It's hard to be sci-fi, drama, comedy, and a satire on capitalism all at once.
Amazon's 'comedy series' Upload is a sci-fi take on the afterlife. What if a mega-cooperation offered the service of getting your consciousness uploaded so you could live a VR life (eat, drink, have sex) and still connect with your loved ones - but only if you can afford it? Would that be the best invention ever or would it be bleak for the have-nots? Upload highlights the problem with mega cooperations, their corporate greed, and how far humans are willing to go for money or financial favors.
There are mentions of how similar Upload is to other works like The Good Place and while I'd peg it closer to Netflix's Black Mirror, it's not worth dwelling on because what really is original these days? Everything is inspired or influenced by something else.
Set in 2033, Upload follows Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell), the cliche tech douche with a soft side for his niece. I can't really say what makes you know Nathan is a douche, maybe it's his dismissive attitude when his partner calls about unfinished work, maybe its the fact that he has a longtime girlfriend who he clearly doesn't love but stays with for the coitus or maybe it's just the actor's face. Either way, you know he's a douche.
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| Robbie Ammel as Nathan in Upload |
Nathan and his partner have a big idea, they're going to build a better version of Horizen's Lakeview - the creme de la creme of afterlife/heaven - that unlike the one they're trying to replace is affordable for everyone. Nathan is trying to take business from a billion-dollar tech company but he doesn't seem the teeniest bit worried about his welfare, he doesn't really think that maybe just maybe this billion-dollar company would do anything to hold on to their wealth and status. Predictably, Nathan meets an untimely death in form of his sentient car running into a parked truck it claimed it couldn't see.
This is where things get kind of interesting.
[Major Spoilers ahead]
Nathan gets severely injured and his girlfriend convinces him on the spot to sign up for an afterlife at Lakeview, which he can't afford by himself so, from that point, she literally owns his afterlife - choosing what he wears, what he eats, and even how he's laid to rest. The show does put a comic spin on some pretty bleak aspects of human life so if you're a fan of dark comedy, you might want to give Upload a chance.
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| Allegra Edwards as Ingrid in Upload | Amazon Studios, Prime Video |
Nathan gets uploaded to a virtual world like the one he was just recently trying to recreate and you don't see Nathan show that much interest in the tech of the place or how it works. Instead, he immediately starts a relationship with his desperate customer service rep/angel, Nora (Andy Allo) that borders on inappropriate, unethical, unprofessional, and most importantly, uninteresting. The excuse might be oh he lost his memory but he lost his memory of the tech he was building not his passion for tech. But of course, everything other than the Upload/Bio relationship is put on the sidelines so Nathan is conveniently not a tech guy until the plot wants him to save his preferred bio girlfriend from a weirdo-assassin who climbs in through windows and hangs around politely waiting for his target to finish a call before murdering her.
We know that foul play was involved in Nathan's death, everyone around Nathan knows, with his billionaire afterlife neighbor, David Choak (William B. Davis) bluntly pointing it out but the show doesn't care and chooses to focus on the would-they won't-they monotonous relationship between Nathan and Nora.
Maybe Nora so easily falls in love with the not-really-alive Nathan because she loves to live in a fantasy world (she does have quite the obsession with 50 First Dates starring Adam Sandler) and maybe Nathan falls in love with her so easily because his ego had never really let him give non-superficial girls a chance. But we simply do not care. Nathan and Nora aren't interesting enough to be the center of the show for so so long. Not when there are more interesting mysteries to solve.
Who tried to kill Nathan? Who wiped his memories? Is Google (makers of the self-driving car) in any way related to Horizen because how were they able to sabotage the car so easily or is it the work of an ultimate hacker? Why would anybody sign up to live a 2GB life where all you can afford to do is stare at a depressing gray wall and play with plastic bottles? Would Nathan really betray his partner for money when they built their business because they believed in equality and wanted to help the less privileged? How is a body still usable for download if the process of upload completely eviscerates the head? Thanks to the upload scene, we got to see a clear view of Amell's - or a stunt double's caucasian apple bottom so I can't really complain about the process of upload.
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| Robbie Amell (or a stunt double) as Nathan after getting 'uploaded' | Screenshot from Amazon's Upload |
Almost everyone in this show is ridiculously one-note with Nora who's all goody-two-shoes, Nathan whose Paw Patrol lamp has more in the way of personality, and even the afterlife Vet bestie who has no depth to him. Rounded characters would be Nora's work bestie Aleesha (Zainab Johnson)and the stuck-up girlfriend Ingrid who you kind of start to root for as the show goes on because she wasn't as bad as she seemed at first. She's kind of like Jane the Virgin's Petra and these are the kind of characters we like to see on television. But instead, we get Nathan and Nora sitting by the water and whispering sweet nothings.
Verdict
Upload definitely has a lot of potential in the way of drama mystery and dark comedy but Amazon may want to lay off the heavy romantics and focus on other aspects of the story.
And for some personal bias, I'd rather watch a rom-com about Nathan and Ingrid than Nathan and Nora, the former duo is just way more interesting.
Rating: 7/10
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| Ingrid frantically asking passersby for some rice to save her bio boyfriend | Screenshot from Amazon's Upload |
Hilarious lines
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