I hate the word “innovation,” but we are living in a digital world, and I admit – I am a digital girl. There is, however, a limit to how much innovative technology I’ll invite into my life and how invasive I think tech companies should be. By 2033 who knows what will be available?! And what will it do to us as a society?!
Greg Daniels has an idea. (Yes, the same Greg Daniels who produced “The Office,” “Parks & Rec,” “Space Force,” and “King of the Hill.”) In “Upload,” what is arguably his darkest product yet, Daniels imagines a creepily plausible future where we are introduced to the possibility of “uploading” our consciousness to a digital afterlife before our physical bodies die. Yup, we can continue living after death. Kind of.
Twenty-seven-year-old California boy Nathan Brown is living his dream life: he and his best friend have written code for a promising new digital afterlife, he has a rich, hot girlfriend, and he is finally going to be able to financially support his family. Until his driverless car crashes, and he is coerced into uploading his consciousness to Lakeview, the luxury digital heaven of the elite before his body succumbs to his wounds.
Nathan is forced to reckon with his untimely death while balancing his old real-world life with his new virtual afterlife. His customer service “angel” Nora, a programmer in the real world, is there to guide him and make his entrance into eternity smooth. There’s an obvious immediate spark between them, but Nathan still has his real-world sugar mama, Ingrid, to contend with – who do you think paid for Nathan’s entrance into Lakeview with her family money?
In Lakeview, he meets a host of hilarious but helpful friends: the eccentric veteran Luke, the insanely wealthy and slightly terrifying Mr. Choak, as well as (my favorite) “AI Guy” – a virtual assistant who runs Lakeview’s activities, while also learning what it means to be human. Nathan’s got a lot on his virtual mind, but the focus of season one is solving a murder – Nathan’s. And his team both in the real and virtual world rallies to help him solve it. (I won’t spoil seasons two and three, but they’re just as good!)
“Upload” (Amazon Prime), now in its third season, is equal parts sci-fi, dystopian, comedy, romance, and murder mystery. It’s a good time, and it goes down smoothly after a long day of living in the “real world.” The futuristic vibe – enhanced by cooler wearable technology than we have now – seems eerily possible and just around the corner. Food companies, social media sites, and tech corporations have merged to create mega-conglomerates (my favorite being “Oscar Mayer-Intel – Pushing the Boundaries of Meat”) that dominate everyday life. (As if they don’t already…) But, like our current reality, no amount of technology or innovation will free us from falling prey to capitalism and consumerism, and in Daniels’ future, advancements in tech continue to mainly benefit the rich.
Very little has been done to bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots, although in true comedic fashion, this doesn’t stop any of the characters from striving to climb the socio-economic ladder. It’s a bit of “Black Mirror” mixed with “The Good Place,” and a heavy dose of witty one-liners and ridiculous scenarios. It’s deep without being heavy, funny without being flippant, and thought-provoking without (too much) morality shaming.
