OUT OF OFFICE
SEVERANCE Streaming, Apple TV+
A healthy work-life balance is at the top of everyone’s post-pandemic wishlist, whether it’s in the relative peace of an office cubicle or the comfort and convenience of working from home.
But what if you could completely separate your professional and personal lives, to the point where you had no recollection of one life while you were living the other?
In a nutshell, that’s the premise of this quirky new thriller series from director and executive producer Ben Stiller, created by Dan Erickson. Employees at the mysterious Lumon Industries undergo a process known as “severance”, a brain surgery that divides their memories so they can work productively without the distractions or drama of a personal life, and leave their work stress at the office when they clock out each day.
It’s the perfect arrangement for Mark (Adam Scott), a recently widowed professor who works in Lumon’s “macrodata refinement division”. And no, he doesn’t know what that means either. It seems as though his inscrutable supervisor Harmony (an ice-cold Patricia Arquette) wants to keep it that way.
Mark and his fellow “severed” coworkers seem happy with the arrangement, dutifully completing tasks they don’t understand all day long, but the arrival of new team member Helly (Britt Lower) calls their brittle peace into question – what exactly do they do each day? And why is it such a closely-guarded secret?
With episodes dropping each Friday, this retrofuturistic sci-fi mystery is sure to be tantalising viewers for weeks to come.