Say Goodbye To the Competition as Apple TV’s Hit Sci-Fi Series Officially Passes a Staggering Milestone

3 weeks ago 14

Published Mar 19, 2026, 10:11 AM EDT

Rohan Naahar is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

While it initially seemed as if Apple TV had been defeated in the tightly contested streaming wars of the early 2020s, the platform seems to be playing the long game. When its competitors flooded the market with dozens of new titles every week, Apple was relying on a drip-feed strategy. Among the streamer's biggest hits are the comedy-drama Ted Lasso and the cerebral sci-fi series Severance. The latter show was created by Dan Erickson, who emerged out of nowhere. This only added to the allure of the show, which earned near-unanimous praise from critics and audiences in 2022. Severance was hailed for its compelling original plot and immersive lore, and it didn't miss a beat when it returned for a highly anticipated second season in 2025. Since its premiere, Severance has become a flagship title for Apple and entered uncharted viewership territory.

It did this despite competition from other sci-fi shows such as Foundation, Invasion, Extrapolations, Silo, and more recently, Pluribus, which hails from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. Starring Adam Scott, Severance is set in an alternate reality where people opt to use tech that splices their personalities into two halves that can't interact with each other. When the protagonist sniffs out a conspiracy, he gets a team of colleagues together in an attempt to uncover the secrets of their workplace. Severance holds an overall score of 95% on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the first season has a 97% score and the second a 94% score.

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The aggregator's consensus for the second season reads, "Masterfully managing its two halves of adroit character study and surreal nightmare, Severance's long-awaited sophomore season makes cognitive dissonance a mind-melting pleasure." Also featuring Tramell Tillman, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, and Patricia Arquette, Severance is one of Apple's most expensive shows, with a reported budget of $200 million for the second season. The investment seems to be paying off, going by its performance. According to FlixPatrol, Severance has now spent 750 days on the domestic Apple TV chart. It trails only Ted Lasso, which is approaching the 800-day mark. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.