Quarantine and Chill: Upload on Amazon Prime Video
When I first saw the trailer for Upload on Amazon Prime Video, I felt slightly proprietary about it. Here was a brand new comedy from The Office showrunner, Greg Daniels, that just happened to star Robbie Amell, who is slated to play Joshua Templeman in the upcoming film version of The Hating Game. My original fandom showrunner and my favorite hero from my favorite romance novel. That’s two very good reasons for me to tune in.
Turns out, there are a lot of good reasons for you to make Upload your next Quarantine and Chill.
It’s Easy Access
So many different shows give us glimpses into a near but non-existent future, but make their worlds excessively complicated. We are overly inundated with potentialities. I’ve watched two full seasons of Westworld and I still don’t know what’s going on. The world building on Upload is simple and accessible.
We know in the first episode of Upload that it’s a near distant future, with slightly better technologies: smart cars and VR and AI and 3D printable food and uploading your consciousness to a digital afterlife. But that it’s also a corporate capitalist culture: smarter isn’t better. And you don’t have to get on message boards and Twitter to read hot takes about what it all means.
It’s Not Just a Comedy
“From the Creator of The Office and Parks and Recreation” makes Upload seem like it’s going to be another Kimmy Schmidt or The Good Place: fish out of water + afterlife conceit = berserk things happen. But Greg Daniels has always focused on more than just the slapstick. He famously commented that The Office was really a romance, and he wasn’t wrong.
And Upload is actually … a crime show. No not with cops and lawyers and Dick Wolf, but the essence of each episode is ramping up the tension of who is controlling Nathan’s afterlife, and why. Through botched memories and mysterious access to the corporate files that control his digital consciousness, we get clues into what happened while he was still alive to make him … no longer so.
It’s Got that Good Stuff
Romance. That’s the good stuff. Robbie Amell’s character, Nathan, is ushered into his new afterlife by a real life woman named Nora (Andy Allo), who works for the corporation who owns his digital self. Her fascination with him, and with the peculiarities around his death and his memory files, creates a singular connection that becomes a very plausible and lovely romance.
It’s Cliff Hanged
Do you like that perfect cliffhanger that’s definitely going to keep you annoyed, re-watching, and biting your nails waiting for a new season? Upload has a doozy of one.
It’s Robbie Amell
I mean, seriously? Do I need to say more? He’s Joshua Templeman. You need to see him in action.
Watch all of season one of Upload on Amazon Prime Video RIGHT NOW.
