Dystopian series to binge

In a world that seems to be going mad CONSTANTINOS PSILIIDES picks shows to watch where it is even worse

Barren wastelands, an irradiated atmosphere, the collapse of civilization, the eventual break down of society followed by a descent into madness and barbarism. But enough about President Nikos Christodoulides’ first months in office! A darker, twisted future, that has some semblance to our own reality but is so far removed as to be almost unimaginable, dystopias have always captured our collective attention and writers have long since wondered how humanity’s future will look. And since we have a morbid fascination with disaster, here are three dystopian series to binge.

Silo (Apple+)

In the distant future, only 10,000 people are left, and everyone is forced to live in a huge underground structure, known as the Silo. No one can venture outside as – for some unknown reason – the air is highly toxic and will kill anyone in minutes. Within the Silo a community has emerged where everyone has a job to do, and everyone follows rigid rules even though no one remembers when they were drafted. Failure to comply results in the dreaded Cleaning: going outside to clean the cameras showing the barren landscape and dying in the process.

David Oyelowo stars as Sheriff Holston, a man charged with keeping the peace but thrown head-first into chaos when his wife (Rashida Jones) finds herself questioning the status quo, while Rebecca Ferguson plays Juliette Nichols, a hard-as-nails engineer who is drafted by Holston to help with a murder investigation.

Silo is based on the novel Wool by Hugh Howey and is the first in a trilogy. The series doesn’t follow the book’s timeline, opting instead to kick-off in a time before the first book starts, a sign Apple is planning to span multiple seasons, as also shown by the money spent on cast and overall production value.

Take it from someone who read the books: you have no idea what awaits in the bottom of this silo. Howey’s trilogy is full of twists and turns and more jump scares than a A24 production! New episodes stream on Apple+ every Friday.

Sweet Tooth (Netflix)

A massive sleeper-hit for Netflix back in 2021, Sweet Tooth fell victim to the production delays due to Covid. Coming with a second season over two years later is not a good sign, as people nowadays have the attention span of a squirrel on caffeine. Will the series manage to regain audience attention?

Watching the fist episode of season 2, I was immediately relieved. Sweet Tooth picks up right where it left off and still manages to strike an amazing balance between “cute” and “horrific”.

Executive produced by Robert Downey Jr and Susan Downey, Sweet Tooth” takes place 10 years into the future, after society collapsed due to a pandemic (some people’s imagination, amirite?) that came to be known as the ‘Sick’. Apparently, creative people died first. Following the pandemic, some children started to be born with animal characteristics and are mercilessly hunted by humanity.

Sweet Tooth tells the story of Gus, a half-boy half deer hybrid who is brought up by his father in a cabin in the woods, to shelter him from the outside world. Gus decides to venture into the unknown to find his mother, accompanied by Big Man (Nonso Anozie), a former hybrid hunter/former professional football player who agrees to act as Gus’ guardian.

Sometimes heart-warming, sometimes horrible but never offensive, Sweet Tooth manages to never lose sense of what it really is: a post-apocalyptic, dystopian series that is somehow suited for the whole family. The series has been renewed for a third and final season.

The Man in the High Castle (Prime Video)

One of the series that established Amazon Studios as a serious player in the streaming game, The Man in the High Castle is an alternate-reality dystopia, one where the Nazis and Japan won the Second World War and now rule the world. Based on Phillip K Dick’s famous novel, TMHC showed how streaming services could hold their own against major studios and broadcast channels.

The series shows what the world would look like if it was overrun by Nazis (so you know, Twitter is basically the same) and it begins in the 60s, when people in the now occupied US start finding news films and clippings of a reality with a different turn out. Tired of living under the oppressive regimes of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire – the world’s two remaining super-powers – the resistance decides to hunt down those clips and find out everything there is to know about their source, the eponymous man in the high castle. All 4 seasons are available on Prime.

Also, Hitler’s alive.