorite show of 2022 so far and — for my money — the best show on Apple TV+.
MacDailyNews Take: Very highly recommended. If you haven’t seen Severance yet, get to it!
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The first episode was so boring, had to stop half way…
It’s an amazing show, but takes a bit of time to build the premise.
Rubenm’s comment was so dull, insipid, asinine and boring I had to sto
RubenM is a Cnut. He’s not from Cnet.
It IS the best show of the year, AND what was that at the end of Today’s Special Event? A subway door or??? And the severance theme!?
What?!?! I was just turning it off, didn’t pay attention heard the music and swiveled not quite in time… Gotta watch it again later today. Might have been the best part of today’s show!
Pay attention during the AirPods Pro segment. As the presenter is getting off the train Helly R is getting on the train. She even has her blue Lumon lanyard.