True work-life balance can be as hard to achieve as inbox zero. It’s so challenging, in fact, that the characters in Severance go to a particular extreme to reach it: brain surgery. The show, which is streaming on Apple TV Plus, takes its name from a surgical procedure in which someone’s brain is essentially severed in two, creating two distinct persons: one for work, one for home life. The result is a show that feels a bit like a cross between Black Mirror and The IT Crowd, exploring the horrors of capitalism and technology with a banal kind of cheer.
At the center of the story is a company called Lumon Industries, an Amazon-style megacorporation that dabbles in a little of everything. (“What don’t they make,” one character asks early…
