Brief Story Line
Story was set in dystopian future where 10,000+ people were living in a giant silo that stretched to the underground with hundreds of levels. The community have been living in peace for > 100 years, although they were not aware of why they were living inside this silo. There were all sorts of law and regulations that must be followed as they were said to protect the people from the outside world which was uninhabitable.
Holston Becker (David Oyelowo - See How They Run, Peter Rabbit 2 etc) was the Sheriff of the Silo and married to Allison (Rashida Jones - Spies in Disguise, Parks and Recreation TV series etc) who worked in the IT department under its head Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins - Dark Waters, The Shawshank Redemption etc). When someone who worked down below was found dead of suspected suicide, Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson - Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, Dune etc) a brilliant engineer insisted that it was murder and asked the Sheriff to really look into it. She was also very close to Martha Walker (Harriet Walter - Law & Order: UK TV series etc) who ran a shop in the lower level.
Meanwhile there was an organization called Judicials who maintained order and enforce the Silo's regulations by force. They were led by the very strict Robert Sims (Common - Ava, Hunter Killer etc) who insisted that his former enforcer Paul Billings (Chinaza Uche - Dickinson TV series etc) be part of the Sheriff's department. So what actually happened to the person who was found dead before? Why was the Silo built in the first place? And what was actually outside the Silo? You can find some of the answers in the first season of this series.
End of Brief Story Line
I said above that I was intrigued by the series as it was a combination of mystery and sci-fi plus it was also set in the dystopian future. But aside from those, I was also curious as the series was critically praised and audience seemed to enjoy it. In addition, the series was already renewed for second season even before I decided to watch it. So I have no worries if this would have no proper conclusion.
When I watched the first episode, I did not know what to expect. The first half seemed like a real drama especially when it was focusing on the Sheriff & his wife's family issue. Besides, the setting was quite dark and the gloomy feeling was very strong. But little by little, it became more interesting when a character started to question about the outside world and culminated in the episode finale with an ending that made it more exciting.
In the subsequent episodes, the mysterious nature of the Silo was looked further. The mystery investigation was given more focus too, though the drama feeling was still strongly felt. I could also understand why critics love it as the characters development were given a lot of emphasis and the story telling was well done. I read that this series was based on a series of 5 novels that started with Wool (all written by Hugh Howey) and some more novels after those. Hence the series creator Graham Yost (creator of Justified TV series and writer of movies like Speed, Broken Arrow and few others) have a lot of materials to be explored.
For me the series started to be a lot more interesting when Juliette was involved in the investigation and also more suspenseful when the Judicials were in the picture. I think they wanted to provide some twists as well towards the ending, but I personally felt it was not that shocking. I like how they built up the intensity, especially since episode 8 and the season finale was awesome and made me looking forward to second season. Oh for sci-fi series, I did not feel it had many amazing special effects. However, the silos did look quite realistic and convincing.
Rebecca Ferguson's performance here was wonderful, as she looked socially awkward at times which was not uncommon for people who had been in confined place with only handfull of people in her life and having strained relationship with her estranged father (played nicely by Iain Glen). There were other notable cast in recurring capacity with the ones I liked such as Will Patton (Halloween Ends etc) as Deputy Sheriff Sam, Geraldine James (Anne with an E TV series etc) as Mayor Jahns, Avi Nash (The Walking Dead TV series etc) as Lukas Kyle who took interest on Juliette and few others.
Overall I think this series is an interesting one. I know that it is very well received by critics but for me personally, the mystery about the silos was what made me liked it more. And as a sucker for mystery such as this, I really want to find out the reasons behind the silo creation and how everything would be concluded. So if you are into this kind of series, and if high praise from critics are your thing, then you would love this.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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