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Severance Review

Severance is a 2022 science fiction psychological thriller series created by Dan Erickson, directed by Ben Stiller and starring Adam Scott. It’s a disappointing show.

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“We’re people, not parts of people“

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A sinister technology corporation, Lumon Industries, uses a “severance” medical procedure to separate the non-work memories of some of their employees from their work memories. One severed employee, Mark, gradually uncovers a web of conspiracies from both sides of the division. First and foremost, this concept was brilliant. It’s on-the-nose in its depiction of how people put up a different personality when going to work, but it’s powerful in its exploration of the many horrors of corporate jobs and their toxic environments.

While the show does explore these issues well, the eventual execution was one that firmly favored the psychological thriller than the SF genre. As a big fan of the latter, this was highly disappointing to me. The show can get intense in some scenes for sure, but its twists and turns weren’t as appealing to me as was the exploration of its brilliant concept, and unfortunately the latter did not get enough screen time.

Adam Scott is excellent in the main role and he is the star of the show. Britt Lower as this woman who will stop at nothing to escape from this hellhole of a place was also terrific and the two are very well contrasted. Patricia Arquette as one of the villains was highly effective and quite creepy. Her line delivery was particularly outstanding.

My issue here lies in characterization, not the action, which was superb. None of these characters struck a chord with me. They aren’t well developed in any of their forms and the show felt overly dark, gloomy, nihilistic and cold in its atmosphere and tone. Coldness goes well with SF, but when you have a slow pace as well, you’ve got a series that just isn’t as engaging as one would wish.

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