Heaven Is a Place In a Hard Drive in Witty Amazon Series ‘Upload’

Alci Rengifo

In a digitized world we like to think we’re having more control over every aspect of our lifestyle. Amazon’s “Upload” imagines a future where this attitude has extended to the afterlife. Or better yet, what we choose to be the afterlife. In the world of this series those with the means can simply “upload” a deceased loved one into a heaven that looks a lot like suburban America. Like suburbia itself, it comes with some fine print you were unaware of when you moved in. 

Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell) is a coder on the verge of finding success with an app which would allow people to freely save digitized afterlives where they can load their loved ones and reunite with them later on. Then one night Nathan’s automated car slams into a truck. At the hospital his rich girlfriend Ingrid (Allegra Edwards) makes the fateful decision to have Nathan’s consciousness uploaded into “Lakeview,” a beautiful retreat for the dead modeled after Victorian hotels in the U.S. and Canada. In this world death doesn’t mean an end to contact however. Your loved ones can still visit you, and with the proper “sex suit” do other things. Supervising every tenant of Lakeview are their assigned “angels,” meaning the coders who serve as tech support. For Nathan it’s Nora (Andy Allo), who among the living is lonely, prone to Tinder-style hook ups and is dealing with an ailing father who wants to exit the old fashioned way. At first Nathan is himself resistant to life at Lakeview, and being separated by a digital heaven makes his relationship with Ingrid very strained. Then Nora begins to develop a particular attraction to Nathan, while a private investigator in the living world finds evidence Nathan’s death wasn’t so accidental.

“Upload” works best as a premise. Heaven and the afterlife have been a recurring theme in recent Peak TV shows, from “The Good Place” to “Miracle Workers.” The idea of a digital afterlife was done best recently in the “Black Mirror” Emmy-winning episode “San Junipero.” This new variation on the concept has a quirkier satirical tone since it’s the creation of Greg Daniels, the mind behind “Parks and Recreation.” Daniels designs a setting that we can fully inhabit as viewers. His afterlife is a metaphor for corporate consumerism where companies own digital heavens and if you can afford to pay for certain amounts of GBs, as Ingrid can for Nathan, then you live quite comfortably. There are a few dents though. You can’t go beyond a certain perimeter of the heavenly grounds and the “angels” can monitor you at all times, even in your most private moments. If you run out of money you’re then downgraded to a low gig world that looks like a stripped down asylum. Books might be only five-pages long (you have to pay for the rest) or you could stay frozen in place until someone can pay to reanimate you (a kid is left on pause reading “Harry Potter”). You’re even left without much say in what age you’re stuck in. An 11-year-old trapped watching his friends and family grow older, runs off with Nathan and the always horny Luke (Kevin Bigley) to a “grey zone” beyond Lakeview to get an illegal “upgrade tattoo” to finally make him a teenager. It works, but instead turns him into a teenage girl.

These details make “Upload” enjoyable beyond its main plot which is the weakest element of the writing. It starts going into “Ghost” territory where the dead Nathan gets the hint he was murdered but can’t do much about it now that he’s essentially data. An older Lakeview tenant, an older big wig CEO named David (William B. Davis of “The X-Files”), points out that it’s funny how Nathan just happened to die as he prepared to launch an app that would cost the afterlife industry billions. In the real world a private investigator named Fran Booth (Elizabeth Bowen) is on the case and searches through security camera footage of the night Nathan crashed, discovering clues that hint to a bigger plot involving a shocking suspect. Nora’s backstory is also typical TV millennial angst. She’s lonely, has many casual relationships with uncaring men, but starts falling for Nathan despite him staying attached to Ingrid.

Some shows feel like ideas that have been well thought out which are then anchored to a recycled plot to give the episodes cohesion. That’s how “Upload” feels. You don’t care about who killed Nathan, because where he lives now poses vastly more intriguing questions. Ingrid wants to keep their sex life going so she buys a “digital suit” which allows you to visit your dead loved one and have a conjugal moment. It’s imagined as virtual reality to the extreme. Nathan is allowed to have a “funeral” where guests enter Lakeview to say goodbye. The episode turns into a hilarious riff on jealousy when some of his exes appear by surprise with very saucy details that drive Ingrid into a rage. Those who are not wealthy in the real world can rarely afford actual food, so printers are the typical choice to make dinner (“your fat cartridge might be low”). Because heaven is a corporate-owned digital space you can do neat things like switch landscapes with a knob or eat all the junk food you want, until you run out of funds.

“Upload” may not be the most original show of the season, but its premise is entertaining enough. It wisely doesn’t go beyond the half hour mark in most of its episodes. The performances are also witty, full of self-mocking humor. In a world where everything seems to be for sale, it poses a question that isn’t without merit, about whether the all mighty dollar will keep following us beyond the grave.

“Upload” season one begins streaming May 1 on Amazon Prime.