WORK is a big part of our lives, and for many of us, these eight-hour stretches (at least) take place in the confined spaces of an office. And given the amount of time spent there, the people who you spend your time with can become a family.
However, at its worst, work can end up consuming our lives as we struggle to satisfy temperamental bosses and meet seemingly arbitrary deadlines (all hypothetical, of course). Sometimes it can feel like you’re toiling away to no end, for no reason, just doing the bare minimum to get by and get your salary by the end of the month.
Apple TV+’s new series Severance (of which three episodes have been released), takes this division between our lives at work and everything else to an extreme.
In the world of the show, which is vaguely set in the present or maybe even near future, some office workers working for the Lumon Corporation are given the choice to undergo the Severance procedure, whereby their consciousness is split into two – one for the outside world and one that stays at work.
The work-bound personality doesn’t remember anything about the outside, not where they are from, nothing about their family, and nor anything about the state of the world.
It’s a bit of a mind-bender.
The show’s main character, Mark (Adam Scott) has been ‘severed’ for two years. He volunteered for the procedure, attempting to escape a traumatic loss. Because of this decision, he can spend his working hours not thinking about what happened.
He shares his office space with Dylan (Zach Cherry) and Irving (John Turturro), two combative fellows – in their different ways. They are also in the process of introducing (or indoctrinating) a new co-worker, Helly (Britt Lower) to make up for the sudden loss of a longtime Lumon employee who was Mark’s best friend.
Their exact task at work is Macrodata Refinement, an incredibly vague task that requires them to stare at random arrangements of numbers on a computer screen to file away into specific folders. It doesn’t entirely make sense, but as a metaphor for the seemingly pointless things office workers do daily, it’s darkly funny.
Speaking of which, Severance is definitely not a laugh out loud show, despite many episodes being directed by Ben Stiller, but there is plenty of satirical humour that anyone who has worked in an office should relate to.
Perhaps the best thing going for Severance is its unique production design. The look of the show is perfectly calibrated, the dystopian science fiction office building with its never-ending hallways and spartan layout being a character in its own right. The show’s use of colour (or lack thereof) is especially interesting. Blues and reds stand out in their otherwise bland workspaces.
Right now, a big reason to check out the show is unpacking all the clues and figuring out what’s really going on with the Lumon Corporation and what exactly Mark and Co are doing at their jobs. Solving or uncovering these and other mysteries is a big incentive to follow along.
Time will tell if it all adds up and leads somewhere satisfying, but the deftness with which Severance has been told up to this point, as well as how the world-building has been doled out points in a positive direction. – The Vibes, March 1, 2022
*Severance is available exclusively on Apple TV+, with new episodes premiering every Friday
