Dan Erickson is to credit for creating the world in which Severance exists, but even he couldn't have anticipated that the Apple TV+ series would premiere during the coronavirus pandemic and Great Resignation.
"I wrote the original pilot of this 10 years ago, which feels like a completely different universe now," the Emmy nominee told E! News. "People aren't quite as satisfied to keep the status quo going with work and everything, as we may have thought we were a few years ago, so it's a very interesting time for the show."
And it's even more interesting to write the show as a full-time job. Erickson recognizes the irony, saying, "Even in a job like this one, there's bureaucracy that you deal with that is common to any other job, so it's funny. It's become a weird little exercise."
As he plans out season two, the latest challenge has been crafting a story that will excite viewers, while also staying true to the series he envisioned 10 years ago.
"I panic all the time," Erickson said when asked about the pressures of expanding on the stories from season one. "It's an incredibly exciting response, but it is also overwhelming in a way because you want to live up to that and you want to create something that fulfills the promise that you've made to the people who have fallen in love with the show. The weight of that is not lost on me."
Erickson noted that since the show's release, Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Dylan (Zach Cherry) and the rest of the characters have evolved, which has been weird for the writer. He joked, "You sort of you feel like a parent taking your kids to school in a way. "
But Erickson is excited about the upcoming episodes, especially since he will get to further explore the love triangle between Mark, Helly and Mark's undead wife Gemma a.k.a Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman). "With a conceit like this, you're always looking for what is an interesting or strange or painful or scary dynamic that you can put these characters in," he said. "So yeah, that was something that we always wanted, for people to really, really be rooting for Mark and Helly. And also, you're really rooting for Mark and Gemma."
The first season of Severance is streaming now on Apple TV+.
The 2022 Emmy Awards will be broadcast live Sept. 12 starting at 8 p.m. EST/5 p.m. PST on NBC and will stream live on Peacock.
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