The best streaming services are putting serious money into original content, and while not all of that money produces hits it looks like Apple TV+ has hit the jackpot with Silo. The dark, dystopian SF thriller was sitting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes yesterday, and while that's dropped to 95% now the critical consensus still says this is one to add to your Up Next list.
Based on the book Wool by Hugh Howey, Silo is set in the far future inside a huge silo where tens of thousands of survivors live in uncomfortably close proximity. What did they survive? Nobody knows. When did it happen? That's a nope too – because all the records of whatever happened were deliberately destroyed. All we know is that people who break the oppressive rules of the Silo are sent outside to clean the silo's sensors, and that's a death sentence.
Enter Jules (Rebecca Ferguson), who gets the job of Sheriff and begins to investigate why the previous Sheriff and his wife volunteered for certain death – only to find herself assigned to the same fate.
Is Silo worth streaming?
Yes. As you can see from the trailer above, it's a big-budget show that looks fantastic – and the reviewers say there's substance to match the style. The Age says it's "an elegant, immersive puzzle", while the Globe and Mail praises Ferguson's performance as "a hero of steel nerves and unbreakable determination".
Over at Decider, Nicole Gallucci says it's "a suspenseful series that has the vibes of Desmond's Hatch on LOST and other genre greats like Snowpiercer", and it also touches on some of the themes of claustrophobia and surveillance you'll also encounter in Apple's superb Severance.
It's interesting to compare the US and Canadian reviews, which are almost all positive, with the much sniffier response from the UK press. The Evening Standard only gave it 3/5 stars, saying "there's a lot going on: frankly, too much" and complaining that some of the dialogue is "hammy". The Telegraph hated it too. But The Guardian was much more impressed, awarding 4/5 stars and calling it "absolutely thrilling".
I love a good dystopia so I'll be settling down to watch this one tonight. It's streaming weekly on Apple TV+, and if you don't already have an Apple TV+ subscription that's £6.99 a month and shareable with up to five other family members. If you're already using other Apple products such as Apple Music it's worth looking at Apple One bundles: I have the family one which combines Apple TV, Apple Music, Apple News, Apple Fitness+, iCloud+ and Apple Arcade in a single monthly sub.
