There’s a new sheriff in town, but it’s multiple hours of Apple TV+’s Silo before she takes office. Before that, not one but two of the sci-fi show’s 10 episodes explore the legacy of Juliette Nichols’s (Rebecca Ferguson) beloved predecessor, Holston Beckett (David Oyelowo), and the nature of the underground shelter they call home. Such is the time deemed necessary to acclimate viewers to the inner workings of this world, a vertical concrete structure housing 10,000 people who have no knowledge of what’s going on above beyond what they see of the ravaged, toxic landscape projected onto window-like screens throughout the silo.
Showrunner Graham Yost greatly overestimates the depth of this paint-by-numbers sci-fi dystopia, adapted from Hugh Howey’s book series. The people of this society have lived underground long enough to develop new customs and terminology, but little of it deviates from the trappings of similar stories: the overt class division, the authoritarian government, and, yes, the scenes dedicated to marveling over what the world must have been like so very long ago. Given the retro signifiers on display throughout, such as clunky old computers, the silo comes to resemble something out of a Fallout game—that is, a place lost to time—albeit without the black comedy and retro-futurism that gives that series its distinct character.
That this world isn’t quite what it seems is, of course, a given, as is the fact that the black-outfitted enforcers who guard “relics” from the time before the “rebellion” are up to no good. Yet across its first season, Silo centers tiresome, protracted politicking and mystery-chasing over delving deeper into the idiosyncrasies that might have lent its setting a distinct texture.
The initial narrative groundwork that’s laid out is intriguing, like how messages must be passed by couriers who travel the silo’s enormous center stairwell since advancements like elevators or pulleys are outlawed by a rigid set of laws from a text known as the Pact. Elsewhere, romantic relationships must be officially sanctioned by the bureaucracy, and, in one scene, a double burial is proposed mainly to conserve supplies. But rumblings of societal discontent receive mere lip service, and flashbacks tend to reiterate what we already know.
Silo manages to be at once prolonged and cagey, constantly shifting focus from one character to the next in service of its central conspiracy and leaving itself little time to flesh out their replacement. When the series does find its groove, it tends to be in moments that have little to do with the overarching mystery (the show’s best episode mainly involves attempts to repair the silo’s generator).
In Juliette’s acclimation to her new role as sheriff, Silo wrings some intrigue that recalls Yost’s work on Justified: She doesn’t want the job and is intensely underqualified, but she proves resourceful and exercises a more flexible approach to the Pact than her colleagues. The resulting antics offer at least a few stretches of diverting tension, anchored by a brusque, single-minded performance from Ferguson that conveys greater depth than what was seemingly on the page.
In Juliette, Silo at least locates the human stakes that carry the story of the season to its cliffhanger finale. If the series ultimately answers few of the questions that it raises at the outset, it at least delivers a strong hook for a future season that might, with all the table-setting now ostensibly out of the way, deliver on its few glimmers of promise.
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