Upload

I watch a lot of stuff as part of my job. Movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, the works. Watching all of this, being exposed to such a variety of content on a daily basis, you tend to pick up on a lot of things. Because you’ve seen so many different kinds of stories and plot lines, you end up being able to make educated guesses as to when something will happen – when two characters are going to kiss, when they’ll break up, or any number of story tropes that a show will fall into. So much so that when you find a show that is truly new and fresh, it becomes an absolutely delightful experience.

Shows like Community, Westworld, and Money Heist truly confound expectations by being true to themselves, and never betraying the audience’s trust. The people who make those shows know that when their characters do something, it must be for a reason.

So when I put on the pilot episode of the new Amazon Prime series Upload, I didn’t know what to expect.

Its description was pretty straight forward.

In 2033, people can be “uploaded” into virtual reality hotels run by six tech firms. Cash-Strapped Nora lives in Brooklyn and works customer service for the luxurious “Lakeview” digital afterlife. When L.A. party-boy/coder Nathan’s self drive car crashes, his high-maintenance girlfriend uploads him permanently into Nora’s VR world.

Okay. So think The Good Place but capitalist. Got it. But no, there’s more to it than that. And over the course of 10 episodes, the story of Nathan, Nora, Ingrid, and Luke, come together in weird, wild, and wonderful new ways. 

The series is refreshing in some of the decisions it makes, eschewing the obvious routes to take roads less travelled, and doing it all effortlessly.  Unlike The Good Place, Upload doesn’t do God. It doesn’t really do the afterlife and the morality of death stuff either. Because *technically*, no one has actually died. People who are “uploaded” are essentially that, uploaded to a cloud service of their choosing. So there are no discussions about good or evil, or religion or God. The only difference being dependent on the kind of service plan you signed up for before you died.

Upload could have gotten bogged down by the “buying your way into heaven” stuff, but it doesn’t. It keeps the story simple. Ingrid, Nathan’s girlfriend, comes from money. So she and her family, have the “unlimited plan” Lakeview contract. So when Nathan is at death’s door, Ingrid signs him up to her family’s plan. The less fortunate can sign up for the “2 Gig” plan, where, you guessed it, they have 2 Gigs of data a month to “live” on.

There is a bigger arc to the story that I will not spoil, but take my word for it, it’s worth the surprise. All of this may seem light weight and uninteresting, but it’s not. Robbie Amell’s Nathan does a great job of being just one or two steps ahead of the audience, because he lives in a world where “uploading” is a thing and we don’t. Andy Allo as Nora, Nathan’s angel while in Lakeview, is a calm guide during the transition, and over the season, grows to be a friend and more. 

Upload also asks some hard questions of its characters. What does it mean to fall out of love with someone who your very existence depend on? What does falling in love mean when one is a virtual consciousness and the other is alive? What would you say when you’re (virtually) attending your own funeral surrounded by loved ones? And is being uploaded (i.e. dead) really just like being away from loved ones, especially with the advent of the hug/sex suit?

Upload asks all these questions, but not really. If you know what I mean. Upload is a funny, soft science fiction, satirical look at death, capitalism, and relationships. And it really should be on your list of things to watch now.

Upload
Amazon Prime, Season 1, 10 episodes
Creator: Greg Daniels
Directors: Greg Daniels, Jonathan van Tulleken, Kacie Anning, David Rogers, Jeffrey Blitz, and Daina Reid
Writers: Greg Daniels, Mary Gulino, Aasia Lashay Bullock, Mike Lawrence, Shepard Boucher, Owen Daniels, Alex Sherman, and Alyssa Lane
Cast: Robbie Amell, Andy Allo, Allegra Edwards, Zainab Johnson, Kevin Bigley, Jordan Johnson-Hines, Chris Williams, Owen Daniels, and Andrea Rosen