#152

tv's grip: lost, severance & our minds

Jack Teagle

---

Note: You do not need to have watched or give a shit about the shows mentioned to read this, don’t worry.

---

I have a confession:

Last week, I wrote over two thousand words on Apple TV’s hit show Severance.

A two-thousand-word theory on a fucking tv show.¹

Produced by Apple no less.

Me? With my distrust for anything with that sort of popularity and mainstream appeal?

With my constant criticisms of entertainment?

What the fuck is going on?

Look, I like a mystery. I like anything dealing with the metaphysical.

And I love a mind fuck.

So, I fell for it.

It was easy.

It was fun.

TV always fucks you soft and slow.

---

Still, I can’t ignore that what has lingered after watching and enjoying the beautifully shot puzzle is a growing concern for how our natural inquisitiveness is being redirected to fiction instead of our material reality.

In Signatures of the Visible, Frederic Jameson wrote that we “suspend our real lives and immediate preoccupations” for film.

Our relationship with television requires an extended and committed suspension. More than just our immediate preoccupations get shelved.

There are thousands of hours of theory videos on Severance. Dutiful fans break down each episode with a kind of passion not seen since Lost premiered back in 2004.

Lost successfully captured the post-9/11 American imagination and sent it down entertainment rabbit holes as the Iraq war raged on and George W Bush was elected for a second term.

Severance was first released in February 2022 amidst the Russian-Ukranian war and continued Covid panic across the globe.

Severance’s second season dropped a month ago.

Sometimes it feels like distractions with impeccable timing.

Both shows serve the same purpose: redirecting our attention and our questions elsewhere, preferably to a place of no consequence at all.