EMMYS WATCH 2025 — Severance: A Present Tense Dystopia
/‘Emmys Watch 2025’ showcases critical responses to the series nominated for Outstanding Drama, Outstanding Comedy, and Outstanding Limited Series at that 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. Contributions to this theme explore critical understandings of some series nominated in these categories.
This video essay explores the place of Outstanding Drama Series nominee Severance (Apple TV+) in the genre of science fiction TV. Severance continues the recent trend of dystopian sci fi shows grounded in a near future, using a ‘mystery box’ narrative structure and demanding an intellectual, committed audience enabled by streaming platforms. This video analyses the visual ways the show builds its dystopian world: a world that feels intensely relatable and present, but simultaneously a horrific warning of technological potential.
The following video contains spoilers for Season 2.
Biography
Melanie Robson is a Lecturer in Screen Studies in the BA program at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) and has a PhD from UNSW Sydney. She has co-edited a collection on Alfred Hitchcock (One Shot Hitchcock, Oxford University Press) and published in Studies in European Cinema, Mise-en-Scene: The Journal of Film & Visual Narration, Refractory and MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture.