Silo is a dystopian drama that premiered back in 2023. It’s based on Hugh Howey‘s trilogy of novels, also called Silo. The sci-fi hit follows a community that lives in a giant underground silo after an apocalyptic event has occurred. Taking place more than a century after the world basically ended, this group of 10,000 people coexists in the 144-level structure. There are specific rules set out to help govern the place, but the peace in the silo starts to come to an end when several citizens begin to question what the outside world is really like.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like? Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky
Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🏜️Paul Atreides
🖖Capt. Kirk
✊Princess Leia
🔦Ellen Ripley
🔥Max Rockatansky
01
How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher? The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.
02
What is your greatest strength in a crisis? The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.
03
What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for? Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.
04
How do you relate to the people around you? Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.
05
You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do? How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.
06
What has your heroism cost you personally? Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.
07
How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in? Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?
08
When everything is on the line, what keeps you going? The answer is the most honest thing about you.
Your Hero Has Been Identified Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…
Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.
Arrakis · Dune
Paul Atreides
You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.
You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.
USS Enterprise · Star Trek
Captain Kirk
You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.
You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.
The Rebellion · Star Wars
Princess Leia
You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.
You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.
The Nostromo · Alien
Ellen Ripley
You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.
You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.
The Wasteland · Mad Max
Max Rockatansky
You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.
You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.
Holsten Becker (David Oyelowo) is sheriff of the silo, but his life becomes much more complicated when his devoted wife, Allison (Rashida Jones), starts to get more curious about the laws surrounding their everyday lives. She crosses paths with the taciturn Head of IT, Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins), and his ruthless fixer, Robert Sims (Common), who play critical roles in the silo’s survival. As the first season unfolds, we also meet the true protagonist of the series, Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson), who works as an engineer to keep the silo functioning. Silo is a fascinating drama with twists and turns, and storylines that demonstrate that no one is truly safe within the walls of the silo.
‘Silo’ Combines Some of the Best Elements of Other Sci-Fi Shows
The most obvious comparison to another sci-fi series is Fallout, which first dropped in 2024. That drama also takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, where survivors are relegated to underground bunkers to escape deadly nuclear fallout. The world has become fairly uninhabitable, and the people who have been smart enough to endure it are both cunning and terrifying. When the outside world is depicted, it portrays people who have divided into factions. This is similar to the setup of Silo, since there are groups of people that have lasted generations in their chosen fields. They’re mostly determined by lineage, but even in the silo, this constitutes a sort of strict class system. These separations create even more fractures and conflicts, representing a very realistic social system in a microcosm of the silo. Just like Fallout, Silo also illustrates the characters’ hopeful need for wanting to see what the outside world holds. From the very first episode, the desire to find out what has become of the rest of the human race is a driving force for the narrative.
At first, the only connection to Apple TV’s other massive sci-fi hit, Severance, would seem like the twisty storytelling itself. But there are also definitely higher-ups who rule with an iron fist and with an extremely secretive nature, just like the folks over at Lumon Industries. Later episodes of Silo include more technology-focused plot points, which reflect Severance‘s modern complexity. And now that Silo is in its third season, the biggest link to Severance is the way the series is diving into the fascinating topic of memory. Without giving too much away, Juliette experiences a total wipe of her memory when Season 3 opens. Just like the severed characters on Severance, much of Juliette’s identity is erased because she has no context for her past. She has no familiarity with the people in her life, even those who have loved her since she was young. The battle of the season becomes trying to bring Juliette back to who she was, which is a compelling exploration into how our memories help to define us.
There are only 20 episodes to binge before you can start Season 3 of Silo, which means that it’s actually an easy show to get caught up with. If you want a gritty, complex sci-fi series that presents unique problems and mysteries like Severance, or highlights the hardships that exist when a population is forced to live in close quarters like Fallout, Silo must be added to your watch list now.
Silo is available to stream on Apple TV in the U.S., with new episodes dropping every Friday.
