A proper work-life balance is a difficult thing to achieve. Those who truly love what they do professionally may find it challenging to pull themselves away when they are supposed to be relaxing or spending time with family, and careers that could be rewarding might not be due to the strenuous and unreasonable demands of employers. A shift to remote work for many during the pandemic has highlighted the questionable value of office settings and in-person requirements. Severance imagines a corporation where worker bees are inherently loyal and focused because their personal lives have been mechanically separated, and it’s just as fascinating and terrifying as it sounds.

There are many arguments to be made about the development of workplace friendships that can actually enhance productivity and overall performance. Some businesses choose to implement open-office arrangements, where the concept of cubicles and closed doors are replaced by a layout where everyone can see each other and is ostensibly on the same plane. Severance takes that all a step further, presuming that, if possible, the splitting of one’s personality into two halves could serve to simultaneously eliminate distractions and increase confidentiality by ensuring that employees couldn’t bring home their work even if they wanted.

The obvious question that lingers over this show is why any organization would possibly need that, where they would be working on something so important and secretive that even those entrusted to keep things running weren’t high-level enough to know what it was that they were doing. There would be countless opportunities for abuse, something Severance navigates with corrective behavioral treatment and the monitoring of employees while they are not on company grounds. It all just sounds like a bad idea, but given the way that consumers so freely turn their information over to websites they visit on a daily basis, it’s hardly an unrealistic notion that it could be developed in the near future.

What makes this concept so intriguing as explored in this series is its opt-in nature. Severed employees wake up on a table not knowing where they are, and are gradually integrated into their new existence, which involves being a shown a videotape of their “outie,” as their non-work self is nicknamed, testifying that they are doing this of their own free will. A new “hire,” Helly (Britt Lower), is particularly shaken by what she is told are her circumstances, and tries desperately to resign since she wants no part in it. Just as the audience might, she questions what her colleagues have all been told, which is that there is a code detector programmed into the elevator that can find secret messages no matter where they are hidden.

Believing is part of the program, where the worker bees have no sense of what the outside world looks like and will never know since they cannot exist outside it. Naturally, this system is fractured, and one rogue employee who has apparently been able to un-sever sets out to bring others to see things how he does. That helps to drive the story forward, though it would also likely be interesting to just sit and watch these people perform a task they are told is of importance each day without knowing what their data is being used for and what their “outies” actually experience when they exit the elevator.

While Severance, which is directed by Ben Stiller, is best described as a drama, it also has comic elements to it, particularly in the way the team interacts as at work. Mark (Adam Scott) is the reluctant team leader, generally passive and eager for all to get along, a difficult task given the frequent clashing of old-fashioned do-gooder Irving (John Turturro) and wise-cracking Dylan (Zach Cherry), who doesn’t buy into the vision of the company that Irving idealizes. The ensemble also includes Patricia Arquette, Dichen Lachman, Christopher Walken, and more, though it takes some time to understand who they really are and whether they should be considered good guys or bad guys. This show is haunting but also oddly entertaining, a vision of a dystopia that doesn’t involve zombies or an apocalypse but instead the willing submission of people to the whims of those with far too much power.

Grade: B+

Check out more of Abe Friedtanzer’s articles.

New episodes of Severance premiere weekly on Fridays on Apple TV+.