The Television of 2025: Q1
March 25, 2025 - Television
After having written about four notable films I've seen during the first quarter of 2025, it only makes sense that I'd hit four TV shows I watched over these first four months of the year. Since I'm partway into another few shows, I imagine that if I write up Q2 this summer, I'll have more than four. I've started watching the first season of White Lotus, the first season of The Americans, and the currently-airing Daredevil: Born Again, but I'll wait until I'm finished to say more.
Silo, Season 2
I really liked the books. I read both Wool and Shift, but never read Dust. It looks like with the conclusion of season two, they've wrapped up Wool, and in an after-credits like sequence, started the first scenes of Shift.
The series is decent. Rebecca Ferguson is fantastic in the role, and I loved Steve Zahn's character this season. While not the best thing on television, the show is solidly entertaining.
The Night Agent, Season 2
The best thing I have to say about The Night Agent is that it reminds me of 24. On the other hand, six weeks after having watched it, I can barely recall anything about the show.
Invincible, Season 3
The initial shock that comes at the end of the first episode has long since worn off, but the show remains solidly entertaining, with good characters, even better voice acting, and more subplots than I can shake a stick at. And I can shake a stick at numerous things simultaneously.
With the Mauler Twins gone, I'm most interested in Allen the Alien as a character, but Eve going full Phoenix was an interesting twist. The tendency for seemingly minor threats to return as potential world-enders is an interesting trope that Invincible makes good use of, whether it's Doc Seismic, Angstrom Levy, or the sequid horde.
Severance
Perhaps it is in part my appreciation of the absurd, but I love love love Severance. I'm torn as to whether I should write this blurb spoiler-free for those who've never seen the show, or whether I should spill and gush about my favorite bits. I'll opt for a mostly spoiler-free intro.
The show takes place in a world where a shady corporation named Lumon has developed a procedure named "severance", via which their employees at work can recall nothing about their home lives, and when they leave for the day, they recall nothing about what they've done at work. This effectively splits a person into two people. This creates a very interesting scenario, and even more interesting questions arise as a result.
Severance is unabashedly strange. As you gradually realize that the devotees of the company have cult-like behaviors, their deeply peculiar behaviors and manners of speech, while no less bizarre, begin to make a strange kind of sense. Still somehow, the next thing will manage to take you by surprise for its sheer unexpected temerity.
The show has a serious plot, and there are times when it really feels that it's progressing too slowly. My read is that with Severance, the mid-season is for appreciating the characters and the wonderful strangeness. The season finale is for intense plot progression.
Severance is also extremely quotable. You may as well skip this bullet list if you haven't seen it yet, but if you have, consider the following.
The work is mysterious and important
The egg bar is coveted as fuck!
He Dumb?
Uses too many big words
Please try to enjoy each fact equally
Devour feculence
Page 197 slaps!
The humor in Severance is so dry that it can easily be missed. I've looked away and entirely missed something hilarious that the characters never acknowledge, catching it only upon a rewatch or when I read about it online.
I will absolutely be rewatching all of Severance before the third season eventually comes out. I fully expect it to be my number one show at the end of the year. Then, again, it's only March.