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Severance : New Apple+ show directed by Ben Stiller

plushyp

Member
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Synopsis:
Mark Scout (Adam Scott) leads a team at Lumon Industries, whose employees have undergone a severance procedure, which surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives. This daring experiment in ‘work-life balance’ is called into question as Mark finds himself at the center of an unraveling mystery that will force him to confront the true nature of his work… and of himself.

Cast and Crew:
“Severance” reunites Emmy and DGA Award winner Ben Stiller with Academy Award and Emmy Award winner Patricia Arquette (“Escape at Dannemora,” “Boyhood”), who stars alongside Adam Scott (“Parks and Recreation,” “Step Brothers”), Emmy Award winner John Turturro (“The Plot Against America,” “The Night Of”), Britt Lower (“High Maintenance,” “Casual”), Zach Cherry (“You,” “Succession”), Dichen Lachman (“Jurassic World: Dominion,” “Altered Carbon”), Jen Tullock (“Before You Know It,” “Bless This Mess”), Tramell Tillman (“Hunters,” Dietland”), Michael Chernus (“Orange is the New Black,” “Patriot“) and Academy Award winner Christopher Walken.

The series is written and created by Dan Erickson. Mark Friedman, Chris Black, John Cameron and Andrew Colville are executive producers alongside Erickson. Ben Stiller, Nicky Weinstock and Jackie Cohn executive produce through Red Hour Productions, and both Patricia Arquette and Adam Scott serve as producers. Endeavor Content serves as the studio.

Trailer:
 
The trailer doesn’t even make it clear whether it’s a show or movie

I’ll check it out, I recently got Apple TV for free again

Mythic Quest is the only thing I’ve watched it, although to be fair that show is amazing
 

K' Dash

Member
whats there to watch on AppleTV+ besides ted lasso?

I browse from time to time and theres nothing that catches my eye.
 
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jason10mm

Gold Member
Huh, could be interesting. Though I'm not sure the "always at work" memory set would be particularly healthy after a while.

This has "J.J. Abrams style mystery box" written all over it, so I HOPE TO GOD they worked this script backwards and forwards and sideways to address all the same damn issues these shows tend to have. I want internal consistency, proper foreshadowing, characters that act true to themselves and not just be plot set pieces, and an actual resolution,
 
Hmmm... you're one of the few people here who seems to have decent taste too

Shoot
It's created by Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney from Always Sunny (along with Megan Ganz, didn't know who she was but she's great in the show)

Charlie and Rob are great minds, and the show is hilarious

some of the episodes are just ridiculously well done

s1 e5 is a standalone episode that blew me away with how good it was
 
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Hari Seldon

Member
So Mythic quest gets good? First two episodes were awkward unfunny messes that at most produced an internal mild chuckle 1 or 2 times per 30 mins.
 
So Mythic quest gets good? First two episodes were awkward unfunny messes that at most produced an internal mild chuckle 1 or 2 times per 30 mins.
yeah it gets good, right around episode 5 is when the show takes a turn for me.

IMDB is notorious for having low ratings for everything. the episode I referenced above has a 9.4 rating on IMDB which is I rarely ever see

you can honestly just skip to episode 5 as its a stand alone episode if you want to see how good the show gets
 

Editaur

Member
I've only watched a handful episodes of Mystic Quest but every time I go through the Apple TV library all the shows look and feel fake in some odd way.
 
I've only watched a handful episodes of Mystic Quest but every time I go through the Apple TV library all the shows look and feel fake in some odd way.
I mostly enjoyed Mythic Quest except for Ashly Burch who is almost as fucking annoying in it as she is as Aloy. As for Apple TV plus I enjoyed Foundation, See and For All Mankind but the morning show was probably my favorite thing on there. Took me totally by surprise as I expected it to be trash. It really goes places.

I'll be checking this show out when it lands. ATM I'm trying that new Stephen king show,. So far so weird.
 

wondermega

Member
Started watching this show (watched episode 4 tonight I think?) it's quite well done. I do have some major suspension of disbelief problems with it, but I'm curious to see how it continues to unfold. Fans of Portal and Black Mirror will appreciate it.
 

