Silo 1.1-1.2: A Unique Story, Inside and Out

Just saw the first two episodes of Silo on Apple TV+, show-run by Graham Yost, whose previous impressive credits include The Americans, Sneaky Pete, and Justified, based on the Wool series of novels by Hugh Howey that I haven't read.   These first two episodes bear some resemblance to most post-apocalypse stories, and even more to Apple TV+''s much lauded  Severance.  But Silo has a story and an ambience all its own, and it looks to be on its way to a top-notch science fiction series.

[Spoilers follow ...]

The narrative so far takes place in, well, a silo.  You can leave, if if you want, but that's apparently a ticket to death, because there's poison in the air outside.  I say "apparently" because, in the first episode, there's some talk that the deaths of people who leave, which inhabitants see in the silo on a big screen, is what we would today in our off-screen world call deep fakes.  But in the second episode, it seems that Holston and his wife, who left the silo two years earlier, really did die.  If I had to bet ... I don't know, but I'd come down on they're both being alive.

At this point, I don't see too many villains at hand -- maybe the Judiciary, which wields ultimate police power -- but just about all the action involves a bunch of varied people who for a variety of reasons think and maybe are sure that there's something more outside.  These include Sheriff Holston and his wife Allison, who now are either dead or alive outside; George who has discovered something crucial about the silo but is now definitely dead inside it; and Juliet, an engineer, George's lover, sure that he was murdered, and now she's determined to find out what's really going on in and outside the silo.   As I said, a unique narrative in a genre -- post-apocalypse -- where it's not easy to be unique.  And characters are very well played by David Oyelowo as Sheriff Holston, Rasheeda Jones as his wife, Rebecca Ferguson as the engineer, and Will Patton as Holston's deputy.

Eight more episodes to go on a weekly basis, and count me in as an eager viewer.

See also Silo 1.3: Like Chernobyl, Repaired ... 1.4: Truth, Not Quite ... 1.5: Revelations ... 1.6-1.7: The Book and the Water ... 1.8: What Really Happened ... 1.9: I knew It! But What Then? ... 1.10: Three Truths

The Midnight Sky: Uplifting Downer

Well, you couldn't ask for a better movie than The Midnight Sky in these our Covid-ridden times.  An Earth, in the year 2049, in even far worse shape than ours.  Just about everyone on the planet dead, due to some kind of planet-wide catastrophe.  A spaceship returning home to Earth from a habitable moon of Jupiter, unaware of what they are returning to.  A very sick scientist on Earth, desperately marshalling his last energies to contact them, and tell the ship to turn around.

You know what?  I think this movie, directed by and starring George Clooney, was a superb movie, and would've been outstanding, in any time, Covid or not.  In other words, I strongly disagree with the one myopic critic, in Variety, I think, whom I happened to read yesterday, who panned the movie.

The idea of a spaceship returning to a dying Earth -- an Earth that was fine when the ship took off -- as at least as old Arch Oboler's 1956 Broadway play Night of the Auk.  That was a masterpiece, too.  It's a powerful theme, one that combines the heights and the deadly failures of human civilization.  I haven't read the 2016 novel by Lily Brooks-Dalton, Good Morning, Midnight, on which Mark L. Smith's screenplay is based, so I can't tell you who deserves credit for what.  But I can say the narrative was powerful and plausible, and very well directed by Clooney,

Truthfully, despite the many things that have gone very wrong in our world, in reality, I'm much more of an optimist about our planet's future than either Auk or Midnight Sky allow.  But I'm always up for a provocative downer like his, if it's done right.  Clooney was just right as Augustine.  The spaceship crew were just right, too -- Kyle Chandler as Mitchell, determined to go back so he can at least be close to his family, gave one of his best performances in years.  Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Damian Bichir (from The Bridge!), and Tiffany Boone as the rest of the crew were good, too.

[Spoilers below]

As to the fine point of the plot --  Sully on the ship is really Augustine's daughter, and the little girl who shows up and both inspires and protects Augustine is just his vision of her (my wife realized this early in the movie)-- well, sure, it was a little hoaky, but I think that worked very well, too.   And the remaining big questions, like what kind of life will Sully and Adewole have with their baby on that moon around Jupiter, are ok, too.  Because, I would recommend, if there is a sequel, that it turns out there are some humans alive with sophisticated tech back on Earth.

But, again I'm an optimist at heart.  I don't know if you are, but see The Midnight Sky, and see what you think.

first starship to Alpha Centauri ... and they only had enough fuel to get there