Silo and Paradise Comparison
Have just finished watching Season 2 of Paradise and one of the things I cant stop thinking about is how similar the series is to Silo.
Silo is a sci-fi dystopian drama series created by Graham Yost based on the Wool series of novels by Hugh Howey and Paradise is a post-apocalyptic political thriller television series created by Dan Fogelman.
The following contains some spoilers curated from Paradise and Silo…
The most obvious similarity is that they share the post-apocalyptic theme where an extinction-level event has taken place rendering the outside world unlivable and now the survivors are living in an underground shelter, waiting for a time it is safe to go outside.
The Plot Twist is that the outside world is not as it seems and the ones in charge suppress or limit the truth that is known by people as a way of preserving life in the Silo/Bunker.
A murder investigation results in aspects of the truth coming out. Once people start questioning those in charge, rebellion spreads as people mobilise for truth and the choice to go outside.
On the surface, a difference between Silo and Paradise is that in Silo, the outside world was, in fact, not hospitable and other Silos have been destroyed by people who forced open the Silo doors. But in Paradise, though the outside world is not yet as desolate people are told, the climate crisis will continue to escalate, and it is said survivors will wish they had died in the first disaster.
One theme reiterated in both shows is how, even in apocalyptic survival, hierarchies of wealth and power reassert themselves. While Paradise is mostly made up of an elitist wealthy community, a board of billionaires is in charge, in Silo society is stratified from the bottom to the top of the Silo, figuratively and literally.
Both series hinge on the psychological weight of confinement and the politics of truth. The underground shelter is a metaphor for society itself: closed systems where power thrives on secrecy, and rebellion is born the moment someone says “They are lying to us”
Whether it’s a vertically stacked silo or a carefully engineered underground paradise, the same patterns emerge, control, secrecy, hierarchy, rebellion and finally the collapse of the system…
Not yet sure what happens after the collapse… gotta wait for the next season.
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