With names likeAdam ScottandBen Stillerattached to the showSeverance, it would be easy to think that it could have taken a comedic turn. But the show’s power is in the persistent intimidation that Lumos management exerts over its severed workers and the dread the audience feels each time an employee willingly returns to their job. It’s a compelling drama because so many people think as the “innie” workers do: that they wish the driving force behind their appearance at work each day would just give up.
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Lumos is not alone. These days, it’s easy to find imaginative and dystopian warnings about what the working conditions of the future may be.
‘Snowpiercer’ — Frozen Corporate & Social Hierarchy
When the job is saving humanity from itself, the workplace can get a little dark. OnSnowpiercer, audiences watch how an authoritarian leader (Jennifer Connelly), a homicide detective (Daveed Diggs), a policewoman (Mickey Sumner), and others run a train-bound, rigidly wealth-based society rife with class warfare, social injustice, and the politics of survival, endlessly running circles over a frozen wasteland Earth.
The tempting thing about the conceit ofSnowpierceris that it examines a life-or-death situation from the perspective of those who are charged with running it and forces questions about the tension between what is profitable, what is wise, and what is kind.
‘Westworld’ — The Wild, Wild Future
While so much ofWestworld’sappeal is in the audience imaging themselves as consumers of the best A.I. on offer, it also shows that working and caring for the android embodiment of A.I. has its emotional risks. Exploring the direction of the park by Doctor Robert Ford (Paul Fox,Anthony Hopkins),Westworldpeeks behind the moral complexities of technological and human interactions.
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It effectively embroils the audience in questions about free will, the role of the human spirit in computer development, and the differences between what companies can do and should do.
‘Weird City’ — Crossing the Corporate Line
The anthology seriesWeird Cityis ostensibly a comedy, but it gives a bleak view of a future that promises nothing but mediocre ideals in the workplace. Despite high-level tech and the ability to provide an amazing quality of life for all walks of life, the division between the haves and have-nots inWeird Citymeans that the options boil down to a choice between image-obsessed services and gloomy drudgery.
The effect is that it creates a parody of current consumer culture as portrayed in the media when contrasted with the reality of a rather cheerless regular work-life.
‘1983’ — What If The Future Was Terrible
When the government needs to control you, it will often use bureaucracy to do it. In Netflix’s dystopian thriller series1983from Poland, an alternate timeline imagines if the Polish People’s Republic never fell and a modern, technically savvy communist system was still in place.
It questions the moral responsibility of workers in the communist system who are actively working to suppress individual freedoms through coercion, propaganda, and violence. The work is mirrored in society’s brutalist architecture and slick technology that communicates the strength and soullessness of the work. It asks the audience what they would do to serve the same society.
‘Dollhouse’ — What Price For Your Memories?
Many dystopian imaginings involve allowing the immoral use of technology for human advancement, andJoss Whedon’sDollhouseis a perfect example. Using tech that wipes memories of willing employees, the Dollhouse offers human agents, called Dolls or Actives, that are available for rent for any legal — or non-legal — engagement.
Audiences are asked to consider if, and at what price, would they allow themselves to become a Doll and what moral culpability the management of such tech bears. When the tech goes bad, who should be left holding the bag?
‘Loki’ — The Drab-est Timeline
The Time Variance Authority (TVA for short) inLokiis charged with preserving a single Sacred Timeline to prevent a Multiversal War. And it does it all from an orange and brown office that appears ripped from the nightmares of architects of the 60s. Everything, from the drab clothing worn by TVA workers to the retro tangerine-colored typewriters sitting on their desks, is humor in how oddly outdated it all is.
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The brilliant design of the office recalls past sci-fi guesses at future workplaces and how sad it would have been if they had come true.
‘Dr. Brain’ — Technological Eternal Life
Dr. Brainis a Korean sci-fi thriller that follows the work of Dr. Sewon Koh (Lee Sun-kyun) as he develops tech that would offer the chance to capture memories from dead people. The show goes beyond the straightforward mad scientist playing with quantum entanglement trope. It begins with tragedy and descends into dystopian science fiction suspense as he works towards a goal that — if achieved — would have profound consequences for society.
The slow-burn drama raises issues around using cadavers in science, the leeway given to genius inventors, and what investors are willing to allow to pursue the next technological breakthrough.
‘Next’ — “What Can’t Be Undone”
Innovation is great until the innovation takes control. InNext, John Slattery (Paul LeBlanc) attempted to destroy his own A.I. creation for fear of it taking over the world, while his brother, Ted (Jason Butler Harner), kept the machine going. The result is the company Zava, powered by a human-level A.I. bent on destroying the lives that oppose its own self-improvement.
It’s a classic example of corporate greed over human good using the threat of an A.I.-powered super-intelligence singularity. While it’s science fiction now, it may be sooner than you think.
‘Incorporated’ — Help Yourself First
Morals are out the window when profits are all that matter. Incorporated offers an uncomfortably possible dystopian future, with only one binge-able season, where corporations act like governments in a post-apocalyptic world. In response, good people need to do whatever it takes to survive lives as climate refugees, including falling in with what the inhumane corporation demands.
Incorporatedasks workers to question if the ends justify the means in their own work lives, especially when personal motivations are balanced against the good of all humankind.
‘Electric Dreams’ — Does Anyone Have The Right?
Based on stories byPhilip K Dick,Electric Dreamsis a series that explores many aspects of a dystopian future, including the work-life of those unfortunate to habit it. In the episode “Crazy Diamond,” worker Ed (Steve Buscemi) at an android company is asked by an android to steal tech that offers her intelligence and emotion, plus the opportunity for financial benefit himself. It’s the traditional conflict of corporate and human interest in untraditional circumstances.
Set in a sterile environment that blends retro and modern elements, “Crazy Diamond” explores the threats posed by life-altering innovation and its control by corporations, reflecting scary realities for many of today’s current tech company workers.
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