The best dystopian TV shows

Adam Scott in Apple TV series, Severance.

Severance: compelling TV that gets 'weirder and wilder'

(Image credit: Alamy / Pictorial Press Ltd)

published 22 January 2025

From classic sci-fi adaptations to original dystopian tales, "depicting chilling visions of things to come has long been a go-to for television producers", said Tim Glanfield in The Times.

With "Severance" back on Apple TV+ for a second season, sparking uncomfortable questions about whether we should "separate our work and home lives a little more surgically", it's a good time to explore the best dystopian television shows streaming right now.

The first season of "Silo" laid out some "captivating foundations", said Nicola Austin in Empire. Based on the best-selling trilogy of novels by Hugh Howey, it "charted the aftermath of an apocalyptic event" that saw thousands of people forced underground to live in a giant bunker known as the silo. No one knows who built it or why, but they do know one thing: the outside world is toxic and leaving will result in almost certain death. Season two picks up after the "doozy of a cliffhanger" at the end of the first instalment, and "turns the temperature up on this pressure-cooker of a dystopia".

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Following a "fantastically stylish, clever, trippy and compelling" first series, "Severance" is back on the small screen, and somehow it's even better than before, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. The first instalment follows Mark Scout (Adam Scott), an employee at the sinister Lumon Industries corporation, who has opted into the severance procedure to have his non-work memories separated from his work memories, giving him an "innie" and "outie" life. In the second season, "mysteries and revelations, clues and new enigmas are rolled out in perfect syncopation, getting wilder and weirder" as the show goes on.

The "bouncy, eye-popping energy" of this "post-apocalyptic action-comedy" makes for "perfect bingeing", said Ed Power in The Telegraph. Based on the video game of the same name, "Fallout" is set in the year 2296, two centuries after the "downfall of humanity", in a postwar America "devastated by a nuclear conflagration". Wealthy survivors have taken refuge in subterranean Vaults but they are eventually forced to emerge into the "Californian wasteland": a "hellscape, teeming with zombie-like mutants". Delivering the "perfect payload of OTT action with childish humour", it makes for a surprisingly "fun" watch.

"What if the Allies hadn't won the Second World War?" In this adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel, the series "explores an alternate history" in which a dystopian America is ruled by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, said Glanfield in The Times. The action follows Juliana Crain (Alexa Davalos) – a young woman who discovers a film that could hold the key to toppling the totalitarian regime. Blending elements of a spy thriller with "profound social commentary", the "tension-filled show" offers a "chilling look at a world forever altered by tyranny".

Charlie Brooker's anthology series exploring dystopian futures and the dark side of technology is one that "revels in its twists", with few shows undergoing such "obsessive analysis" by fans, said Neil Armstrong on the BBC. "Joan is Awful", the "mind-bending" opening episode of season six, follows a young woman who discovers a television adaptation of her life, starring Salma Hayek, has appeared on a streaming service without her consent. Season seven of "Black Mirror" is slated to premiere on Netflix in 2025.

Production on the final series of "The Handmaid's Tale" began in September 2024, and it is expected to premiere in spring 2025. Based on Margaret Atwood's harrowing novel, the action follows Offred (Elizabeth Moss) – a handmaid tasked with bearing children for the elite of an "oppressive theocratic regime", said Glanfield in The Times. "Laced with trauma and overshadowed by constant threat", "The Handmaid's Tale" is a "brutal depiction of control, violence and totalitarianism" that makes for deeply uncomfortable viewing.

The second series of Hwang Dong-hyuk's dystopian survival thriller was released on Netflix in December, with the third and final season due to hit the streaming platform later this year. When it first aired in 2021, the Korean drama about a "hellscape" where poor people play a children's game for money "swept the world, clocking up record ratings", said Vicky Jessop in London's The Standard. And while the "shock value of the first series has inevitably been diluted", the second instalment "swaps cheap thrills for a more nuanced depiction" of morality, with a "whole lot of plot twists thrown in just for the gleeful fun of it".

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Irenie Forshaw is a features writer at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.