Silo season 3 will premiere this year, but before it arrives, there is plenty of time to binge the sci-fi series’ ideal replacement, and the intriguing TV show succeeds in its hardest task. The best sci-fi TV shows have had to face several challenges throughout their runs. Be it in terms of VFX to realize their vision, complex worldbuilding, or many more.
Apple TV’s sci-fi roster knows that well, with the streaming service being one that enjoys serving as the home for meaty sci-fi stories with heady concepts and jaw-dropping visuals. For All Mankind, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Dark Matter, and more make up the streamer’s exciting genre offerings, of which Silo is also a part. Any genre fan is well off on Apple TV.
However, the streaming service is not the only one to hold exciting sci-fi series, as there are many interesting genre releases worth investing time in different streamers. That said, not many of those can live up to Silo‘s complicated morality issues, dystopian landscape, and compelling characters. Thankfully, this 7-season series is fit for the job, being a free streaming option.
Level 1 of 144 · Top Level Access How Well Do You Know Silo? “I want to go out.”
🌿Up-TopThe farms and Judicial
💡MidsIT and Supply
⚙Down DeepMechanical keeps it alive
🌀OutsideDon’t look at the sky
📜The PactLaw is light
01
The silo is a buried cylindrical structure whose residents have never known the surface. It’s divided into the Up Top, the Mids, and the Down Deep, all connected by a single spiral staircase that takes a porter the better part of a day to climb. How many levels does it contain?
✓ Correct! 144 levels. Mayor Jahns lives on Level 1, IT is on Level 34, Judicial on Level 13, Supply in the Mids, and Mechanical sits at the bottom around Level 140. The spiral staircase has no elevator — porters spend their entire working lives on it. The number mirrors Hugh Howey’s source novel and the show’s production bible.
✗ Wrong shaft. The answer is 144 levels, a number lifted straight from Hugh Howey’s Wool books and preserved by showrunner Graham Yost. Mayor and Judicial live up top on Levels 1-20, IT sits in the middle at 34, and Mechanical — where Juliette works — is buried near the bottom around 140. Porters do almost nothing but climb.
02
The show centers on Juliette Nichols, a brilliant Mechanical engineer reluctantly dragged up from the Down Deep into the Sheriff’s office on Level 1. Which actress — previously seen opposite Tom Cruise in four Mission: Impossible films and Timothée Chalamet in Dune — plays her?
✓ Correct! Rebecca Ferguson — Ilsa Faust in the Mission: Impossible films and Lady Jessica in Dune Parts One and Two. She also executive-produces Silo, signed a multi-year development deal with Apple, and has called Juliette one of the most demanding roles of her career. Her performance anchors every episode of the series.
✗ Wrong cast. The answer is Rebecca Ferguson. She’s also an executive producer on Silo, which is why the series is so Juliette-focused from the pilot onwards. Rosamund Pike, Zoe Saldaña and Charlize Theron have all done sci-fi leads, but Silo is Ferguson’s show — a natural extension of the tough, grounded, slightly haunted women she played in Mission: Impossible and Dune.
03
The series is adapted from an indie self-publishing phenomenon that started as a 2011 Kindle short story, went viral, and grew into a full trilogy. Who wrote the novels that Silo is based on?
✓ Correct! Hugh Howey. He published the first Wool novelette on Amazon in 2011 while working as a bookseller, refused a traditional publisher’s print deal that asked for digital rights, and negotiated one of the most famous indie-author print-only contracts ever signed. The trilogy (Wool, Shift, Dust) has sold millions and the Apple show retained him as a consulting producer.
✗ Wrong stack. The answer is Hugh Howey. Andy Weir wrote The Martian and Project Hail Mary. Pierce Brown writes Red Rising. Blake Crouch wrote Dark Matter and Recursion. Howey famously built the Wool books episode by episode on Kindle self-publishing, went viral, and kept his digital rights when a publisher came calling — a case study in the indie author movement.
04
The silo’s harshest punishment, reserved for those who utter one specific phrase or commit serious crimes, is exile to the toxic surface. Before dying in the poisoned air, the condemned are expected to perform a single task. What is it called?
✓ Correct! “Cleaning.” Exiles are given a helmet, protective suit and a wool pad, then sent outside to wipe the silo’s external sensor lens so everyone inside can keep seeing the “view.” Almost everyone cleans, even the ones who swore they wouldn’t — a mystery the series gradually unpacks. The suits are famously not what IT claims they are.
✗ Wrong verdict. The answer is “Cleaning.” Anyone who says “I want to go out” is granted their wish — they get a suit, a helmet, a wool pad, and a walk to the external sensors. They’re expected to wipe the lens so the silo can keep watching the outside world before the toxic air kills them. And almost everyone, mysteriously, does it.
05
Silo premiered on May 5, 2023, as a flagship sci-fi original for which streamer — the same home as For All Mankind, Severance, Foundation, and Ted Lasso?
✓ Correct! Apple TV+. The show slots neatly into Apple’s prestige sci-fi bench alongside Severance, For All Mankind and Foundation, and Hugh Howey’s involvement as consulting producer was a key part of the pitch. Apple renewed Silo through Season 4 before Season 2 even aired — an unusually early greenlight that locked in the show’s complete run.
