Shoutout to my niece for making me rethink my whole watchlist

My 19 year old niece came over last weekend and saw I was rewatching The Office for the fifth time. She just laughed and asked why I only watch shows from before 2010. At first I got a little defensive, but then she showed me her phone and told me about this newer show called Severance. I gave it a shot that night and finished the first season in two days. The whole concept of a work life balance where you literally forget your other life really made me think. Now I am wondering if I have been missing out on a bunch of great shows by just sticking to old favorites. Has anyone else had a younger family member push them into something modern that actually turned out to be amazing?

3 comments

3 Comments

hayden70924d ago

Okay hold on, I gotta jump in here about Severance. The work life balance thing is cool and all, but the whole point of the show is that it's a nightmare, not something to actually envy. You literally don't remember your kid's birthday or your dad's funeral because your work brain is a separate person. It's more of a horror story about how messed up it is to split yourself in two, not some neat life hack. I get why the idea caught your attention though, it's a super creepy concept that sticks with you. The show has way more layers than just that one gimmick, and the second season goes even deeper into how messed up the whole situation is. You definitely gotta keep watching though, it only gets better.

danielmason18d ago

You said "it's a horror story about how messed up it is to split yourself in two" and yeah, that's exactly it. I had a buddy who worked retail at a big box store, and he'd literally crack jokes about his "work brain" being a different guy named Gary. Then one day his mom called crying because he forgot her birthday twice in a row, and he realized he'd been running on autopilot so hard he couldn't even pull up the memory of their last conversation. He quit three weeks later and started doing landscaping, says he actually feels like himself now.

taylor66823d ago

35 million people a day just in the US commute to jobs where they barely remember what they had for lunch (let alone their kid's name on a good day). The show just makes that physical by actually removing memories. I work retail and it's wild how many coworkers talk about "checking out" mentally the second they punch in, like they're splitting themselves on purpose just to survive the shift. The only difference is we have to live with the hangover of both halves every night when we get home. People joke about having a "work mode" and a "home mode" but Severance just showed us how dark that joke really gets when you take it all the way.