Beyond the Severed Floor: Shows to Watch If You Loved Severance
If you found yourself captivated by the mysterious corridors of Lumon Industries and the existential questions raised by Severance, several other series offer similar blends of unsettling workplace dynamics, identity exploration, and suspenseful storytelling. Here are some recommendations to fill the void while waiting for Severance's second season.
Black Mirror
Charlie Brooker's anthology series shares Severance's knack for examining how technology reshapes human identity and relationships. While more varied in its settings, Black Mirror frequently explores corporate exploitation and the fragmentation of consciousness. Episodes like "White Christmas" (featuring consciousness copies forced into servitude) and "Fifteen Million Merits" (depicting a dystopian workplace society) echo Severance's themes of dehumanized labor and manufactured realities.
What makes it similar: The clinical aesthetic, exploration of technology's dark potential, and sharp critique of corporate power structures all align with Severance's approach. Both shows excel at creating worlds that feel just a few steps removed from our reality.
Homecoming
Based on a podcast and directed by Sam Esmail in its first season, Homecoming follows employees at a mysterious facility that supposedly helps soldiers transition back to civilian life. Like Severance, it features memory manipulation, corporate malfeasance, and protagonists trying to piece together their fractured realities. The show's split timelines and unreliable memories create a puzzle box narrative that rewards attentive viewing.
What makes it similar: The institutional setting, the gradual unraveling of corporate secrets, and the visual language (including distinctive overhead shots and careful composition) all evoke the controlled environment of Severance.
Tales from the Loop
Based on Simon Stålenhag's art books, this series blends science fiction with quiet human drama in a town built above "The Loop," a machine that makes the impossible possible. While less focused on workplace dynamics, Tales from the Loop shares Severance's deliberate pacing, retro-futuristic aesthetic, and interest in how technology affects human connection and identity.
What makes it similar: The show's melancholic tone, striking visual style, and ability to use science fiction concepts to explore deeply human questions all parallel Severance's approach.
Devs
Alex Garland's limited series follows software engineer Lily Chan as she investigates the secretive development division of the quantum computing company where she works, believing it's connected to her boyfriend's apparent suicide. The show delves into determinism, free will, and the godlike power of tech companies—themes that would feel at home in the world of Lumon Industries.
What makes it similar: Both shows feature mysterious tech corporations, visually striking workplaces that become characters in themselves, and a slow-burning exploration of big philosophical questions. Devs also shares Severance's meticulously composed visual style.
Legion
While more surreal and expressionistic than Severance, Noah Hawley's Legion similarly deals with fractured identity, unreliable perception, and institutional control. Following David Haller, a powerful mutant diagnosed with schizophrenia, the series constantly questions what's real and what's happening in the protagonist's mind.
What makes it similar: Both shows use distinctive visual techniques to represent altered states of consciousness, feature institutional settings with hidden agendas, and emphasize the fragility of identity and memory.
Mr. Robot
Another Sam Esmail creation, Mr. Robot follows hacker Elliot Alderson as he battles corporate America while struggling with dissociative identity disorder. The series shares Severance's interest in how capitalism affects our sense of self and features similarly unreliable narration.
What makes it similar: Both shows feature protagonists with fragmented identities navigating systems designed to exploit them, stylized visual approaches, and a keen interest in how modern work shapes psychology.
Dark
This German science fiction series might seem like an unlikely comparison at first, but Dark shares Severance's meticulous world-building, gradually unfolding mystery, and interest in how the past shapes the present. Its exploration of determinism versus free will also resonates with the questions of autonomy raised by Severance.
What makes it similar: Both shows reward patient viewers with carefully constructed mysteries, feature characters trying to understand the systems controlling their lives, and balance philosophical depth with genuine human emotion.
While none of these shows replicate the exact formula that makes Severance so special, each offers its own unique take on reality, identity, and the institutions that shape our existence. They provide the same kind of thought-provoking entertainment that made your journey to Lumon's severed floor so compelling.