AAA<\/p>\n
It\u2019s taken its sweet time to get there, but I reckon Silo<\/a>, now in its third season, is a serious contender for best sci-fi show on TV. At any rate, it\u2019s almost certainly the best show you\u2019ve never heard of.<\/p>\n That\u2019s at least partially because it\u2019s on Apple TV<\/a>, which in the Australian market remains a minnow. If it were on Netflix, we\u2019d all be talking about it. Except I suspect Netflix would never commission a show like this.<\/p>\n Related Article A sci-fi suspense thriller in which the mystery is existential, it is expensive, ambitious, niche, achingly slow \u2013 and all the more delicious for it. It also boasts some of the best production design I have ever seen, though the fact a good deal of it is shot in murky half-light means you often have to squint to make out the detail.<\/p>\n That might make it hard to love for some viewers, but if you can dwell in the depths a little the rewards are enormous.<\/p>\n What\u2019s it about?<\/p>\n Silo is set a long way into a post-apocalyptic future, inside a self-sustaining vertical city that\u2019s been bored 144 storeys down into Earth.<\/p>\n At first, we\u2019re led to believe it\u2019s 140 years after an uprising of some sort, though whether that marks the start of silo life or merely a rupture in it is unclear.<\/p>\n Later we learn the silo has been inhabited for at least 352 years. Later still, we learn the silo has the capacity to support life for around 500 years. It\u2019s a mystery how far along that timeline we are; but given the sense of impending doom that surrounds everything, you\u2019d go all in on a minute to midnight.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n As the leaders of this 10,000-strong community intone at various points, we don\u2019t know who built this structure, or when, or why. We only know that going outside \u2013 as miscreants are sometimes forced to do, in a ritual known as \u201ccleaning\u201d \u2013 is a death sentence.<\/p>\n It\u2019s called a cleaning because that\u2019s what the expelled are asked to do \u2013 to wipe the smudge off the lens of the video camera above the exit hatch, so that everyone inside can see just how unsuited to life the outside world remains. Yes, it\u2019s a mode of control, but it\u2019s also key to the survival of this remnant civilisation.<\/p>\n Most people sent out to clean vow they won\u2019t do it. They are generally evicted, after all, for being in some way oppositional to the rules of the silo. But once they\u2019re out there something changes. They do clean. Because they want everyone to see what they have seen, which is not the same as the image from inside.<\/p>\n Hugh Howey, who wrote the trilogy of novels on which the series is based (Wool, Shift and Dust), has said the huge communal screen was his initial inspiration.<\/p>\n \u201cI just wanted people trapped in a world where they only had one view of the outside and that was through a screen, and the screen was telling them bad news every single day of their lives. What did that do to their psyche?\u201d he told an interviewer on the eve of season two<\/a>. \u201cBecause I felt like that\u2019s what my TV, my laptop, my phone, my computer [were doing] \u2026 Our screens were telling us mostly bad news. This can\u2019t be good for us.\u201d<\/p>\n That first novel was published in 2011, before AI and deepfake technology began to erode our faith in the image as vessel of the real. Imagine how glum Silo might be if Howey were to start writing the books now.<\/p>\n The image on the screen in Silo is both threat and promise. Break the strict rules of the community, and you will be banished to a desolate wilderness and near-instant death. Conform and you will live in safety, albeit one that is tightly controlled. It\u2019s a devil\u2019s bargain not unlike that which real people around the world seem increasingly willing to make.<\/p>\n![\"It\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/b64908f5adaaed1bacf4ee3f7ab69fb567f6d50c.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Silo\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ff0c4522456a8195ce9bfab7bf8687cdf9d643b1.jpeg\")
Silo\u2019s production design is superb \u2026 if you can make it out in the dark.Apple TV+OK, but what\u2019s it really about?<\/p>\n![\"Beginning](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/55beb512105764ad5439fdb124635938dc0a5769.jpeg\")
Beginning to see the light: Rebecca Ferguson is on a quest to discover the truth about the place she calls home.Apple TV+<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/6f00e09697343f17336dada4eacfe5bd79d09fe6.jpeg\")
The first time we see Juliette, she looks like a figure from Soviet-era socialist realist art.\u00a0Screengrab<\/p>\n![\"Ashley](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/be19885432bf66834dc5b25a66a00547dfbfdbc9.jpeg\")
Ashley Zukerman stars in the new season of Apple TV\u2019s dystopian drama Silo.Apple TV<\/p>\n