TV Review: Upload Season 1
*Content warnings* Sex scenes, nudity, death, car crashes, graphic violence, extreme gore
Star rating: 4*
Does Upload on Amazon really live up to the hype?
In this short review, I’ll explore why Upload starring Robbie Amell and Andy Allo is worth your time and attention during these solitary times.
Having previously created the American adaptation of The Office, Greg Daniels turns his talents to Sci-Fi with his latest offering. Much like his writing partner Michael Schur’s The Good Place, Upload imagines a bizarre and specific afterlife.
In a near future, death isn’t the end of life… or life as we know it at least. Instead of vanishing into the ether, consciousnesses are uploaded into a digital afterlife.
Like capitalism on earth, the Heavens are financially restricted. If you're not wealthy, your loved ones will be uploaded to glitchy, virtual Heavens sold by dodgy travel agents. If you can afford it, however, they can ‘live’ in total luxury for the rest of eternity.
In this strange near-future, we meet promising young tech entrepreneur Nathan Brown, who is suddenly and suspiciously killed in a self-driving car accident.
At his (fairly new) girlfriend Ingrid’s insistence, his consciousness is uploaded to the very best digital afterlife money can buy, which is known as Lakeview.
This new, simulated heaven takes the form of a lavish guest house, and promises good things… maple bacon donuts on demand, strolls through simulated scenery, and whatever weather you feel like having. You can even buy yourself a cold for a dollar a sneeze, if it’s all feeling a bit too heavenly.
When Nathan gets uploaded to Lakeview, his ‘angel’ Nora, an underpaid customer service rep who communicates with him through advanced VR technology, soon proves to be the best thing about his new digital existence.
However, Nathan having to accept that the complication of being dead and having his entire afterlife paid for by Ingrid might throw a spanner in the works of a new relationship.
Greg Daniels and his occasional writing partner Michael Schur are always going to get compared just by virtue of frequently working together and creating similar shows in the form of Upload and The Good Place, respectively.
But while both The Good Place and Upload offer great scripts, characters and plot twists, Upload is on the grittier and more graphic side; imagining a world in which vomit-filled ‘hug suits’ have to be deep cleaned after being used by distressed children to hug their dead grandparents in the great, virtual beyond.
Funerals held in depressing, dimly lit rooms are broadcast live so that loved ones can watch online. Nightly, an app which lets users rate their one night stands, is available just by opening your hand, where a tiny digital screen is lying dormant in the L of your thumb and forefinger, waiting for you to call on it.
As with Daniels’ (very different) show The Office, the romance is really at the core of the story. How can Nora and Nathan ever be together when one is alive, living in an apartment in New York, and the other’s entire existence is stored on a digital hard drive which, if dropped, will render him deleted from every plane of existence?
Not to mention the small matter of his girlfriend.
It’s no surprise that Daniels’ comedy chops have served him well in this show, and the script is a measured mix of both comedy and drama.
Andy Allo is brilliant as Nora, the quiet and intelligent angel who is as caring as she is discerning. Nathan Brown plays Robbie Amell, cast once again in the role of ‘Guy Who Is Actually A Nice Person Despite His Shockingly Chiselled Jawline, Who Knew?’
Allegra Edwards plays Ingrid, Nathan’s superficial girlfriend who on the surface seems only to care about appearances, paying good money for a ‘pube stylist’ (?) and to get her shoulder blades surgically sharpened.
However, the show does a good job of showing that, like everyone, Ingrid is a victim of circumstance and more complicated than we give her credit for at first.
In a fun casting twist, Greg Daniels’ own son Owen plays the part of the AI employee whose clones scatter the Lakeview premises waiting to help its residents.
A special mention must be made to the recurring characters of Luke (Kevin Bigley) a former army veteran who resides at Lakeview, and Aleesha (Zainab Johnson) his ‘angel’, who looks over him, tortures him and teases him… just like all good angels should.
The fact that this show is set in a digital afterlife presents lots of opportunities for creative editing and CGI, and it doesn’t waste them.
While the expensive digital facility of Lakeview is set against the backdrop of rolling green hills and sparkling lakes, its budget option (the ‘2 gig’ rooms, named after the fact that - you guessed it - residents only get 2 gigs of data, which they need to exist, per month) are depressing and dimly lit by flickering overhead lighting.
You have to suspend your disbelief a little, as this futuristic romance supposedly takes place just 13 years into the future. I mean Jesus, I hope that’s not what 2033 is like - but then, Robert Zemeckis posited in Back to The Future 2 that we’d all be riding hover-boards by 2015, so maybe let’s not take the speculations of Sci-Fi writers too seriously.
If you have Amazon Prime, you can watch Upload season 1 for free. Clocking in at just under 5 hours, this series can be burnt through in a very stationary afternoon, or enjoyed over a period of several days.
Whether you come for the sci-fi premise, the human romance in the centre of the story, or the intriguing and suspicious circumstances of Nathan’s death, there’s no shortage of reasons to keep watching.
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Written by Alex Scarlett