The logical next step after "The Office" is heaven, right?
Well it seemed that way for writers Michael Schur and Greg Daniels, both of whom were writers and producers on the classic sitcom, and both of whom have now gone on to create series set in some kind of afterlife.
For Schur, it was NBC's just-completed "The Good Place," a treatise on "what we owe to one another" and the nature of right and wrong. Daniels is a little less philosophical and a little more cunning and romantic in his new Amazon comedy "Upload" (streaming now, ★★★½ out of four), about a future when humans can upload their consciousness to a digital afterlife.
The smart, often hilarious series points out that like many things created by our flawed species, this virtual heaven is not all it's cracked up to be. "Digital life extension" is a commercialized, capitalist system that's drastically different for the haves than the have-nots. And it occasionally drives its dead residents insane.
"Upload" follows Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell, "The Flash"), a coder in Los Angeles working on his own more democratized version of a digital afterlife than those offered by corporate giants. Just before he breaks big, he is in a suspicious self-driving car accident. His vapid, wealthy girlfriend Ingrid (Allegra Edwards) whips out her family's credit card and his brain is uploaded to Lakeview, the crème de la crème of heavens designed like a New England hunting lodge in perpetual autumn.
More: How Amazon's 'poignant' and timely 'Upload' imagines a digital afterlife of the future
Nathan has trouble adapting to a world where he is only hungry and thirsty because a computer programmer on Earth made him feel that way. Helping him transition is Nora (Andy Allo, the series' standout), his "angel," or customer service representative. Nora's ostensible job is to counsel her charge, and get him to spend more of his family's money on digital burritos and golf.
But Nora and Nathan fall for each other, even while never physically occupying the same space (Nora is mostly a voice in his head, and sometimes joins him in Lakeview using virtual-reality goggles). She also tries to solve the mystery of who might have murdered him, and why some of his memories were deleted before he was "uploaded."
High-concept sci-fi series and movies sometimes spend more time building a convincing world than crafting the characters who live there, but thankfully "Upload" doesn't face that problem. Along with the technical jargon is an old-fashioned murder mystery, a beautiful romance and a morality tale about humanity's innate greed. (Like "30 Rock" before it, "Upload" both benefits from and harshly criticizes late capitalism, made all the more humorous by its home on retail giant Amazon's streaming platform).
Weaving these elements together are scripts that carefully toe the line between absurdist humor and absurdist horror – Nathan contemplates suicide, a child who died at 11 is stuck at that age years after he should have gone through puberty. Lakeview is beautiful and luxe, but full of rules and restrictions, making Nathan's new home more like a prison than paradise.
The series finds levity in the pixellated strangeness as Nathan begins to adapt to his surroundings, and as he grows ever closer to Nora. While the trappings of capitalism make immortality feel shallow and pointless, the burgeoning love between an "upload" and a "bio" demonstrates what might make life worth living forever: human connection.
Nathan and Nora's relationship is essential to the series, and Amell and Allo have electric chemistry. Allo, a relative newcomer, radiates star power and charisma. Amell also shows more range than he has in teen comedies and CW superhero shows.
"Upload" is less candy-colored than "Good Place," with far fewer hell demons, but it is no less thoughtful. And in a historic moment as bizarre as the coronavirus pandemic, Daniels' more cynical portrait of humanity feels a little more apt.
Nothing is perfect, but connecting with the people we love most always helps.
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May 04, 2020 at 07:31PM
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Review: Amazon's brilliant 'Upload' is the cynical 'Good Place' you didn't know you needed - USA TODAY
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