✗ Wrong stairwell. The answer is Apple TV+. The show premiered May 5, 2023 and Apple committed to the complete four-season run early — the same kind of long-leash deal they gave Severance and For All Mankind. Netflix, Prime and Max have their own dystopian shows, but Silo is pure Apple: polished, slow-burn, auteur sci-fi.
06
The pilot opens with the silo’s current sheriff walking into Mayor Jahns’ office and uttering the six words no one is ever supposed to say. Which actor plays the doomed Sheriff Holston Becker, whose exile sets the entire series in motion?
✓ Correct! David Oyelowo. The Selma star opens the series as Holston Becker — a sheriff three years into grieving his wife Allison’s cleaning, who finally asks to be sent out himself. His decision to walk off into the hills rather than clean the sensors is the cliffhanger that triggers Juliette’s promotion and the show’s central mystery.
✗ Wrong badge. The answer is David Oyelowo. He’s on for the entire first episode as Sheriff Holston and returns in flashbacks later in the run. Tim Robbins plays the terrifying Head of Judicial Bernard Holland (spoiler: not just Judicial). Common plays deputy Paul Billings. Idris Elba is not in the show at all — though that would be a good call.
07
Juliette’s investigation kicks off after her boyfriend George, an IT tech from the Down Deep, is found dead at the bottom of the staircase — ruled a suicide. He had been collecting pre-silo artifacts flagged as illegal relics under the Pact. One item in particular, hidden inside a metal case, becomes her key clue. What is it?
✓ Correct! A hard drive. George — really George Wilkins, played by Ferdinand Kingsley — had been quietly collecting pre-silo tech, and the hard drive he hid contains files Judicial and IT will kill to keep buried, including evidence about what the outside world really looks like. It’s the thread Juliette pulls that unravels the whole first season.
✗ Wrong relic. The answer is an old hard drive, hidden inside a pressure-sealed case in George’s workshop. The drive contains outlawed pre-silo files — including data that suggests the “view” everyone in the silo trusts is not what it appears. Juliette recovers the drive after George’s death and that single clue drives the entire first season’s investigation.
08
Silo’s slow-burn tone and military-adjacent world-building owe a lot to its creator and showrunner, who previously developed Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Justified, and FX’s The Americans. Who adapted Hugh Howey’s novels for Apple?
✓ Correct! Graham Yost — the Canadian writer-producer who wrote the Speed screenplay in 1994 and then spent decades as a prestige TV showrunner on Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Justified, The Americans and Sneaky Pete. Hugh Howey stayed on as consulting producer, and Yost has been candid about streamlining the Wool timeline for a four-season Apple run.
✗ Wrong writers’ room. The answer is Graham Yost. Damon Lindelof runs Lost, Watchmen and The Leftovers. David Benioff co-created Game of Thrones. Ronald D. Moore made Battlestar Galactica and For All Mankind (also on Apple). Yost brought his Band of Brothers / Justified sensibility — taut, ensemble, procedural — to Howey’s dystopia.
Judicial Review Complete Your Silo Clearance
🗝
/ 8
Founder’s mind — or still stuck cleaning sensors?
At the time of writing, The 100 is streaming for free in the United States on Pluto TV. All seven seasons of The CW’s hit sci-fi series can be watched for free on the streaming service. The 100 not only serves as a fitting replacement for Silo due to its themes and story, but also because this is a show that had a difficult task ahead of it, and managed to pass the test with flying colors.
Why The 100 Is Silo’s Perfect Replacement Series
Silo and The 100 are two similar shows in the sense that they are both dystopian stories about characters who try to go back to Earth’s surface and figure out if it is safe to survive in it. In the Apple TV series, that role falls to Rebecca Ferguson’s Juliette Nichols, who is sent out of a large underground silo filled with survivors, while in The 100, the title refers to a large group of teenagers who broke their space station’s rules, committed crimes, and so on, who are sent to Earth to see if it is safe to return.
While shows like Station Eleven, Billionaires’ Bunker, Fallout, and more also emerge as interesting replacements for Silo, The 100 is the perfect alternative while waiting for the sci-fi series due to its focus on morally grey characters, a similar idea of focusing on retaking Earth after an apocalypse, and the fact there are seven full seasons for viewers to invest time into while Silo season 3 does not arrive. At a mighty high 93% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, The 100 is more than worth checking out. That said, its similarities to Silo are not even its best part.
How The 100 Managed To Succeed In Its Hardest Task
Henry Ian Cusick as Marcus Kane in The 100
The 100‘s hardest task was making sure that it would go down in history as one of the best sci-fi series out there, not another teen drama on a network that was known for such shows. The sci-fi elements could have just served as a flash backdrop for romances to blossom. While The 100 did have its fair share of romantic storylines, they never took over the series, with one of the show’s main couples in fan circles not even making it into an actual storyline in the series. Instead of romance, The 100 focuses on moral dilemmas.
The audience gets to watch as these teenagers go from reckless and self-centered to formidable leaders who have to make difficult choices. In one episode, a fan-favorite character might commit genocide for the greater good, while in another, a tortured leader might kill the one she loves to save the others. Due to that, The 100 will go down in history as one of the most compelling sci-fi shows of all time, with multidimensional characters, impactful action sequences, exciting genre elements, heavy themes, and more. The 100 succeeds in its hardest task, and Silo fans should give it a chance.
