6 Shows Like ‘Severance’ to Watch While You Wait for Season 3

The Leftovers

There are already a lot of people calling “Severance” one of the best shows of the 2020s, and the people that know, know “The Leftovers” was the best show of the 2010s. The series explores the emotional apocalypse of people left in the wake of a phenomenon called The Sudden Departure, which finds 140 million people across the planet disappear out of existence overnight.

Carrie Coon and Justin Theroux deliver bafflingly Emmy-snubbed performances in the HBO series, and with a brief three-season run, it’s a crime for any TV aficionado not to have experienced this show.

Mr. Robot

“Mr. Robot” catapulted Rami Malek into stardom with his Emmy-winning showing as a hacker named Elliot with more than a few skeletons in his closet. Elliot gets recruited by a hacker cabal to take down – you guessed it – the shady corporation he works cyber security for during the day.

The show perfectly balanced the paranoid thriller energy of the best spy stories with the psychological character development of a person as damaged as Elliot. The show came out of nowhere on the USA Network and became a phenomenon. Catch up.

Counterpart

“Counterpart” feels a lot like a multiversal “Severance.” J.K. Simmons shines in dual roles as Howard Silk – in one world a mild-manner desk jockey in charge of running messages at the U.N., and in the world considered Earth Prime he’s a ruthless intelligence operative with more than a little blood on his hands.

The series only lasted two seasons so it will be equally hard to find something new to fill the void when the binge is over, but the show was one of the crown jewels at Starz and something way more people need to get their eyes on.

Black Mirror

In a way, “Severance” is essentially an episode of “Black Mirror” put under a lens and explored for multiple seasons. The Netflix anthology series focuses on the dark side of technological advancements, with each episode telling a (mostly) harrowing story about the dangers of over-reliance on machines.

There are a lot of “Black Mirror” episodes to choose from, but the beauty of being able to hop in anywhere means first on the list should be “The Entire History of You,” “USS Callister,” “Playtest,” and “Nosedive.” Once you are feeling particularly bleak about technology, watch the show’s best episode – “San Junipero” – for a pick-me-up.

Devs

Alex Garland‘s first TV series also follows people looking into a sketchy tech company. The series follows Lily (Sonoya Mizuno) who suspects her boyfriend was killed by the company Amaya. The company is doing some odd things in the quantum mechanics world and Lily – a software engineer – gets herself hired so she can get to the bottom of what the place is really looking into.

Station Eleven

Max’s limited series adaptation of “Station Eleven” is nothing short of astonishing. Told both in the days/weeks/months after a devastating flu ravages the planet, and decades later when survivors are still picking up the pieces, the series explores what it means to truly connect with other people – and, more importantly, the significance of those connections.