Titled “Freedom Day,” the first episode of “Silo” acts as something of a prologue to the show’s central narrative. That’s not at all to suggest it’s unimportant. Quite the contrary, this particular chapter — which begins three years prior to the series’ present-day timeline — focuses on Holston Becker (David Oyelowo) and his wife Allison (Rashida Jones), two people whose actions serve as the catalyst for everything else that transpires over the course of season 1. However, it’s not until the closing minutes that we meet the show’s true protagonist: Rebecca Ferguson’s Juliette Nichols, the stern, hard-working engineer who makes it her mission in life to maintain the generator that keeps the titular underground post-apocalyptic setting livable for its 10,000 residents.
But enough from me, feel free to watch the episode for yourselves:
3 days until the #Silo finale.
Here’s the entire first episode. pic.twitter.com/lIcTXCQ9D6
— Apple TV (@AppleTV) June 27, 2023
“Silo” was created by Graham Yost of “Justified” fame, who penned season 1 with a crew of seasoned TV writers that includes Cassie Pappas (“Tyrant”), Remi Aubuchon (“Falling Skies”), and Ingrid Escajeda (“Empire”), as well as relative up-and-comers like Lekethia Dalcoe (“Two Sentence Horror Stories”) and Jeffery Wang (a longtime “Justified” writers assistant). Writers are the backbone of any media project, of course, and deserve to be treated accordingly — stares at the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. With that in mind, “Silo” is a particularly great example of the magic that can happen when you afford writers the time and resources they need to unfurl an intoxicatingly unpretentious dystopian sci-fi mystery (one packed full of timely political commentary and rich world-building) with maximum efficiency.
“Silo,” to reiterate, is streaming on Apple TV+.