Fans have waited two and a half years to see the return of this brilliant, mind-bending sci-fi drama. severance pay. The second season of the seven-time Emmy-nominated Apple TV+ series has been a long time in the making, and its creator Dan Erickson and EP/Director Ben Stiller Have sat down and explained the issue.
Stiller explained to Vanity Fair: “Writing Season 2 took a while. Then we started shooting in October 2022, and production was shut down in May because of the strike. [2023]. At that point, we had done about seven of the 10 episodes before we had to regroup after the strike.
“It took us a while to prepare for the show. So we didn’t start filming until January [2024]. Then we shot from January to May to complete the final three episodes.
Erickson interjected and explained severance pay is “a very complex show” with many characters leading double lives thanks to the show’s fictional technology, which allows company employees to surgically separate their working and personal life memories.
“Each character has two lives—two personalities, essentially—that we’re expanding on. For me, writing is the hardest part of the process because there are so many ways we can go.
“Sometimes we come up with something that works really well on paper, and then it’s not until we get there and shoot it that we realize: That’s not quite what it is. We never want it to turn into something imperfect. .
Their commitment to perfection not only resulted in rewrites, but partial production had already begun when they decided to go back to the drawing board.
“All the places we planned to go to,” Erickson noted, “we had already built or partially built them by the time we realized, ‘Oh, this isn’t going to work.’
“It’s not always fun to have calls with studios where you’re like, ‘Hey, you know that thing that you put a lot of resources into? Well, we’re not going to do that now, or we’re going to do something completely different. thing. But in the end, it’s worth it.
In the 10-episode second season, Mark (Adam Scott) and his friends learn the dire consequences of ignoring severance hurdles, leading them further down the rabbit hole.
In addition to Scott, the show also stars Britt Lohr, Trammell Tillman, Zach Cherry, Jane Tullock, Michael Chernus, Dichin Rahman, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, Patricia Arquette and new series regular Sarah Burke.
I think a rewatch of Season 1 is certainly in order. severance pay Returns to Apple TV+ on January 17th.
