Silo season 1 - is this sci-fi thriller worth your time?

Silo is set hundreds of years in the future where a community is living in a giant underground silo comprising 144 levels and follows Juliette Nichols, an engineer, as she begins to attempt to unravel a series of mysteries behind how the Silo is run and why they are there in the first place. The TV show itself is adapted from a series of books by an author called Hugh Howey and is currently available to watch on Apple TV+, with a second season due to be released on the 15th November 2024.

The show establishes very quickly that there is a specific hierarchy that is followed within the Silo along with a governing set of rules for each citizen to follow known as 'The Pact'. As part of 'The Pact', there is one overarching rule which is that if anyone in the Silo says that they want to 'get out' or 'go outside' then they will immediately be sentenced to 'Cleaning' which involves being sent outside the Silo to clean the windows and often to their death. At the start of Season 1, the story follows Holston Becker, the Sheriff, and his wife, Alison, as they begin to question some of the mysteries behind life in the Silo before the story shifts to instead follow Juliette Nichols, an engineer who eventually rises up the food chain despite Judicial (who are effectively above the police) doing their best to stop her.

Whilst the story and writing itself is very strong, it's helped massively by the fact the show has fantastic production design as part of it's world building. I spent large periods of the show trying to work out how much of the Silo was actually practically based and how much was CGI but couldn't quite put a finger on it. The design of the set works really well to portray the claustrophobic nature of living in the Silo to the viewer and overall, the show benefits from the limited (per say - as I said 144 levels) filming locations with the viewer quickly being able to recognise and establish the importance of each location not long into the season.

When it comes to the casting, Rebecca Ferguson is fantastic in the role of Juliette Nichols, a character who goes through a large amount in quite a short period of time. I've always felt her to be quite an underrated actress who never really got enough credit for how well she shared screen time with Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible films. Over the course of Season 1, we also see David Oyelowo and Rashida Jones as Holston Becker and his partner, Alison, who do a very good job of utilising their screen time to give their characters a lasting impact on the rest of the season. I'll always respect a TV show that is willing to kill off multiple characters and Silo does this on numerous occasions to advance the story. It's helped that there is a large ensemble of characters to pick from that we follow throughout, with almost every level of the Silo introduced at various points from Mechanical at the bottom all the way through to Judicial at the top. This allows the viewer to get an in depth look at how living in the Silo for years has impacted each generation, with the costume design varying depending on the level of the Silo they live helping to show the difference in class and wealth contextually in universe.

One of my few frustrations with Season 1 is that the show at points does feel quite slow as it establishes it's world build, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there are definitely points where I couldn't help but feel like they were dragging out some of the episodes to fill the full episode time. As Season 1 wraps up, I also couldn't help but feel that just by the sheer nature of the slow world building and where they left the mysteries at the end of Season 1, that Season 2 should be a lot stronger in it's story and flow.

Overall, I think there's a lot to like in Silo as it's a show that does really well to slowly unravel it's mysteries. It's also a show that flirts with being various different genres as it flicks between romantic story arcs, social commentary about the longevity of the human race as well as your typical police procedural dynamics. This allows the writers to create a really interesting show, although if you've seen Fallout on Prime Video, you'll definitely see a lot of similarities storywise as both have similar plots.

3 out of 5.

(Image credit: Apple)