Loved ‘Silo’ Season 3? These are the sci-fi thrillers to watch next
Loved ‘Silo’ Season 3? These are the sci-fi thrillers to watch next
If you’re already missing Juliette and Silo 18, these sci-fi shows should keep the mystery going.
“Silo” just wrapped Season 3 on Apple TV and it finally broke things open. For the first time, we got to see the world before… following congressman Daniel Keene and journalist Helen Drew as they investigate the events that precede the world we’ve come to know in Silo 18. Now, we have to wait for the final season (Season 4 will be its last), and I’ve pulled some other great shows with similar worlds and themes to help pass the time. If you loved “Silo,” here’s what to watch next.
Silo
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 starts to uncover shocking secrets and the truth about the silo.
Loved ‘Silo’? Watch: ‘Severance’
It’s time to go from the fluorescent lights of Silo 18 to the fluorescent lights of Lumon Industries. And while a show set mostly inside an office may sound a bit boring after three seasons of “Silo,” let me assure you it is NOT. “Severance” follows Mark Scout (Adam Scott), an employee who’s undergone the “severance” operation, where his work-self and home-self have no shared memories. His “innie” only exists inside Lumon, while his “outie” exists only outside.
Aside from being an awesome premise in and of itself, there’s a great mystery at the center. Just like “Silo” asks: what’s really outside? And in later seasons… why are they in the Silo to begin with? “Severance” asks: what is the severed department really working on? See, Mark and the rest of the team in Macrodata Refinement (which means…?) are doing work they don’t understand. And just like “Silo,” the deeper you get into the mystery, the darker things get. If you somehow missed “Severance,” Season 1 is worth dropping everything right now (seriously, close your tabs and turn on the TV) to watch.
Severance
Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs.
If you loved the underground mystery, watch: ‘Fallout’
The closest premise match on this list, “Fallout” takes you to another underground bunker — this time called a “vault.” Set 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse, the show follows Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) in Vault 33. She’s optimistic, sheltered, and really believes in the society she grew up in… until things start to crack open. Just like Juliette wants to know what’s beyond the “Silo”’s walls, so Lucy wants to know what is outside her vault. Except she gets there much faster, entering the Wasteland that in turn destroys pretty much everything she thinks she knows about the world.
Now, part of the fun of the show is that you get a wider look at the world. You follow the young soldier, Maximus (Aaron Moten), as well as the Ghoul (Walton Goggins). Both of them operate in different layers of society and different parts of the wasteland. All that gives “Fallout” a much bigger scope. And the tone is different too. “Silo” is dark and moody, with very little humor. But “Fallout” is bright, colorful, funny, and kind of bonkers. But it still elicits the same questions: what’s outside, and how did it get like this?
Fallout
The story of haves and have-nots in a world in which there’s almost nothing left to have. 200 years after the apocalypse, the gentle denizens of luxury fallout shelters are forced to return to the irradiated hellscape their ancestors left behind — and are shocked to discover an incredibly complex, gleefully weird, and highly violent universe waiting for them.
If you loved the conspiracy, watch: ‘Paradise’
“Paradise” starts as a political murder mystery. Who killed former President Cal Bradford? That’s what Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) has to find out. He’s the Secret Service agent who’s assigned to protect Bradford (James Marsden) and fails when Bradford is killed on his watch. Just like Juliette, Collins doesn’t know who he can trust… and he keeps digging anyway.
But that’s only the tip of the mystery iceberg. I won’t give the big turn away, but just remember this show is on my list for a reason. There are people in control you can’t see. There are mysteries you don’t expect. And an entire world outside the White House that isn’t quite what it seems. I’ll leave it at that. Go watch it.
Paradise
The tranquility in a serene, wealthy community inhabited by some of the world’s most prominent individuals explodes when a shocking murder occurs and a high stakes investigation unfolds.
Wildcard pick: ‘Pluribus’
This is a wildcard pick. There’s no bunker to get out of. There’s no apocalyptic destruction. In “Pluribus,” however, there is a virus-like infection that turns most of the world’s population into a hive-mind (kind of like the Borg in “Star Trek”) of pure bliss. Except Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) isn’t affected. She’s miserable, confused, and angry that the entire world is so happy.
It shares the same DNA as “Silo” in the way Sturka questions how everyone is just okay with this setup. She’s the same kind of stubborn outsider as Juliette, refusing to accept the answers she’s given. You still get a controlled society, but in “Pluribus,” it’s much stranger, and the exact parameters of control are psychological instead of physical. And tonally, it’s closer to “Fallout” — funny, bizarre, warm at times, then jumping all the way into disturbing. But the themes are almost the same: is a safe, peaceful society still what you want if you have to surrender a part of your humanity to get it?
More to watch after finishing ‘Silo’:
‘Snowpiercer’ | AMC+
Snowpiercer
More than seven years after the world has become a frozen wasteland, the remnants of humanity inhabit a gigantic, perpetually-moving train that circles the globe as class warfare, social injustice and the politics of survival play out.
‘Devs’ | Hulu
Devs
Young computer engineer Lily Chan investigates the secretive development division of her employer, a cutting-edge tech company based in San Francisco, which she believes is behind the murder of her boyfriend.
‘The Expanse’ | Prime Video
The Expanse
A thriller set two hundred years in the future following the case of a missing young woman who brings a hardened detective and a rogue ship’s captain together in a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.
‘From’ | MGM+
FROM
Unravel the mystery of a nightmarish town in middle America that traps all those who enter. As the unwilling residents fight to keep a sense of normalcy and search for a way out, they must also survive the threats of the surrounding forest – including the terrifying creatures that come out when the sun goes down.