Blog: ‘Upload’
From the guy who brought us Parks and Recreation and The Office, Greg Daniels has blessed us again with this futuristic comedy by the name of Upload.
The show stars Robbie Amell as the handsome coder, Nathan Brown, whose life is cut short after a shocking car accident. Now, Upload takes place in 2033, where self-driving cars and virtual phones are the norms, so the fact that a car accident is what brought Nathan to his untimely death is a mysterious feat. As he is brought to the hospital, he is presented with a choice: go into surgery and risk death or upload his conscience to a digital afterlife. With the help of his girlfriend Ingrid’s (Allegra Edwards) credit card, he uploads to Lakeview- one of the afterlife options that is known to be the best of the best. As Nathan navigates this new afterlife, he finds himself under total control of Ingrid and discovers that his car accident may not have been an accident after all. Dun dun dun.
I’ve only watched four episodes out of the 11 so far but right after I watched the pilot I thought, oh I’m definitely writing about this. Upload reminds me of The Good Place. Both quirky, comical and introduce a far-fetched concept. It’s a great show to watch for escapism and keeps you hooked with its diverse characters and a whodunit storyline. I always love seeing what type of setting showrunners and writers come up with when creating a series based in the future with superior technology. In this case, you have the chance to continue on in a virtual landscape (that is if you can afford it) and stay connected with your loved ones. Trippy. Can you imagine if I called you from beyond to say what’s up? I don’t know how I feel about that.
From what I’ve gathered so far is that there are multiple digital afterlife options. But of course, money matters. However much money you have to blow is how luxurious your afterlife will be. So Nathan uploads to Lakeview and he is introduced to his customer representative, Nora (Andy Allo). And yes, someone from the real world has a paying job at a company assisting you to make your afterlife more pleasurable. What a concept. Allo and Amell have instant chemistry and it’s not long before you’re rooting for their characters’ relationship. Ingrid is way too sketchy and superficial so you don’t feel bad about it either. Unfortunately, Ingrid holds the power to erase Nathan from the afterlife so homeboy has to be careful.
I’d like to think viewers love a good lighthearted, SciFi TV show like this. I mean, the ratings say so anyway. We saw the positive reaction to Michael Schur’s The Good Place and we’re seeing it again with Greg Daniels’ Upload. These two showrunners were key players in the success of The Office and now we’ve seen them take their creativity and channel it into similarly unique shows. I dig it.
Upload premiered on May 1st and just one week after, Amazon Studios gave the green light for a second season. I’m stoked that I still have seven episodes left to indulge and I’ve done a pretty dandy job of not reading any spoilers (quite the accomplishment for me). The episodes, with the exception of the pilot, average about 30 minutes in length so you can easily binge this show in a day if you have the desire. I mean, I’ve had the desire but I’m also still trekking through How I Met Your Mother at the same time. I’ll get there.
You can stream Upload now on Amazon Prime Video.
