At first, the response to Apple’s dystopian sci-fi was tepid. But it’s proved itself to be a deliciously compelling examination of what makes us human, writes Nick Hilton. Plato would have loved it. Of all the sumptuously realised analogies presented by Greek philosopher Plato, none has stuck in the public imagination quite like the allegory of the cave. In it, a group of manacled people can only witness flickering shadows, cast on the outer wall of their cavernous residence by the unchained inhabitants of the sunlit world. Their reality is just a silhouette of the world as it is, but how can they know the limitations of what they’re seeing, without the context of what’s missing?.
![[Innies Helly (Britt Lower) and Mark (Adam Scott)]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/10/13/Severance_Photo_020302.jpg)
It’s a tantalising vision, and one that has inspired countless filmmakers, from the Wachowskis in The Matrix to James Wan’s Saw. It’s also made an impression on the small screen, not least in JJ Abrams’s Lost and Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar’s 1899 (which was abandoned by Netflix on a cliffhanger ending). But it’s hard to believe that Plato himself would’ve enjoyed any of these half as much as AppleTV+’s sensational Severance, which returns to screens this week, three years after it left viewers feeling as frustrated and clueless as its protagonists.
OK, Plato would probably have some catching up to do. After all, what makes Severance so compelling is not just the shadow play slowly revealing itself, but the resonances with our modern world. When it first appeared on Apple’s streaming service, back in 2022, it did so with remarkably little fanfare. The pedigree was immaculate: a cast led by the ever-reliable Adam Scott but packed with Oscar winners (Patricia Arquette and Christopher Walken) and cult stars, like John Turturro and Dichen Lachman. It was also directed, in part, and executive produced by Ben Stiller, coming off the back of his Golden Globe-winning mini-series, Escape at Dannemora.