TVexperto

Member
I mostly enjoyed Mythic Quest except for Ashly Burch who is almost as fucking annoying in it as she is as Aloy. As for Apple TV plus I enjoyed Foundation, See and For All Mankind but the morning show was probably my favorite thing on there. Took me totally by surprise as I expected it to be trash. It really goes places.

I'll be checking this show out when it lands. ATM I'm trying that new Stephen king show,. So far so weird.
morning show season 1 was so good but season 2 was so over the top nuts and insane..worse than a soap opera
 

Fbh

Member
Have been watching this with my sister since she has the Apple+ thing and we've been really enjoying it. Has been a while since a show had me this excited about watching the next episode because I want to see where the story as a whole is going and not just because of some cliffhanger.

It definitely has some Portal/Black Mirror/Control vibes going on which I really like and overall the acting, directing and art direction is really solid IMO.

With that said, it's an ongoing mystery box show, so approach with caution. As all of these shows there's a very real possibility they'll just never bother answering the questions and then we'll get interviews with the creators where they are like "actually, even though we dedicated a substantial part of every chapter to the mysteries, the show was never about that!, it was always about the characters"
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
With that said, it's an ongoing mystery box show, so approach with caution. As all of these shows there's a very real possibility they'll just never bother answering the questions and then we'll get interviews with the creators where they are like "actually, even though we dedicated a substantial part of every chapter to the mysteries, the show was never about that!, it was always about the characters"
IMHO any writer who says or believes this should be drummed out of the industry.

This attitude is RIFE in genre projects now and it is infuriating. If you can't resolve your hooks then GET SMARTER and BE A BETTER WRITER.

The corollary to this is throwing in random shit that is actually a nod to some side/spin-off project. You ain't the MCU, you CAN NOT pull this off, trust me. That crap ruined Army of Thieves or whatever that Snyder Vegas zombie film was.
 
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yeah it gets good, right around episode 5 is when the show takes a turn for me.

IMDB is notorious for having low ratings for everything. the episode I referenced above has a 9.4 rating on IMDB which is I rarely ever see

you can honestly just skip to episode 5 as its a stand alone episode if you want to see how good the show gets
So why does a show like IASIP have a high rating?
 
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Fbh

Member
IMHO any writer who says or believes this should be drummed out of the industry.

This attitude is RIFE in genre projects now and it is infuriating. If you can't resolve your hooks then GET SMARTER and BE A BETTER WRITER.

The corollary to this is throwing in random shit that is actually a nod to some side/spin-off project. You ain't the MCU, you CAN NOT pull this off, trust me. That crap ruined Army of Thieves or whatever that Snyder Vegas zombie film was.

Yup.
Mysteries are a really effective way of keeping audiences engaged, but doing them correctly is really hard. Coming up with the premise of an engaging mystery is relatively simple, but then having a compelling and satisfying answer to them is hard and usually doesn't work unless the answer was involved in the creative process from the beginning. I might be wrong but I get the feeling that a lot of mysteries on TV are just created on a premise level and writers think they'll "just figure the ending out later"...and it almost never works (and that's when the "it was always about the characters!!!" excuse gets thrown in).

So as much as I'm enjoying this, I went into it expecting to be disappointed in the end. Though I really hope I'm not.
 
We started watching it and immediately dropped it after seeing Adam Scott crying the car. Because it looked to be another “character-driven” movie with poor storytelling when there is an interesting/semi-interesting concept behind. I am tired of those.
 

wondermega

Member
I have been killing myself waiting for the show to wrap up. Not disappointed.
Not really happy about however long the wait will be for S2, in many ways I wish they could have settled it all in a single season. But I am very satisfied with what they did. Very well done.
 
What a finale episode of season 1!!! I was so sure after last weeks cliffhanger that it will be always that it will be a big disappointment and if we are lucky one small thing is happening. But there are so many things happening and so many seeds planted for the next season, this is finally a season ending which didn’t disappoint but greatly exceeded my expectations.
 
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