Keep in mind the “golden age” of TV?
It arguably all kicked off with The Sopranos in 1999 and received rolling with exhibits like The Wire, Misplaced and Deadwood within the mid-2000s. Large-time productions that would match Hollywood when it comes to price range and scale.
However that was just the start. TV kept on trucking. Towards the tip of the last decade it was Breaking Unhealthy and Mad Males, later it was Game of Thrones and The Strolling Useless. Finally, the concept that tv performed second fiddle to the cinematic expertise started to erode and collapse.
The golden age of TV by no means actually ended. It simply saved going to the purpose when the phrase stopped making sense. “Status TV,” or no matter you need to name it, was simply the brand new regular: content material that pushed the boundaries of what was potential. New concepts, nice writing, world-class performances. This high quality is baseline now. There are totally grown adults who’ve actually zero understanding of what it was prefer to scramble for scraps by way of exhibits like Twin Peaks or The X-Recordsdata.
2021 was among the best for TV that I can keep in mind. Ever. Yellowjackets, Station Eleven, The White Lotus, Succession, Dopesick, Arcane, Midnight Mass. That is earlier than we even begin speaking concerning the superhero exhibits they preserve dropping on Disney Plus.
That is only one 12 months! ONE SINGLE YEAR!
Extremely, 2022 hasn’t let up. Which brings us — lastly — to the present I need to speak about now: Severance.
Severance is a sci-fi present on Apple TV Plus, set in a barely defined universe the place a course of known as “severance” permits workers to separate themselves into two discrete entities: A piece self, who exists throughout workplace hours solely, and a house self, who’s fully divorced from work. The work self has no understanding or reminiscences of what goes on exterior the workplace, and vice versa.
The forged of Severance is stellar throughout the board.
Apple TV Plus
At its core Severance is a excessive idea present acutely centered on exploring that unique thought — of cut up lives and artificially enforced, bodily induced work-life stability. However regardless of its distinctive excessive idea, Severance additionally performs on the tropes established over the previous 20 years of status tv.
It operates on a lot of ranges. Severance is undoubtedly a “thriller field” present, like Misplaced. There is a central thriller to be solved, and the present drip feeds the viewers data, enjoying to the Reddit sleuths who love to determine the twists earlier than they unfold.
However Severance subverts that by additionally being… extraordinarily humorous. It by no means takes itself as severely as a present like Westworld. It by no means wallows in its personal self-importance. In some ways Severance takes its cues from (but in addition parodies) exhibits like The Workplace, which rejoice the day-to-day grind of workplace life.
The casting of Adam Scott, who spent years on Workplace-like Parks and Recreation, performs an important function right here and helps play up the disparity. Severance contains a stripped again, minimalist workplace very similar to the one you would possibly see on Parks and Recreation, however not all is what it appears.
That is what makes Severance particular. It will get to be compelling like Misplaced and humorous like The Workplace. It will get to wax lyrical concerning the human situation, but in addition manages to parody the period it is a part of. In some ways Severance is the primary post-prestige TV traditional. It does every thing.
Severance is not flashy, it does not have to ascertain its greatness with self critical monologues or hovering orchestral soundtracks. It is a present that will get to have its cake and eat it. Severance is knowledgeable by the classics that preceded it however feels distinct from them. A present that swallows and digests every thing we have been consuming for the previous 20 years and vomits it up as a completely shaped, barf masterpiece that subverts the kind of tv we have grow to be accustomed to over the previous 20 years.
But Severance is just one season deep. Promising exhibits have fallen aside earlier than. Even a present as totally shaped as Severance may crumble beneath viewers expectations. They might screw it up.
However I’ve loads of religion in Severance. It has the instance of exhibits like Misplaced and Westworld to be taught from. We all know what may go fallacious. If Severance retains its narrative tight, and stays true to what made the present so compelling to start with, we might be witnessing greatness. On the very least, Severance is my favourite present of 2022 thus far and — for my cash — the very best present on Apple TV.
