- by Peter Farmer
- The Guardian
- Issue #2137
‘Alienation’ used to be used so much it was in danger of just meaning ‘mopey,’ but there was a time when it was used to explain everything. The word has a specific meaning for communists, and Marx spends some time clearly explaining how alienation is fundamental to how capitalism operates. As they say, it’s a feature, not a bug.
Alienation is turned up to eleven in Severance, a super-smart and entertaining series. The main concept is in the title. ‘Lumo’ is a giant biotechnology company with a ‘campus’ that looks a lot like the sort of ‘campus’ Apple or Google would build for their workforce. To work there, staff have to have an operation called ‘severance’ that makes it possible for them to be ‘severed’ from their non-work lives. When they walk into work, there’s a buzzing noise in the lift, and they emerge knowing nothing about their life outside. When they leave, there’s another buzzing noise, and they have no memory of what happened for the eight hours they were in the office.
This might sound like some workers’ dream. There’s no bringing your work back home with you, and it’s literally impossible to talk shop when you’re out with your mates. The advantages for Lumo are less obvious, since for a long time we have no idea what the workforce does – they play around with numbers on computer screens but they don’t know what those numbers represent. Whatever Lumo is up to, it’s impossible for the workers to talk about it once they’re on the outside.
Here, the show waxes philosophical. The workers divide their lives into ‘innies’ and ‘outies’ referring to their in-the-office and not-at-work states, and the two lead different lives and are different people. The ‘outie’ makes the decision to work at Lumo, and gets to choose if they stay there, no matter how much the ‘innie’ might want to leave. After a while, they’re like two people sharing one body. If an ‘outie’ resigns from Lumo, their ‘innie’ self ceases to exist.
The company dresses up its extremely sinister and cultish operations with the sort of caring management-speak we’re all subjected to (we know one comrade in a warehouse job with little slogans like ‘We care, share and have fun’ on their safety vest).
Like all good sci-fi gimmicks, this one starts going wrong almost from the beginning, as the ‘innies’ start trying to communicate with their external selves, and there are strong hints that the severance procedure might not be as water-tight as their sinister employer thinks.
It’s all very creepy, but there’s a lot of comedy in the show. John Turturro is perfect as a Lumo worker who goes along with everything the company suggests, but hints at yearnings for a life outside. Christopher Walken does a short celebrity drop in as a somewhat sinister type who looks after all the portraits of the company’s founder. The company’s little morale-raising-but-really-bossy rituals will be very familiar from most people’s work lives. Teachers who have to have their coffee break next to a sign reading ‘Let’s have no negative energy here,’ will recognise the vibe.
(Severance is on Apple TV. There’s no suggestion that the fictional Lumo has any connection with the Australian company Lumo Energy, the British train operator ‘Lumo,’ or any other real companies with the word ‘Lumo’ in their name.)
