I hear the books are a slightly different timeline, but cover much, much more.
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It has been ages since I read the books, but from memory. The first book covers both season 1 & 2. Most of the key characters their interactions and ‘what they do’ are the basically same, but there are some events & characters in the series that I don’t remember from the (first) book and vice versa… especially season 2. But overall, pretty close to the books.
The end of Season 2 hints at a 3rd (if it gets renewed) following book 2 which is basically the backstory of the silos.
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It’s on for 3 and 4, but it’s going to be almost a year before we get 3.
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Meanwhile.
I have only just started watching Severance. Yeah I know, right.
I was talking to a friend I have known since High School just the other day and he asked if I had started watching season 2… When I told him I hadn’t seen Season 1, after a few seconds of total silence he said - paraphrasing - ‘mate you have to watch it, you will definitely like it. And if you don’t we can’t be friends anymore’.
Only two episodes in, but yeah. I definitely like it.
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So without providing any spoilers, what makes “The Silo” different from all the other post apocalyptic shows that have been made for tv/streaming? Just curious. 
Couldn’t one ask that about any genre: western, cop, er, sci-fi? All TV is cliche. Silo is basically a mystery. “Why are we in this silo?” “Is the world outside really so bad?” “Are they lying to us?” “Are there others?”
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You make a valid point. I’m just curious to see what all the hubbub is about concerning this show. I may give it a shot myself.
My daughter and I got really into it. I’ve read the books as well. I love the franchise (if that’s what these sorts of things are called now). I’ll warn you though, there are big head-scratchers when it comes to character motivation. For instance, the constant cycle of people willing to go outside and clean the camera, which is always fatal. If you can hold you nose to these motivational fallacies, it’s a great ride. Steven Zahn in season two is especially great!
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Me and the wife have been loving this. Its just so bloody weird. Its a great piece of tv.
Im convinced I’ve got it figured out. So obviously i havent.
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The whole cast is so great but the guy who plays Milchick is so good!
He’s weird and mesmerizing and terrifying and funny all at once, each scene he’s in I never know what to expect.
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Absolutely agree. He is wonderfully creepy. A fantastic actor for that role.
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Absolutely. Very dynamic role and he hits the nail on the head.
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Generally speaking, no plot is every truly original. A detail here and there can be unique, but that’s about it. More than half my favorite shows can be summed up in a single rather dull sentence.
What makes a show is the cast (how they interact, their abilities individually, coming to care for or hate them, what they go through and how) , the day-to-day writing (events that illuminate their character, good dialogue, twists and surprises in how things unfold), and of course the quality of production and direction. If it doesn’t look convincing, like it was shot in a studio or a backlot or something, that ruins most.
Now the former and the latter still need to meet for me. I don’t like criminal/scum drama shows. Breaking Bad, Dexter, Succession, the Sopranos, and so on. I just have zero interest. I couldn’t even get through the Godfather. Yeah, great actors and writing but the premise just can’t hold me, my mind wanders off and I think about other stuff and stop noticing the actors and writing.
Cop, law, and medical shows are a dime a dozen and on rare occasion one will actually hold my interest. Boston Legal was one, purely because of the cast and light nature. Every time they tried to get “serious” I just lost interest. There was a couple of shows focusing on a client on death row who is eventually executed, I just didn’t care about it.
It has come to this.
I’m enjoying both Silo and Severance, but have a little bit of anxiety that they will end up like Lost. I loathed that show for two reasons.
One was humans behaving irrationally. Case in point, if I’m hiking along in the jungle and a big monster jumps out from behind a tree, I’m not going to stumble out on the beach stoically and not mention what I’ve seen. Rather, I’m going to run out on the beach screaming at the top of my lungs, “Everyone run, there’s a big ■■■■■■■ monster chasing me!”
The other aggravating thing was that often the episodes lack congruity, like they were making it up along the way. It was as if there was a new writer weekly, who hadn’t watched the previous episodes, but who had accepted the lowest offer. Or maybe it was written by interns. After the series ended, thank the unmerciful gods, because my wife saw every episode and then discussed it ad nauseam at the water cooler, the show’s creators admitted as much. Mother forkers.
Also, as good as season 1 of Severance was, s2e1 is just OK, IMHO. It lacks some of the darkness of the last few episodes of season 1. I suppose that they are attempting to make us feel comfortable, before doing something really sinister.
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With Silo, as long as they stick to the script (i.e. books) it should be OK 
WRT Lost, yeah, my thoughts exactly. I gave up very early in the 2nd season.
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The “Wool-Shift-Dust” podcast had a Silo writer and producer on the most recent episode. Continuity is a huge part of the process. The care in getting it right was impressive. They DO deviate from the books—but so far not in major ways. A big deviation from the book is the radio communication between Juliet and Lucas. This is a big part of the book but is totally absent on the show. Watching two people talk to each other on the radio doesn’t make for compelling TV.
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Lost did have multiple writers, and the only ending they had in advance was Jack’s arc.
I think they got too cute with their mysteries and would put them in without having an explanation. That can work for a couple of them, where you can leave some things forever unexplained, but to instead come up with a totally unsatisfying one later let everyone down.
This is one of the reason Starbuck’s arc was never spelled out in BSG. They had 2 or 3 ideas but decided whatever they picked was going to disappoint some of the audience in the end, so they just left it up to the viewer to decide what really happened.
Yet when Lost ended one year later, after already having stumbled so many times, they doubled down and face-planted into polar bear scat.
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This. I always have to chuckle at critics talking about plots being unoriginal when just about every plot we have can be traced back to classical antiquity.
Particularly for me the attention paid to material and technical details can make or break a show/movie for me, regardless of plot quality. I recently watched “Forgotten Battle” (when did Draco join the glider corps?) and, while I like the new perspectives on WW2 as seen through the lens of anyone other than the US and UK, the total break in continuity between actors using No4 rifles during non-combat scenes and No1 MkIII rifles during combat scenes really took me out of the story. “Muh immersion!”
Anybody here watch Seal Team?
I’m into season 2 and I quite like it.
Although I suspect I will grow tired of the repetitive nature of the series… There are only so many semi-realistic ops they can do.
Technically not bad, but I don’t know a lot about special forces.
The team members sometimes childish behavior can be annoying. They often pride themselves of being serious and always putting the team and the mission first, and then they seem to collapse completely when it comes to their personal lives, sometimes. I get that they’re trying to show the person behind the mask, but I think they overdo it. Not a biggie.
And there’s of course the US of A wave the flag chest thumping, running like a thread through the episodes, but that’s both in character and to be expected. And, they are at times critical to US foregin policies and question the politics behind their missions, which add balance.
So, in conclusion I feel Seal Team is like “Tour of Duty” that I watched and liked, in my youth, along with a bunch of war movies.
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