Silo

After three episodes, Apple TV+’s Silo looks promising. It’s not breaking new ground, but it’s doing a solid job of depicting a refuge for what might well be the last of the human race, 140 years after they retreated down there in the wake of a catastrophe that led to them living cheek-by-jowl in such a confined space.

In a ruined and toxic future, thousands live in a giant silo deep underground. After its sheriff breaks a cardinal rule and residents die mysteriously, engineer Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) starts to uncover shocking secrets and the truth about the silo.

I’ve not read a word of the books series it’s based on, but after a couple of episodes setting up the basics of the world our characters are living this week’s third episode gave our female lead, Rebecca Ferguson, a good solid storyline where she used her engineering skills¹: to save the entire population of the silo from the consequences of a catastrophic mechanical failure. Rebecca Ferguson is very good at playing a highly focussed, uncompromising engineer. I very much look forward to seeing how she deals with some of the less straightforward characters² around her now her character has started to move closer to the centre of (political) power in the Silo.

It’ll be interesting to see, looking back once the ten episodes in the first season have been viewed, how the decision to spend the first episode with an entirely different pair of lead characters³ who are absent from the show after episode two. I gather the two characters’ story was the basis of the novella that the author came up with before launching into what’s soon to ba a four-book series of novels. Will we look back and wish there had been more time spent on characters who were destined to be present throughout the first season, or will we be glad that we spent an entire episode right at the start, seeing how the fictional world worked and showing how badly things seemed to have gone for our original lead couple?