NEW YORk, Sept. 4 (UPI) — Designated Survivor and The Lost Symbol actor Ashley Zukerman’s Silo alternate timeline is helping to solve some of the post-apocalyptic drama’s biggest mysteries.
Season 3 of the series — which is based on Hugh Howey’s acclaimed sci-fi books about an underground society — wraps up on Apple TV Friday.
The latest episodes showed Zukerman’s engineer and Congressman character, Daniel Keene, in flashbacks leading up to the cataclysmic events that sent people into multi-level structures embedded deep in the Earth.
Spoilers ahead.
Daniel was cryogenically frozen and, now known as Troy, is periodically woken up over the course of centuries to handle crises in the silos.
He doesn’t remember his past, which includes Helen (Jessica Henwick), his journalist wife, and his sister Charlotte (Jessica Brown Findlay), a U.S. Navy pilot.
“When I first read it, and I saw how Daniel and Troy were connected to the story, I thought, ‘That’s a genuine gift to be trusted with.’ That was the feeling. But then, in the doing of it, I just couldn’t think about it in that way,” Zukerman, 42, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“What the show does really well, especially now, that we’re at the pointy end of, not just the season, but the series, is every episode, on some level, is going to keep revealing answers. We’re in deep answer territory now.”
Asked if working on this series made him think this could some-day be the future of humanity, he said, no, it actually made him more aware of the present.
“In terms of what will happen in the future, what an apocalypse will look like, I’m not somebody who gets too worried about that,” the actor explained.
“Right now, I get more worried about where we are in this present moment and the fact that we’re not seemingly doing enough and, so, doing a show which constantly discusses this idea about: ‘What does it take to stand up? What does it take to do something? What does it take to try to shift the situation you’re in?’ That was meaningful to go to work every day and do that.”
The series also explores intellectual concepts like security and freedom and how much of our humanity should be sacrificed to secure them.
Zukerman pointed out some other prominent themes such as knowledge and who controls it.
“That didn’t touch me as much as this other question about, ‘What does it take to live in a dark moment and what does it take to keep hope alive?’ That was more where my mind kept going,” he said.
The character of Daniel goes on quite a journey this season.
“He’s a guy on a date and then he ends at a nuclear blast,” Zukerman laughed.
“He’s a guy that’s sort of given up on life in a way. He’s got the life that’s been the product of some hardship. He was orphaned when he was young. He took responsibility for his sister, and then he kept putting himself in situations of service his entire life and then he meets this woman (Helen) who makes him see hope for the first time,” he added.
“That’s his journey. He keeps being surprised about the effect she has on him.”
The actor said he likes the note on which this season ends.
“To finally answer so many of these questions and then have the answer be something that couldn’t have ever been imagined, but it makes complete sense, that’s pretty satisfying,” he added.
The cast includes Harriet Walker, Avi Nash, Laura Innes, Morven Christie, Reed Birney, Matt Craven, Colin Hanks, Common and Steve Zahn.
Season 4, the final installment in the series, is expected to premiere on July 9, 2027.
A teaser released Friday showed the survivors learning there are other silos in the world and that one is controlling the rest, having convinced the population not to go outside because the air will kill them.
The clip also shows Daniel meeting heroine Juliette (Ferguson) who demands to know who he is, to which he looks confused and replies, “I don’t know.”
The future is waiting. July 9, 2027.#Silo pic.twitter.com/rdM7YjEcic— Apple TV (@AppleTV) September 4, 2026
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