Good science fiction is thought provoking. It leaves you pondering the bigger questions in life. When it turns its scope on us, as a species, topics that come into focus include morality, mortality, identity, and the essence of human nature.

Apple TV+ series Severance, which debuted in February this year, is unquestionably good sci-fi. Actually no, Severance is excellent sci-fi, interspliced with a savage commentary on soul-crushing corporate culture. Its debut season, much like the first season of Westworld, sends audiences reeling with its twists and heady explorations – in this case, of company Lumon Industries, where employees undergo a procedure which surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives. The result is the creation of “Innies,” who only ever experience life in the subterranean Severed floor of the Lumon compound, and their original “Outie” selves, who now lose 8 hours of every day as soon as they use the Severed floor elevator.

Severance, from writer-creator Dan Erickson and director-executive producer Ben Stiller, is also oddly reminiscent of 2019 video game Control. Remedy’s action-adventure hit is more paranormal than science fiction, but there are some eerie overlaps with the Apple Original, as heroine Jesse Faden enters a featureless government skyscraper to search for her brother. This government building, named the Oldest House, exists outside of space and time, constantly shifting in internal structure as it connects to multiple alternate dimensions. The Oldest House headquarters the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC), a shadowy agency that contains, studies and strives to control unexplained phenomena.

To be fair, it’s clearly not a case of copy-paste. Severance is focused on corporate office life, while Control centres on state institutions. However, given how the two entities are often allied in their objectives, and given how both tend to morph into bloated behemoths encumbered by rigid procedures and hierarchies, a foundation of similarity is already set. That’s even before you look closer at the secret-saturated Lumon headquarters, and the Oldest House, where something sinister is definitely going on.

Please note that while this article will attempt to avoid the biggest plot spoilers in Severance and Control, from this point it’s best if you are familiar with the Apple series and the cross-platform game release from 505 Games.

1. The retro office aesthetic

The first and most obvious similarity between Severance and Control is their setting. Lumon Industries and the Bureau of Control are well established organisations, with a hefty heritage. While the Bureau dates back to at least the 1950s, Lumon has its origins in the mid 19th Century, via founder Kier Eagan, a cult figure.

That lengthy history reflects in appearances – and ways of doing things, of course. So employees at the Bureau of Control, and Lumon Industries, conduct their working life in suit-and-tie for the men, and heels for the women. Even researchers simply don a lab coat over their white-collar attire. Colour choices are muted, limited largely to shades of grey, blue and black. Personal expression through deviation from the dress code is discouraged.

Traditional thinking around workplace productivity is that distractions should be minimised, and practicality is paramount. Lumon headquarters and the Oldest House, in its skyscraper form, embrace this principle. In terms of their exteriors, they’re utilitarian in their Modern and Brutalist architectural choices – which combine concrete, steel and one-way glass.

The monolithic Bureau is intimidating from the outside; the more contemporary-looking Lumon less so. However, past their public-facing entrances and security points, things take an unnerving turn. Disregarding how both workplaces are far bigger than they appear from outside, Bureau staff and Severed employees live under stark fluorescent light in windowless spaces. There are airy areas, some even containing greenery, and intimate chambers with warm wooden panelling (think Ms Casey’s Wellness room), but these are exceptions. The overall impression is oppressive, miserable and anxiety inducing, with labyrinthine liminal spaces that link low-ceilinged offices stripped of personality.

Like lab rats, Severed workers exist in a dystopian office nightmare of disorientating, endlessly repeating passageways and cubicled work areas. The bright overhead lighting enhances the clinical trial effect. Control, by contrast, generally goes for a gloomier mood, creating the impression of endless night – although that’s appropriate given the threat Jesse faces.  

Finally, it notable that both Severance and Control shift to deep red lighting to signify danger.

2. A (mostly) outdated, analogue world

Tying to the point above, Severance and Control force a split between life inside their organisation’s headquarters, which seem stuck in the past, and everyday existence outside in our world. In turns out that there are practical justifications for this approach in each fictional universe.

In Control, modern digital technology is banned because of its tendency to explode within the Oldest House. This is because the building prefers items that have an iconic form within humanity’s collective unconscious. Digital technology is too fast evolving and variable to gain shared perceptual “solidity,” which doesn’t sit well within the House – much like someone with gastric ulcers guzzling down ghost peppers.

