TV
Upload
Greg Daniels
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On Amazon Prime Video
UPLOAD is the latest creation of Greg Daniels, a TV showrunner with an amazing CV that includes the US version of The Office and Parks and Recreation. Most recently, he co-created, alongside Steve Carrell, the Netflix show Space Force. So on paper, at least, Upload has a fine pedigree.
The 10-episode first season, out now on Amazon Prime Video, is the story of a young computer programmer, injured in a self-driving-car accident, who agrees to have himself uploaded to a fancy virtual world called Lake View. This appears to be a one-way ticket, given that his head is blown to pulp during the upload process.
The year is 2033, and for anyone rich enough to afford it, getting uploaded to one of the virtual worlds on the market is a great afterlife option. In fact, this isn鈥檛 really an afterlife, it is just a different sort of life.
The living, or rather the people who still have bodies, can visit uploaded friends and family using VR head sets, or even just video-call them on their mobiles. It couldn鈥檛 be easier for loved ones to keep in touch after body death.
The end of real death has many downsides, however, as we are soon to learn.
For our hero Nathan Brown, played by Robbie Amell, the downsides are exacerbated by mysteriously missing memories, the worry that he may have been murdered and, most chillingly, the fact that his still-embodied girlfriend, who now legally owns him, could delete him from existence with one swift swipe.
Our co-hero in the show is Nora, Nathan鈥檚 appointed Lake View 鈥渁ngel鈥�, played by Andy Allo. Her official job is to ease him into his new life as part of a computer program, but she quickly becomes embroiled in Nathan鈥檚 complicated back story.
鈥淗is girlfriend, who now legally owns him, can delete him from existence with one swift swipe鈥�
This is a show that is packed with new ideas and inventive flourishes, and provides a very clever vision of what our world could look like in a decade. The effects are brilliant.
It also has a social conscience, and at times is quite reminiscent of Downsizing. That was about a world where the inhabitants got a dreamy new life in exchange for becoming tiny, not dead. Yet there, as here, the heaven on offer to the rich was built on the shoulders of the poor 鈥� and it stopped being heavenly the minute your money ran out.
The main problem with Upload is that, unlike in the US Office and Parks and Recreation, the main characters aren鈥檛 interesting enough. Nathan鈥檚 flaw is that he is a bit vain, but otherwise he is an OK guy. Nora is sweet and earnest. She occasionally plays soft-as-butter practical jokes on Nathan. But where is our Michael Scott or our Leslie Knope?
The writers try to shore up the two nice-but-dull main characters with wacky support roles, but it is a losing battle. A secondary problem emerges: is this meant to be a comedy? If so, the laughs are few and far between, and outweighed by the pathos and the attempts at romance.
All that said, both the US Office and Parks and Recreation had difficult first series, and both shows went on to become bona fide classics. Let鈥檚 hope Upload, with its fizz of fresh ideas, comes into its own in season two 鈥� whenever filming that becomes possible.
