The reaction to Severance season 1 was so intense, creator Dan Erickson said he had to start therapy to process "all the wonderful feelings"

Severance season 2 is almost upon us, but it seems the success of the first season had some unexpected consequences for its creator.

Speaking in the new issue of SFX magazine, which features Star Trek spin-off movie Section 31 on the cover and hits newsstands on December 31, Dan Erickson opens up about the show's impact.

"I was in therapy because of all the wonderful feelings I was getting from people responding to the show, and the surprise of it," he says of the reception. "I really thought it would be a much more niche audience. Then you’re like, 'How do I avoid letting these people down that have suddenly invested a little piece of themselves in this show?' Knowing that we're going to come back and shoot this again, I don't want to make people come back and spend months and months shooting something that's not up to the quality of the first season. So it was really intense."

This is part of the reason it took so long to make the second season of one of Apple TV Plus' best shows. Season one aired back in 2022 and season 2 is only released in early 2025.

"It took a long time," Erickson explains. "Then there came a point, a certain ways into production, where I finally started to feel, 'I actually think this is better.' I don't think this is any more a matter of, like, can we make something acceptable? I think we've actually got something that's even more exciting than what we had before."

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Severance season 2 sees all the major cast return as it picks up in the aftermath of the first season's dramatic finale. Alongside Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, and Patricia Arquette, there are some new arrivals too. Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie joins alongside Alia Shawkat.

Severance season 2 begins on January 17, 2025. Read more in the latest issue of SFX magazine, which features Star Trek spin-off movie Section 31 on the cover and hits newsstands on Tuesday, December 31.