What I’m Watching: July Edition

Severance (Apple Plus)-One of the best-developed science fiction worlds I’ve ever entered, Severance is about a world where a set of workers have their memories completely compartmentalized when they are in and out of work. Audience surrogate Helly (Britt Lower) works in a classified division of a faceless company who clocks into work every day and has no memory of what her life is like outside. When she clocks back into work, she is essentially a different person with a different set of memories. For Mark (Adam Scott, in his first Emmy nod), erasing his memories for eight hours a day is a good way to deal with the grief of his lost wife. Like great sci-fi, the show explores big themes of the human condition in dramatic terms. There’s also a good mystery angle that moves the plot forward. For reference, the show reminds me of Orphan Black on BBC.

The Bear (Hulu)-This show, about the adrenaline of a gourmet chef managing the kitchen of a high-end New York restaurant, is getting some good reviews. It’s an exciting sphere of our world that we don’t often get a glimpse of, so there’s a lot of potential here on paper. However, I personally wasn’t hooked. It either works or it doesn’t. The show is episodic and none of the 30-minute plots were memorable enough to remember 5 minutes after the show’s conclusion so the show relies primarily on atmosphere which isn’t enough to get over the hump. At…