A decade in the making, the acclaimed Apple TV+ series Severance is a unique combination of dystopian sci-fi, workplace drama and black comedy. Now in its second season, the show continues to resonate with viewers and captivate audiences across the globe. Emmy talks with creator Dan Erickson, director-executive producer Ben Stiller, lead actor-executive producer Adam Scott and the other main cast members about how Severance adeptly explores identity, grief and the corporate machine. The award-winning official publication of the Television Academy is on sale April 1.

Severance is a cultural phenomenon

the first season earned 14 Emmy nominations, two wins and legions of fans — but in 2012 its creator was just a 28-year-old aspiring screenwriter with no credits. Erickson was working as an office manager at a door parts company when he had an idea about a group of office workers whose minds have been surgically divided between their “innies” — their identities as “severed” employees at Lumon Industries, with no memories outside the workplace — and “outies” — their off-the-clock identities, with no knowledge of their experiences in the office. It was an idea that would change his life. “It came from a very organic place,” he recalls, “because I legitimately did have a job I hated. I had moved to L.A. to be a writer and was not a writer yet. I was walking into work one day and had this thought: ‘What if I could just jump ahead to the end of the day and have already done the work?’” says Erickson. That day he wrote the outline for the show. “This was the first time that an idea like that occurred to me, and the rest is history."

It certainly didn’t happen overnight

Erickson wrote a pilot, but there was absolutely no interest until 2015 when it ended up on Ben Stiller’s desk. “There was a tone to it that felt so specific,” Stiller recalls. “It was very unique and funny, yet also really strange. You don’t read that many things that just jump out at you. There was humor, there was this weird sci-fi element to it, and a very intriguing story. A lot of the things I’m interested in.” There was humor, there was this weird sci-fi element to it, and a very intriguing story. A lot of the things I’m interested in.”

In “Work-Life Talents

Erickson and Stiller talk to emmy about how in sync they were on the making of the series. For example, they both had Adam Scott in mind to play the lead character, Mark Scout, a former college professor who chooses severance as he grieves over his wife’s death. The timing was opportune, because Scott, who had finished his run on Parks and Recreation, was looking to go in a different direction. “Party Down, Step Brothers and Parks and Rec, those three things gave me a career,” Scott says, “but I was seen primarily as a comedic actor. I wanted to try something else and knew that I would have to prove it.” Severance was the ideal fit. “It’s like when you hear a great pop song and you think, ‘How has this melody and this hook never been out in the world?’” he says. “It’s so good, you would think that someone would have thought of it before. It was one of those.”

The success of Severance is due in part to the exceptional cast

including veteran actors and Emmy nominees Christopher Walken (Burt Goodman) and John Turturro (Irving Bailiff), along with two-time Emmy-winner Patricia Arquette (Harmony Cobel), a frequent Stiller collaborator. “I think all of us are severed,” Arquette says. “There’s a whole interior life going on that we all have that’s motivating us to do what we do, to choose the partners that we choose, to feel shitty about certain things where somebody else wouldn’t at all. We all have these different fabrics that make us who we are and these subconscious underpinnings.”

As the second season comes to an end, Erickson is still surprised by the impact of the series. This season has been embraced by audiences and became one of the most viewed programs on television since its premiere. “I’ve been shocked at literally every new moment of it,” he says. “I never expected it to get made. I wrote this pilot hoping it was interesting enough that it could get me into a writers room.”

Additional feature highlights from the new issue include:

-The nearly decade-long journey of the Emmy Award-winning series The Handmaid’s Tale is coming to a close. In “Tale End,” star Elizabeth Moss and the cast talk to emmy about the show’s final 10 episodes, global reach and cultural impact.

-As The Jeffersons celebrates its 50th anniversary, emmy revisits Norman Lear’s pioneering sitcom with recollections from the people who helped make it a hit in “Movin’ Up & Crackin’ Wise.”

-In “Keeping It Casual,” emmy talks to writer-producer Liz Meriwether (New Girl; The Dropout) about Dying for Sex, her new FX adaptation of the popular podcast that follows the taboo-breaking sexual journey of a terminally ill woman.