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Work-life balance has always been nearly impossible to achieve, and it went even wonkier during the pandemic. That’s the mindset from which TV writer Dan Erickson brought the Peabody-winning drama Severance to AppleTV+, where it became a critically acclaimed hit in 2022. The series follows Mark (Adam Scott), who has undergone the “severance” procedure that allows him to literally separate his personal and work lives; he can’t remember his personal life when he’s at work, and vice versa. At the start of the series, he’s newly in charge of a four-person “data refinement” department on the “severed” floor of Lumon Industries after his work best friend, Petey (Yul Vazquez), is unexpectedly terminated. Things get weird outside and inside, as Petey shows up in Mark’s outside life and a new hire, Helly (Britt Lower), seems determined to escape her fate, but cannot. Meanwhile, it becomes clear that Mark had a good reason for choosing severance; he’s mourning the death of his wife, spending most of his “outie” life drinking the pain away and waiting to go back to the bliss of his unremembered work day.
Severance is somehow unlike anything you’ve ever seen and a combination of many familiar (and excellent) influences. It’s a brutally farcical, and often funny, take on office life that at times isn’t far from the cult classic film Office Space, or the comic strip Dilbert, or, of course, The Office. (Please see: the melon bar party that’s supposed to be an exciting treat, or the mind-numbing drudgery of Mark’s department’s work, which has to do with sorting numbers on computer terminals.) It has elements of Sartre’s No Exit, but also, thanks to Patricia Arquette’s scenery-devouring performance as boss Ms. Cobel, shades of The Devil Wears Prada. It’s as surreal as Being John Malkovich, which Erickson has mentioned as an inspiration, and Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece Brazil. It feels unmistakably like a long episode of Black Mirror.
If you watched the first season of Severance, which has one of the best cliffhanging finales in recent memory, you’re likely looking forward to the second season, which premieres on January 17 with new guest stars lined up, including Gwendoline Christie, Bob Balaban, Alia Shawkat, Merritt Wever, and Robbie Benson.
To tide you over until then, why not watch (or revisit) some of its major influences, below?
Where to Watch ‘Severance’: AppleTV+
Helly (played by Britt Lower) receives a Music Dance Experience (MDE) as a perk for reaching a milestone at Lumon Industries.
‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ (2004)
The first episode of Severance in particular evokes the early moments of Michel Gondry‘s film masterpiece in which a downtrodden man—in Eternal Sunshine‘s case, played by Jim Carrey—navigates a snowy landscape after a breakup. The plot parallels are obvious: Eternal Sunshine turns on a fictional procedure that can erase a specific heartbreaking relationship from one’s memory, presumably freeing them from the pain of grieving it. So both works deal in human attempts to control memory for their own gain, and, naturally, their discovery that it isn’t always so easy. Eternal Sunshine has a much more romantic view and an oddly hopeful ending that Severance doesn’t seem to be aiming for—but we’ll have to wait for a series finale to know for sure.
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime
‘Lost’ (2004-10)
It’s hard not to think of Severance as “Lost in an office,” given its tantalizing and surreal mysteries (what is up with the baby goats?) and its finely drawn characters with slowly unfolding backstories. The comparison to Lost—a game-changing show of the 2000s—can be both a blessing and a curse to a series, heightening expectations but also evoking the specter of its crushingly muddled and unpopular finale. While Severance hasn’t faced the task of landing its complex storyline yet, so far it appears to have learned some lessons from its forebear, maintaining its focus on a small core of characters and telling viewers only what we need to know for the story at hand. Severance also presents, so far, a confident philosophical vision related to the ways we can—and can’t—keep our personal lives, particularly the devastation of grief, out of our everyday work. But it shares one other major belief with Lost: the need for other people, the heroism of sacrifice for others, and the life-saving power of community.
Where to Watch: Netflix
‘The Office’ (2005-13)
Severance‘s executive producer and director Ben Stiller, who was responsible for bringing the show to AppleTV+ and getting it made, encountered the first episode’s script as a writing sample from Erickson: “In my mind, it seemed funny and interesting and weird,” Stiller told The Hollywood Reporter, “but it was based in this comedic structure of this office workplace comedy.” He was excited to cast Scott as the lead because of the actor’s ability to do both drama and comedy; Scott also brings a connection to one of the greatest workplace sitcoms, Parks and Recreation, made by the same production team as The Office. And, yes, Stiller, too, sees Zach Cherry‘s overconfident, wisecracking character Dylan as the Dwight Schrute of this office.
Where to Watch: Peacock
‘Portal’ (2007)
In this critically acclaimed video game, the main character, Chell, must navigate through a series of empty chambers in the office of Aperture Laboratories, guided by a nefarious Artificial Intelligence presence named GLaDOS. The only information we get about Chell comes from the voice of GLaDOS, who at times admits to lying, so we don’t know what is true and what isn’t, not unlike what Lumon tells its employees about their “outies.” Chell most vividly resembles Helly in Severance, who is also resourceful and determined to escape, but does not know who she is or what she may find on the outside. Portal even begins similar to the way that Severance does, with its main female character in an empty room being addressed by a voice through a speaker. Severance‘s employees are offered a “waffle party” as an incentive to work, while Chell is offered cake. (Chell later discovers graffiti that says, “the cake is a lie,” while viewers of Severance know that the waffles are not a lie, though the party isn’t what you expect.) A film version has been in development from none other than Lost executive producer J.J. Abrams, but has not come to fruition.
Where to Play: Steam
One Final Surprising Source of Inspiration: This Sizzler Promo
Erickson has also cited this mind-boggling ‘90s Sizzler promo reel as a touchstone.