Juliette has new questions about Solo… and some other stuff, I think.

Here’s the thing. Episode 5 of Silo is – how can I describe it? – dark. Man, it is really dark.

Unfortunately, I’m not referring to a thematic shift reflecting unpalatable facets of the human condition. I mean, it’s dark! As in, I could barely see a thing and spent most of its 49 minutes squinting at my telly wondering if there was a fault and whether I ought to dig out the warranty and nip back to John Lewis where I bought it a matter of months earlier.

Moody, I love. Noir, I worship at your dusky, expressionist toes. Normally I scoff at people complaining about inaudible sound, too much music, or indeed a failure to switch on the parcans. Silo has always been on the gloomy side, what with it being set underground and everything, but a quick look at the credits reveals that this week we have a new director on board, Amber Templemore, who’s obviously decided that she’s had enough of the series’s normal retina-searing murk and is going to make the production as energy efficient as she can, perhaps in a meta bid to save the planet, so we don’t all end up having to go and live in claustrophobic silos.

Mostly, murky telly is fine. It’s suggestive of mood, foreboding and claustrophobia. Unfortunately, in the case of Silo we already know that about the show, and in this second series with the action split between two very similar locations (which are presumably largely the same set redressed) and lots of new, oily, sweaty characters, all wearing the same grubby jumpers and anoraks, I was struggling to know where I was or who was doing what to whom.

So, what did I glean through the darkness? Juliette’s still trying to put a protective suit together, and in the process finds out that Solo isn’t who he says he is. To be brutally frank, it’s thin gruel for a whole episode, especially when what’s going on next door isn’t a great deal more interesting. There’s some escaping, and a good deal of growling from Tim Robbins, but I was losing track and, to be even more brutally frank, I was losing interest too.

There are just too many characters who are too similar to each other in their look and dramatic function, and, worse, they are mostly rather dull as human beings.

Verdict: In the week that we learned that Silo has been renewed for another two whole series I hope very much that they sort their story telling out… and pop down to B&Q for a few lightbulbs. 6/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com