Shady business

Ben Stiller directs Adam Scott in an intriguing office-based thriller

- CAREN CLARK

NEW THRILLER

Severance

From Fri 18 Feb, Apple TV+

An extreme way of achieving the elusive work-life balance is explored in Apple TV+’s blackly comic thriller Severance.

The nine-part series – launching with two episodes this Friday, followed by a new instalment weekly – is directed by Ben Stiller and centres on Lumon Industries, a tech company that embraces a controversial policy whereby employees can undergo a surgical procedure of ‘severance’ that separates their work memories from their personal ones.

One ‘severed’ worker is Mark Scout (Parks and Recreation’s Adam Scott). As an ‘innie’ at work, Mark is unaware of his personal heartbreak outside the office, while grieving ‘outie’ Mark is free from work issues at home.

‘It was important that Mark didn’t feel like two characters – it’s different sides of the same person,’ says Scott, 48, as TV&Satellite Week joins him for a video chat. ‘His awareness is different in different circumstances. At the beginning, neither side of Mark wants to change – they’re both settled in where they are in their life.’

DOUBLE LIVES

However, ‘innie’ Mark becomes disturbed by the disappearance of one colleague and the arrival of another, newly-severed Helly (Britt Lower), who leads Mark to question the regime. Meanwhile, ‘outie’ Mark has a strange encounter that results in him trying to discover the truth behind Lumon’s motivations…