From the creator of both the US version of The Office and Parks and Recreation – Greg Daniels – comes Upload, and not-too-far in the future sitcom dealing with the afterlife. In this future, we have (reliable) self-driving cars, 3-D printed meals (only the wealthy can afford real food), and the ability to upload your memories and your, well, essence into the cloud for some future day when you might be able to be downloaded and physically reunited with your loved ones.
So, instead of freezing your body, you can upload yourself to one of many clouds, where you exist much as a character in a video game, where you – as you remember yourself – is your avatar. It’s all virtual, but you can interact with live relatives via VR and so on.
Starring Robbie Amell (who is uploaded) and Andy Allo (his handler at the cloud company), the story is divided between what happens on earth (who is paying for his “storage”? What are the stresses of handling someone who does/doesn’t exist?) and what happens in what is essentially a video game but with your thoughts, memories and communications with those back on earth – and wondering what comes next.
Ah, and there’s a big difference between clouds – the rich, of course, get the best cloud with the best service.
Half comedy, half philosophy, the ten episodes force you to think about what it means to be human, what a “good life” really is, and the control technology has over your life. It even addresses heaven – what if you are a believer who has lost someone but is convinced that when you die, you’ll be reunited? If you upload, have you missed your shot at heaven and that reunion?
There is also a corporate-crime backstory and a bit of an unexpected connection between the main character and his handler. And I still swear that the main character’s fiance is based in Ivanka Trump.
So there’s a lot packed into the roughly 10 hours of the first season.
As he did in Parks and Recreation, Daniels handles tech issues in unique ways, such as new conglomerates (Oscar Meyer Intel), but he really takes it to the nth degree. It’s a tech-based sitcom, after all. Those tech-based jokes are quick, understated and hilarious (drug store automatically measures you for condoms: “medium”).
On a sad note, the entire first (Amazon Prime) was dropped May 1, 2020 (after what I would expect to be a looong CGI and editing cycle). With the pandemic still raging, when will they even be able to film Season Two (already green-lighted)?
Better than I expected – weird, clever and profane. It also has one of the most diverse casts I’ve ever seen in a regular sitcom (one not focused on queer issues or an ethnic identity – think Fresh Off the Boat or black-ish). Andy Allo (female), who is the cloud company’s handler for the main character (Amell), is the breakout star of this show. Where has she been?