Now that the first season of the Apple TV series Severance has wrapped up, there’s nothing but the fans to do but sit and wait. The good news that followed Season 1 is that Severance is indeed getting a Season 2. However, at the moment there isn’t any news on just when people can expect to see it on the streaming platform.
The top option while waiting for yet another installment of the popular show is to watch the first season yet again and have audiences try and catch the stuff they missed the first time around. There are some clues here and there that show that people should see at least some of what’s coming when it comes to the Apple TV series. For those who aren’t wanting to watch everything all over again, or who have already binged the entire series twice, there are some other shows out there that can help fill the void.
Black Mirror
Black Mirror is the Netflix show that is an absolute no-brainer when talking about something to watch in place of Severance. In fact, there are times when the Apple TV show seems like it might just one one long episode of Black Mirror.
Of course, the sci-fi series is perfect for people who are looking for the kind of show that is similar to Severance but that offers different episodes and different themes along the way. There is the episode about the workers who have to try and win contests in order to leave their mundane lives behind. There are also the people who don’t have to rely on their memories anymore because everything they see and do is recorded.
Those who have watched any of Black Mirror know that the broader theme of the Netflix series is that technology that is meant to make people’s lives better tends to backfire in some truly spectacular ways every now and then. That certainly seems to be at least part of the theme of Severance where people have their brains separated in order to separate their work and personal lives and then things are in fact going pretty darn wrong towards the end of Season 1.
Dispatches From Elsewhere
Before Jason Segel moved onto a comedy series on Apple TV he was starring in a weird science fiction show that could have managed to get quite a life if things had been just a little bit different. Dispatches From Elsewhere was sadly victim to low ratings and never managed to get much of a following. That led to the series being canceled after just one season but it feels like it could have captured the feel of Severance pretty perfectly, even if the actual plot was quite a bit different.
The show focused on the real-life alternate reality game "The Jejune Institute," as well as a group of strangers who stumble across the game. Once they run across the game it manages to change their perception of reality. The series channels the works of Charlie Kaufman and is one of the most delightfully odd shows out there. Now available to watch on AMC+Dispatches from Elsewhere also had a pretty stellar cast as it starred Sally Field, Andre Benjamin, Eve Lindley, and Richard E. Grant.
Upload
This science-fiction show is easily the most lighthearted but it turns out that there is at least something heavy in the air with this Amazon Prime show. The program takes place in the near future where humanity has come up with a technology that allows people to upload their personality and consciousness to a giant database when they die. Robbie Amell plays the main character who has in fact died and uploaded. While he originally thinks he’s just going to spend the rest of his existence hanging out with others who had the same procedure, it turns out there’s a bit of a mystery surrounding his death.
Homecoming
Yet another Amazon Prime show that has some very interesting takes on the science fiction genre is Homecoming which is another program that features employees working for a shadowy organization quite a bit like Lumon in Severance. The employees are having trouble remembering who they are and what they truly worked for and that should certainly sound familiar for anyone who has watched the Innies sitting at their desks doing rather odd tasks.
The first season of Homecoming could be the more true-to-life version of Severance with a similar premise. Julia Roberts stars as the lead Heidi, a waitress who doesn’t quite understand how she ended up becoming one after her former job as a social worker for The Geist Group. There is another reason why the two shows have something in common. They both have famed directors. Severance has Ben Stiller behind the camera and, it’s Mr. Robot’s Sam Esmail behind the wheel of Homecoming.
Westworld
One of the best and more popular sci-fi shows on television or streaming, Westworld’s connection to Severance isn’t entirely obvious but there are some connections that will keep people busy with the HBO Max show until the workplace thriller is back on the air. Westworld is based on the popular movie about a bunch of androids that are part of a Wild West theme park that wake up and decide it’s time to kill all the guests.
The television show is quite a bit different as the androids have done quite a bit more than just go wild and started shooting at this point but there are also some similarities to Severance when it comes to trying to figure out who is working for who and why. The idea that a personality can go from one body to another or be altered in certain ways based on the whims of the people running the park is also somewhat similar to what people are seeing happen in Severance. The added bonus here is that this show is one that is still technically going and a new season is supposed to be on the way in the near future.