Silo

 

The last half of Episode 3 of Apple TV's marvelous steampunk mystery series Silo, starring the amazingly versatile Rebecca Ferguson, was the most intense 30 minutes I've spent with a television program in quite some time.

Created by Canadian writer/producer Graham Yost and based on the books by Hugh Howey, Silo is a post-apocalyptic tale of an underground city contained in an enormous vertical bunker built before the memory of anybody currently living. The city is powered by an enormous generator that is showing troublesome wear and tear.

Ace mechanic Juliette Nichols (Ferguson) convinces the powers-that-be that the generator must be repaired before it fails permanently, casting the thousands of residents into airless darkness. It must be shutdown for Juliette and her teammates to make the repair, but time is not a luxury as the steam that drives the turbines will quickly build and threaten the whole operation.

Episode director Morten Tyldum masterfully paces the crisis that emerges, set against a backdrop of a suspicious death and the Silo's bizarre expulsion ritual. Tyldum makes every dropped tool and slipped knot potentially earth-shattering -- literally.