Why the Puzzle-Box Sci-Fi of <em>Severance</em> Works

At a time when the American office is anywhere a Zoom window can be opened, the notion of truly separating work and home is an alluring one. Take that thought to its furthest extreme and you have the Apple TV+ thriller Severance. The dystopian sci-fi starring Adam Scott makes “work-life balance” an actual divide in its characters’ consciousnesses; a special surgery allows them to switch between their work and home selves on their elevator commutes to and from their shadowy employer’s basement.

The show is a fresh approach to the very present anxieties about office life. It’s also another in a long line of puzzle-box science-fiction stories that leave the audience trying to piece together the rules of the game. But where Lost and Westworld’s mysterious islands spawned endless fan theories before spinning out into the wider world, Severance exists in a mercifully contained universe.

Its characters are physically hemmed in, apparently able to exist as their work consciousness only among the white hallways and spartan cubicles of Lumon Industries. They never see the sun or know anything but the workday, and they are compensated with desk toys and conference-room parties that would embarrass even Michael Scott.

Life at Lumon is an absurdist existential nightmare. And while its bleak humor calls to mind Office Space alongside its Westworld-esque premise, Severance benefits from leaning into the darkness of both influences, building a fresh critique of workplace life for our strained “return-to-office” era.

For an episode of The Atlantic’s culture podcast, The Review, three staff writers discussed the first season of Severance. Spencer Kornhaber, Sophie Gilbert, and David Sims talk about sci-fi dystopias, the show’s commentary on white-collar work, and what it says about the strange new landscape of streaming television. Listen to their conversation here:

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The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.