As for Severance, communication between Innies and Outies is explicitly forbidden. To prevent any message passing, sophisticated security scanners in the Severed floor elevator detect letters or numbers in any form. This rules out use of mobile phones, or even watches with numbered faces. On arrival at work in the morning, Severed employees leave these items in their lockers.

This said, message prohibition doesn’t really explain why the Macrodata Refinement department (where the series heroes work) use CRT monitors, or why Lumon HR communications are delivered via bulky wheeled VHS-and-DVD systems you still find in government schools. This may be Lumon nostalgia for the workplaces of yesteryear (the 1960s-80s), or simply a reflection of the budget-fixated corporate mentality that is “If it’s not broke, don’t fix/update it.”

As a sidenote, both Lumon and the Bureau prefer printed guides, directives and reference material as opposed to their digital alternative.

3. An unseen, unspeaking board

Both Lumon and the Federal Bureau of Control are headed by unseen Boards. In Control, Jesse typically receives heavily muffled, garbled communications from the Board via the Hotline, a red analogue telephone with no functional dial. Calls can only be received.

With the exception of one notable instance in Severance, the Lumon Board dispenses its instructions through PR-ready intermediary Natalie, while listening through an old-fashioned intercom unit.

In both franchises, the Board is faceless, pulling strings from the very top of the organisational hierarchy.

4. Truly weird job requirements

What would bureaucracy be without odd, niche tasks that have no real purpose, and consume hours of genuine productivity? Both Severance and Control spotlight these apparently meaningless activities.

In the Apple TV+ series, the workers in Macrodata Refinement trawl an endless screen of numbers to identify the “scary” ones, before isolating and binning them. In addition to dispensing office art, the Optics and Design division are 3D printing dozens of watering cans. Then there’s the little-known unnamed department responsible for <redacted>…

Meanwhile, in Control, perhaps the most memorable Bureau job is “Fridge Duty.” Down in the Panopticon, agents are tasked with watching a vintage 1960s refrigerator known as the Arctic Queen. Just watching. But they cannot look away from this powerful Altered Object for a single second or risk catastrophe.

5. Employees and unwilling employees

We won’t mention specific character names, but both Lumon and the Bureau of Control don’t just have a paid workforce under their thumb. They keep prisoners too; “test subjects” who live on site and cannot leave. In a related note, both workplaces seem to feature their fair share of onsite injuries, although the Bureau has a much higher death rate. At least when compared with Severance S1.

6. Inter-departmental rivalries and suspicions

This similarity is perhaps a shared reflection of reality more than anything more significant to either game or TV series. People quickly settle into othering “us and them” thinking, and that is certainly what happens with work teams within organisations – especially when they have little fraternisation.

In Severance, this dynamic is reflected in the tense initial relationship between Macrodata Refinement, and Optics and Design. Macrodata’s Dylan is adamant that years previously Optics staged a violent failed coup, while Burt from Optics explains that his department half-believes the ridiculous rumour that all Macrodata refiners have pouches in which they carry larval offspring. Of course, when it benefits an organisation to keep its divisions apart and isolated (as is the case with Lumon), nothing will be done to dispel these prejudices.

There is less overt antagonism between divisions at the Federal Bureau of Control, but the monstrous organisation – consisting of approximately six sectors, further divided into dozens of departments – is similarly siloed. Combined with the secretive nature of the Bureau’s work, this environment encourages suspicion to take root. In Control, Jesse continually encounters evidence of tension between Operations, Research, Security and the Executive Sector, especially as the blame game kicks in.

7. Ominous inverted pyramids/triangles

Finally, upside-down pyramids (or triangles if we’re staying in 2D) are a signature part of Control. And they play a role in Severance too.

In fact, in Control, an overturned pyramid appears on the key visual for the game, coloured red to represent the threat of primary antagonists, the Hiss. Whenever Jesse enters the Astral Plane, she encounters the Board (see Point 3 above) as a giant inverted black pyramid suspended over this other dimension.

There’s an upside-down pyramid in Severance too, although nowhere near as grand. It’s just as ominous as the Board pyramid, though. Lumon’s mysterious Testing division is located on the lowest levels of the compound, and it’s accessed via a dark passageway that ends in a one-way elevator. Said elevator is marked by – you guessed it – an inverted red triangle.

Afterthoughts

You just know the employees at the FBC would love a melon party, while any incentive finger traps within the Oldest House would be far more dangerous.

Now, let us know of any similarities between Severance and Control that we missed, and you spotted.