Upload - Season 1
UPLOAD - AMAZONWhat Greg Daniels has always done best is ground wackiness and absurdity in relatability and humanity. With his previous live-action efforts, The Office and Parks and Recreation, no matter how crazy the characters acted or how unmanageable the situation may have seemed, Daniels and his team were always ready to tie each episode together. They managed to create something that made these characters lovable, and thus gave them staying power on our screens. Upload, his new Amazon offering, is no exception. His signature sitcom sentimentality is on full display, but this time it serves to ground a high-concept sci-fi premise akin to the likes of The Good Place, but with a simpler objective. In this new era of the so-called ‘prestige sitcom’, Greg Daniels is unafraid to take a risk and believe in the power of human connection.
Upload takes place in a near-future where the concept of the afterlife has been rendered into a computerized system. Humans can buy their way into this upon arriving at death's door. The series follows the newly deceased Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell) as he struggles to adjust to his new afterlife in the more luxurious Lake View system. He finds his new life now effectively controlled by his loving girlfriend, Ingrid Kannerman (Allegra Edwards). Assisting him in his posthumous journey is Nora Antony (Andy Allo), a living person who works as an ‘Angel’ for the deceased residents of Lake View, and helps Nathan discover how to still find meaning in his life after death.
What the series does best is use its characters to present a rare form of sincerity that only few sitcoms even strive for. Daniels weaves a simple narrative thread throughout, one which focuses purely on the power of human connection. The show’s message is effective, simply because it does not sugarcoat the hopelessness of the situation and yet it also does not try to hide its big beating heart. In a world where life and death are rendered meaningless by the power of technology, and where human lives are commodified by corporations, people can still make things better by focusing on the heartfelt principles that have governed us since the dawn of our existence. In a show with a bleak future on the horizon, a dead man’s connection to an alive woman can pave the way for something more unpredictable, and a whole lot sweeter.
The series is strong because the writing is tight. The world feels lived-in and is therefore believable. Amell and Allo have charming chemistry together and their characters are a powerful driving narrative force based on that fact alone. Though the series sometimes struggles with committing to its intriguing mystery plot, the writers remain in tune with their characters from beginning to end. Something bittersweet yet consistently compelling is created out of this.
It’s hard to imagine a world where this won’t be mercilessly compared to The Good Place. Furthermore, it’s hard to say that this show carries the same level of depth in both its characters and its exploration of the conceivable afterlife. However, the show works in part because it has all the proper ingredients that truly make a sitcom sing: comedy that stems naturally from its wild premise, characters worth investing in, and a sly human undercurrent. It also works in part because of its originality. Though there has already been a successful sitcom about the afterlife, this show comes at it with a fresh angle and refrains from trying to be more complex than it actually is. Upload makes the most of its ultimately simple story by believing in its characters and being effortlessly funny, touching, and sincere.
