Apple TV+ gets their Westworld on in trailer for new series Silo
Silo follows an underground society that believe going outside is very, very bad... or is it?
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Every decade or so, a new dystopia trend seems to emerge. The early-to-mid 2000s had the “one extraordinary teen takes down an entire corrupt government” films we all know and love (i.e. The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner, etc.), but now the genre looks a little different. There’s usually a group of people (or close-to-people) trapped in some sort of perverse paradise that harbors a whole lot of secrets. All they want to do is leave. Radiohead is always playing. The shows usually flop.
TNT tried with Snowpiercer and Netflix gave it a one-season go with 1899. Westworld was the best and brightest but still couldn’t handle the pressure of its own mythology (or HBO’s campaign of destruction). Now, it’s Apple TV+’s turn with Silo, a series that seems a bit like an AI interpretation of all of the previous shows mashed together (not necessarily in a bad way!).
The trailer opens with a sweeping pan of the underground, steampunk bunker that houses and protects the last ten thousand people on Earth from the toxic world outside (allegedly). A children’s choir covers Radiohead’s “Exit Music (For A Film)” in the background. (Get it? Because the line says “Today, we escape?” Westworld certainly did.) Check, check.
From there, we are quickly treated to a whole load of exposition. (The streamer did describe the series as “world-building.”) A presidential figure (played by Tim Robbins) explains that no one in the silo knows who built it or why they are underground. All they know is that “the world outside our sanctuary is death,” a pronouncement the rest of the trailer (and every other show in this genre) insists is probably not the truth.
As other Silo residents grapple for answers, the tightly run community—portrayed by an ensemble cast including Rebecca Ferguson, Common, Harriet Walter, Chinaza Uche, Avi Nash, David Oyelowo, and Rashida Jones—descends further into chaos. Will someone leave the Silo by the end of the season? Definitely. Will we find out even 30% of the show’s answers by the season’s finale? Almost certainly not! Will we be strapped in for the journey regardless? Absolutely.
Silo premieres May 5 on Apple TV+.
28 Comments
If the provided promotion photo is too dark to see clearly, I think I won’t bother straining my eyes to try to watch the show.
This is exactly the type of show I should like but this looks very dumb.
“Silo, a series that seems a bit like an AI interpretation of all of the previous shows mashed together”Pretty sure Hugh Howey (the author) is not an AI, and I’m pretty sure Wool (the first of the Silo series books) came out over ten years ago.
“seems a bit like”
Reading comprehension much?
If he had been an AI, he wouldn’t have been so offended and blocked me when I (very politely) called him out on crowdsourcing a cover for the third book with the nebulous promise of “winning a prize” or some shit.
Because an AI wouldn’t have had to contact artists to rip them off.
Since you didn’t it mention it, you might be interested to know this is based a pretty good series of books written by Hugh Howey.
I liked the first book, but the rest didn’t catch me nearly as much.
The rest weren’t quite as good, but they were decent enough that I think they’ll probably make a decent series. Especially if they incorporate the flashback/backstory stuff.
I like the later story, as it gets less “dystopian” and more hopeful for the silo residents. The prequel-y stuff, I’m more ambivalent on.
I was gonna say, I’m pretty sure this is based off of Wool…That’s the only book in the series I read, but I remember enjoying it alright. Didn’t blow me away, but it was pretty good.I’ll check the show out.
Yeah, I was a tad surprised that the article didn’t mention the source. I liked the first book (haven’t read the other ones). There were a lot of narrative … I wouldn’t call them tricks, but surprises. I think it will work well as a series. I read Halfway Home by the author, too, and really enjoyed it. Am I the only person who thinks Apple+ is just killing it with every damn show they put out? I haven’t seen them all but have not been disappointed with any of the ones I have seen.
I’ve been stoked for this for like 3 or 4 years now. I hope the first season covers a fair amount of Wool, if not the whole thing, because stretching this out to 8 seasons or something would be silly.
I think the streamers are happy to keep shows limited nowadays, 3 or 4 seasons should do it without turning it into a CW procedural
I feel like, whatever the answer is to what is outside the silo – desert waste, a utopian city, the Matrix, another, biggger silo – is gonna blow.
You’ll be pleased to know it’s none of those things! Unless they deviate drastically from the books.
Was the silo within each and every one of us?
The real silo was the friends we found along the way.
A city of ghouls!
You basically just described the trailer, didn’t mention the best selling book series that this show is based on and use that to provide some context to this article. Calling Silo “Apple TV’s Westworld”, disrespects both Westworld and the Wool book series. Yes, they both are dystopian, take place in the future, and involve some pretty large scale conspiracies – AS DO DOZENS OF OTHER BOOKS, FILMS AND TV SERIES. Otherwise these two works are nothing alike.
I don’t know, it looks pretty good to me. And Apple has a good track record, so I’ll probably give it a shot. They could stand to brighten it up a bit, though. That trailer is murky.
Seems more like Apple+ has got their Snowpiercer than their Westworld, what with the plot being pretty much exactly Snowpiercer and pretty much not like Westworld at all.
I gotta get this soundtrack
Did you somehow miss that this is an adaptation of Wool by Hugh Howey, or did you leave that out for attention?
I fancy Rebecca Ferguson so I’ll probably watch it.
Memory fails cause I’m tired but is this a new concept? I don’t think anyone really wanted to leave Gilligan’s Island either.
A very satisfying trilogy with the right mix of twists and answers and enough world building to fill in the blanks yourself. But I do remember learning not to get attached to any characters for the third one…
I had no idea that AV Club had even bothered with what’s probably Apple’s best show so far – although then again, it took you two years to cover FAMU.Perhaps you might want to put out a composite review of the first few episodes, since we’ve now seen them and they’re pretty darned good.