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52 films that influenced Severance
What critics say influenced Severance
The Matrix comparisons are even stronger here, especially after Irv has a strange dream later in the episode.
(Sounds a bit like the pills in The Matrix, doesn’t it?)
…at times I was left wondering if Lumon had activated a yet-unknown-to-us part of the severance chip (à la The Matrix) to send the refiners on this journey in their minds…
Mark snaps upright fully reintegrated like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix and uses the moves from the Chikhai Bardo cards to defeat a series of Lumon employees…
Lumon exhumed Gemma’s body after Mark’s original freshman fluke because it showed them he’s essentially Neo from The Matrix and they want to harness his powers for capitalist and/or nefarious purposes before he realizes how much control he has…
Mark’s bare fish tank with a blue and a red fish is a clever nod to The Matrix, with which Severance also shares a lot of thematic ground.
Perhaps that’s why shows such as The Office and Parks & Recreation are popular—they offer us relatable escapist entertainment.
Think of it as the mirror image of classic satires like The Office or Office Space, which present the American white-collar workplace as a banal exercise in oppressive mundanity.
It requires your full attention in a way thatAgatha All Along or The Office doesn’t…
This much intrigue over details hasn’t been seen since perhaps Westworld’s first season.
…the abundance of questions can come at a disadvantage for shows such as Westworld…
…reminded me of John Malkovich crawling into his own head in Being John Malkovich…
It embraces its surrealist streak when Mark and Helly crawl through a goat tunnel (a scene recalling one of Severance’s major tonal and visual touchstones, Being John Malkovich)…
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The jarring transitions between scenes and themes of love, loss, and memory-tampering recall Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind…
…it’s full-on Eternal Sunshine up in his brain. And even though the creative inspiration for these sequences seems to come, at least in part, from Michel Gondry’s wondrous direction in that film, Mark’s memories aren’t being erased like Joel Barish’s; quite the opposite…
You previously portrayed a multiverse-programmed character in Dollhouse, which shares a few creative parallels to Severance.
This is familiar territory for Lachman, who explored these themes 15 years ago on Dollhouse. While Severance has taken a very different approach to the idea of memory wiping, it sometimes seems like it’s heading to the same endpoint.
It’s bolstered by Lachman (speaking of Dollhouse), who demonstrates the kind of passion and wit that would make someone’s former husband want to forget her for eight hours a day.
The previous big Apple hit, Ted Lasso, started life as a commercial for NBC Sports, and ended up as a treacly dram-com about the magic of Christmas.
AppleTV+’s biggest hit since Ted Lasso…
…two mystery box dramas airing this year have invited parallels to the series: Severance and Yellowjackets…
As a puzzle, Severance can drag, especially compared to denser, faster shows like Yellowjackets.
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…blended sci-fi, moral commentary, and cheekiness better than any television program since Rod Serling’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE…
…the paranoia and unease of 70s political conspiracy thrillers such as The Parallax View help the series flesh out this wholly original narrative and thematic idea on a bold visual level…