Silo: Season 1 Review
Aug. 7th, 2025 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSince because of Foundation I'm currently watching Apple plus again, I also marathoned the first season of Silo, which I didn't have the chance to do last time I watched Apple. In the meantime, I had watched the series Paradise over a the Mouse Streaming Service, and in reviews, comparisons to Silo had been made, which enhanced my curiosity. (Now that I've seen the first seson, I know why, though I would say the shows are far more different than similar, even the resoective premises. At best, you have some parallels in some of the conditions and in one of the results. Which is why I still think it was a mistake to not conclude Paradise (which had a good season, don't get me wrong, but I think the quintessential core story is told within it) as opposed to giving it another season, whereas I look forward to Silo's second season (because while the first one has a concluded main story arc, it is very much written as the start of a larger story).
Like the first episode of the British Sci Fi series Blake's 7, which actually doesn't have Blake as the pov or main character but his lawyer and the lawyer's wife, this series starts with a pilot in which the show's future main character is not the main person - she doesn't even get mentioned until near the end - while instead the main characters are the Sheriff (Holston) and his wife (Allison), neither of whom, much like Blake's lawyer and his spouse, make it out of the pilot alive. Said first episode thus not only establishes how deadly the stakes are, but also does quite a bit of world building and familiarzing the viewers with the basic rules of the setting. Most importantly: We're in an underground settlement (duh, see title) where most aspects of people's lives are tightly managed by the authorities (including procreation, for both obvious and not obvious reasons), where 140 years ago, there was a "rebellion" of people who wanted to go outside which was crushed, people are aware humanity used to live outside before the Silo but not what life was like or why they ended up in the Silo, going outside according to Silo lore and law is a death sentence. There is some semblane of democracy - the Mayor, ostensibly the highest authority, is elected - but in reallity there are ominous "they" in charge. Who really has the power over whom is one of the questions our heroine encounters in her season long quest.
Our heroine is Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson), who starts out as an engineer in the lowest known level where she and her team are busy with the machine providing energy to the Silo. She gets involved when a) her current lover dies mysteriously and b) Sheriff Holston before dying in the pilot suggests her as his successor, to everyone's surprise and no one's joy, including Juliette's, who understandably thinks it makes no sense to go from a job she's really skilled at to one she does not want and has no training for, except that she also wants to figure out what the hell is going on with the pilot's series of deaths, including her boyfriend's, so she does agree after all.
Juliette's quest for the truth is the season's main storyline, but there are others, including some MacGuffins she has to find, and character development not solely for her but also some of the other characters, which are introduced at a good pace, not all at once. Juliette's abrasive personality has real consequences (and a variety of reasons; btw, this is one of those increasingly rare female characters whose backstory trauma is NOT, I repeat, NOT rape), and when she makes mistakes, the narrative calls her out for it, but you can also see thath she's really good at the one commonality that being an engineer and being a sheriff offers her - solving puzzles, finding the reasons for something that went wrong. Ferguson, whom I had seen in various roles before she very much impressed me as the most recent Lady Jessica in the most recent Dune movies, is excellent as Juliette, but there is no weak actor in the cast. And the world of the Silo feals really lived in, with all its various elements - which technology is still used and which is not - being a part of the plot. As far as the minor and major mysteries go, it plays fair with the audience re: those which have been resolved by the time the season ends - as with classic mysteries, if you pay attention, there are hints all through the season before the various reveals -, and it leaves enough big mysteries for a good emotional hook for the next season. Even the villains who at first come across as too one dimensionally villainous get fleshed out re: their motivations in the course of the season (which doesn't negate their villainous deeds, but provides them with reasons that aren't "because I felt like it, muwahahaa").
(Fictional villains are ever so much more interesting human beings than real ones. Reality is so terribly, terribly written these days.)
As I mentioned more than ones, what makes a dark, dystopian story work or not work for me is whether it offers in addition to the darkness also light, i.e. the difference between grimdark and dark. Juliet is your classic battered noire detective character, but she also has people she cares about (not least an old technician played by Harriet Walter), and even people who only show up in two episodes like the wife of one of the main antagonists get their own personality and agenda that makes you curious and want to see more of. In conclusion: an excellent first season, I'm glad I watched.
Like the first episode of the British Sci Fi series Blake's 7, which actually doesn't have Blake as the pov or main character but his lawyer and the lawyer's wife, this series starts with a pilot in which the show's future main character is not the main person - she doesn't even get mentioned until near the end - while instead the main characters are the Sheriff (Holston) and his wife (Allison), neither of whom, much like Blake's lawyer and his spouse, make it out of the pilot alive. Said first episode thus not only establishes how deadly the stakes are, but also does quite a bit of world building and familiarzing the viewers with the basic rules of the setting. Most importantly: We're in an underground settlement (duh, see title) where most aspects of people's lives are tightly managed by the authorities (including procreation, for both obvious and not obvious reasons), where 140 years ago, there was a "rebellion" of people who wanted to go outside which was crushed, people are aware humanity used to live outside before the Silo but not what life was like or why they ended up in the Silo, going outside according to Silo lore and law is a death sentence. There is some semblane of democracy - the Mayor, ostensibly the highest authority, is elected - but in reallity there are ominous "they" in charge. Who really has the power over whom is one of the questions our heroine encounters in her season long quest.
Our heroine is Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson), who starts out as an engineer in the lowest known level where she and her team are busy with the machine providing energy to the Silo. She gets involved when a) her current lover dies mysteriously and b) Sheriff Holston before dying in the pilot suggests her as his successor, to everyone's surprise and no one's joy, including Juliette's, who understandably thinks it makes no sense to go from a job she's really skilled at to one she does not want and has no training for, except that she also wants to figure out what the hell is going on with the pilot's series of deaths, including her boyfriend's, so she does agree after all.
Juliette's quest for the truth is the season's main storyline, but there are others, including some MacGuffins she has to find, and character development not solely for her but also some of the other characters, which are introduced at a good pace, not all at once. Juliette's abrasive personality has real consequences (and a variety of reasons; btw, this is one of those increasingly rare female characters whose backstory trauma is NOT, I repeat, NOT rape), and when she makes mistakes, the narrative calls her out for it, but you can also see thath she's really good at the one commonality that being an engineer and being a sheriff offers her - solving puzzles, finding the reasons for something that went wrong. Ferguson, whom I had seen in various roles before she very much impressed me as the most recent Lady Jessica in the most recent Dune movies, is excellent as Juliette, but there is no weak actor in the cast. And the world of the Silo feals really lived in, with all its various elements - which technology is still used and which is not - being a part of the plot. As far as the minor and major mysteries go, it plays fair with the audience re: those which have been resolved by the time the season ends - as with classic mysteries, if you pay attention, there are hints all through the season before the various reveals -, and it leaves enough big mysteries for a good emotional hook for the next season. Even the villains who at first come across as too one dimensionally villainous get fleshed out re: their motivations in the course of the season (which doesn't negate their villainous deeds, but provides them with reasons that aren't "because I felt like it, muwahahaa").
(Fictional villains are ever so much more interesting human beings than real ones. Reality is so terribly, terribly written these days.)
As I mentioned more than ones, what makes a dark, dystopian story work or not work for me is whether it offers in addition to the darkness also light, i.e. the difference between grimdark and dark. Juliet is your classic battered noire detective character, but she also has people she cares about (not least an old technician played by Harriet Walter), and even people who only show up in two episodes like the wife of one of the main antagonists get their own personality and agenda that makes you curious and want to see more of. In conclusion: an excellent first season, I'm glad I watched.
