{"id":922561,"date":"2026-07-26T07:14:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T12:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/26\/mystery-box-shows-are-complicated-for-everyone-even-the-actors\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T07:14:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T12:14:27","slug":"mystery-box-shows-are-complicated-for-everyone-even-the-actors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/26\/mystery-box-shows-are-complicated-for-everyone-even-the-actors\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery box shows are complicated for everyone \u2014 even the actors"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Silo<\/em> is such a complicated show that even its showrunner gets confused sometimes. While filming the final seasons of the Apple TV sci-fi thriller, Graham Yost remembers two instances where he messed up details: once it was an actor who realized that a conversation they were about to shoot should\u2019ve already taken place, the other involved the Japanese localization team pointing out that a subtitle didn\u2019t match what was going on onscreen. In both instances, the problem was ultimately fixed, but Yost\u2019s reaction was the same: \u201cOh shit, you\u2019re right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping everything straight is one of the big challenges of working on such a complex series, and as Silo<\/em> enters into its final two seasons<\/a>, the challenge has only increased. So it\u2019s a good thing Yost has a team working alongside him looking for those mistakes. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot to keep track of, but everyone is pitching in,\u201d he says, \u201cand I love this sense of collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Season 3 of Silo<\/em> starts streaming on July 3rd, and it expands the story\u2019s scope quite a bit. The series follows the lives of the residents of a huge underground bunker hundreds of years in the future. The silo is home to 10,000 people who essentially live in a vertical city, one divided into layers that each have their own jobs and cultures, from the mines at the bottom to the government up top. The only way to navigate the silo is through a massive spiral staircase that goes from top to bottom, creating a very physical form of class division.<\/p>\n

Initially it seemed the residents were the last remnants of humanity living in a postapocalyptic wasteland. But over the course of the first two seasons, it became clear that they lived in but one silo of many, each housing their own communities while isolated from the rest. Season 3 adds a new wrinkle: showing how the world came to be this way in the first place, a process that starts in a world that looks much like our own.<\/p>\n

The season 3 premiere constantly jumps back and forth between the bleak future where we\u2019ve spent the last two seasons and our present day, when the decisions were made that led to everyone being trapped inside of underground bunkers. Things are already complicated as the show picks up from last season \u2014 protagonist \/ silo mayor \/ reluctant revolutionary Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) has just become the first person to venture between silos and is now suffering from memory loss \u2014 and the multiple timelines only ratchets that up.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of pieces you\u2019re trying to put together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The cast of Silo<\/em> all have different techniques for dealing with this challenge, which becomes even harder given that scenes are rarely shot in chronological order. For some, daily team meetings with directors can be an invaluable tool. \u201cA lot of days, we\u2019d start the day with story time, and the director would go through where we\u2019re at, where we just came from, what happens next,\u201d explains Alexandria Riley, who plays newly promoted authority figure Camille Sims in the show. \u201cIt\u2019s already a complicated story anyway, but then when shooting out of order, you do get a bit foggy.\u201d Ferguson notes that the hair-and-makeup team can be particularly helpful in tracking the story, as they need to be on top of things like scars and burns to maintain consistency. Every detail counts. \u201cThe little changes that you do have enormous ripple effects going forward,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of pieces you\u2019re trying to put together,\u201d adds Common, who plays Camille\u2019s husband Robert on the show. \u201cIt is our job to know where we are, but thank god we had support, too. There are times when I\u2019d have to talk to Alex about something just to be reminded.\u201d The two actors even had separate rehearsals together to make sure they had everything down.<\/p>\n

Others took a different approach. Jessica Henwick, for instance, joined the main cast as the present-day investigative reporter Helen in season 3, and says that \u201cI didn\u2019t read any scenes except my own. Because I\u2019m a fan of the show, I wanted to preserve that experience. I will watch season 3 as a fan and see what happens. I don\u2019t know what happens except in our storyline.\u201d (Henwick is such a fan that, soon after she was cast, she had a single goal in mind: \u201cI went to the set and explored the stairs.\u201d)<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Image: Apple<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

One thing that doesn\u2019t help much, however, is delving into the source material. Silo<\/em> is based on a trilogy of books by author Hugh Howey; the first two seasons explored the first book, while the final two will wrap up the rest of the story. But much has changed in the adaptation as the TV show attempts to both make Juliette a more visible figure in the central part of the story and update some of the plotlines to reflect present day concerns like AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started reading the books and realized very quickly that that wasn\u2019t going to help, because the books are so different,\u201d explains Ashley Zukerman, who plays a congressman in the present day storyline. He says that keeping both the novels and the TV show in his mind at the same time wouldn\u2019t be helpful and instead found \u201cthat reading the whole scripts and then finding a way to forget [what his character wouldn\u2019t know] was useful.\u201d<\/p>\n

With two seasons to go, Silo<\/em> is racing toward a conclusion as it attempts to wrap everything up. Yost says that four seasons was always the plan, so the process has been figuring out how to fit everything into a set number of episodes. But since the final two seasons were filmed back to back, it also means that the Silo<\/em> team are done having to worry about keeping all of those complicated plotlines straight. And as much as she says she\u2019ll miss the experience of working on the show, there is one thing Ferguson is excited to be done with beyond memorizing storylines.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fucking hated running up and down those stairs,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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