A new series based on Hugh Howey’s book Wool. Dystopian SF. Two episodes released to date.
Disclaimer: I bought and read Wool when it was published as a series of chapters, over a decade ago. I remember liking it, but haven’t reread it so I’m not able to compare how well this TV show follows the book. In the large, it does — a huge underground city the inhabitants know as Silo, the full history of which has been lost or suppressed. But as for whether the TV characters follow the book, I dunno, nor care.
As TV, I think it works reasonably well. The central mystery of the Silo revolves around whether accepted facts about the outside world are true. It’s accepted canon, enforced very strictly by law, that the Silo was created to keep a segment of humanity safe from some apocalypse that rendered the world uninhabitable. Anyone found guilty of a serious crime — and asking to go outside is such a crime — is sent outside in a sort of space suit, to die.
Those sent outside are euphemistically called “cleaners”, because they are asked to please wipe an external camera lens clean, using a wool pad each person has been given. That lens projects the outside onto screens in the Silo, showing what apparently is a very dead world.
Every cleaner does clean the lens, and every cleaner shortly after doing so does appear to collapse and die. There are suited corpses here and there, for all of the Silo to see, reminding them that outside is deadly.
Or, is it? We’re shown fairly early in the first episode that perhaps what’s shown on-screen is not actual reality. Why, wonders one character, does every cleaner actually clean that lens? Even people who swore, loudly, that they weren’t going to clean it, appear to.
And people do quietly — very quietly, for everyone worries about hidden listeners — wonder about the Silo’s lost history. When was it built? By who? Etc.
I don’t want to spoil things, but about characters I will say, “don’t get attached”. (It’s not been a violent show, but characters do die.) The plot moves along, albeit it’s not eager to reveal secrets. The acting has been uniformly good, and the dialogue is plausible — no “as you know, Bob” nonsense.
I’m in it for this season, at least.
Disclaimer: I bought and read Wool when it was published as a series of chapters, over a decade ago. I remember liking it, but haven’t reread it so I’m not able to compare how well this TV show follows the book. In the large, it does — a huge underground city the inhabitants know as Silo, the full history of which has been lost or suppressed. But as for whether the TV characters follow the book, I dunno, nor care.
As TV, I think it works reasonably well. The central mystery of the Silo revolves around whether accepted facts about the outside world are true. It’s accepted canon, enforced very strictly by law, that the Silo was created to keep a segment of humanity safe from some apocalypse that rendered the world uninhabitable. Anyone found guilty of a serious crime — and asking to go outside is such a crime — is sent outside in a sort of space suit, to die.
Those sent outside are euphemistically called “cleaners”, because they are asked to please wipe an external camera lens clean, using a wool pad each person has been given. That lens projects the outside onto screens in the Silo, showing what apparently is a very dead world.
Every cleaner does clean the lens, and every cleaner shortly after doing so does appear to collapse and die. There are suited corpses here and there, for all of the Silo to see, reminding them that outside is deadly.
Or, is it? We’re shown fairly early in the first episode that perhaps what’s shown on-screen is not actual reality. Why, wonders one character, does every cleaner actually clean that lens? Even people who swore, loudly, that they weren’t going to clean it, appear to.
And people do quietly — very quietly, for everyone worries about hidden listeners — wonder about the Silo’s lost history. When was it built? By who? Etc.
I don’t want to spoil things, but about characters I will say, “don’t get attached”. (It’s not been a violent show, but characters do die.) The plot moves along, albeit it’s not eager to reveal secrets. The acting has been uniformly good, and the dialogue is plausible — no “as you know, Bob” nonsense.
I’m in it for this season, at least.
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