The Powerful, Unlikely Force Shaping Modern TV
Dan Erickson, the creator of Severance, has been having what he calls “anxiety daydreams.” He’s working on the second season of the acclaimed Apple TV+ series, and though the show just got nominated for a bevy of Emmys, he’s already picturing the worst: headlines about disappointed viewers, articles analyzing his ineptitude, reviews pronouncing “the biggest precipitous drop-off in quality in the history of television,” he told me over the phone, laughing nervously. “I don’t think it’s going to be,” he clarified, “but, I mean, that’s the worry from somebody in my position.”
After all, Erickson isn’t just the showrunner of a hit drama. He’s the showrunner of a hit drama with the most discerning of audiences: the theorists. These are the fans who pick apart scenes for clues, listen to dialogue with the intensity of an FBI sting, and can anticipate entire storytelling arcs long before the show actually gets there. They don’t simply watch something; they solve it. follows in the footsteps of series such as , , and , puzzlebox mysteries that attracted fans built on watching a project solely to see if a prediction, no matter how tame or ludicrous, panned out.
