Taylor Vollman is a contributor at Collider. She has long quipped, “T.V. is my name, TV is my game.” Fortuitous initials aside, at the heart of a tired joke is a simple truth — she has a lifelong passion for television. And along with it, an affinity for movies, music and pop culture.
In a childhood time capsule, she had listed Friends, PB&J Otter, and Days of Our Lives among her favorite shows. But her tastes have not narrowed with age. Her viewing habits span TV Land classics, network hits, buzzy reality shows and streamer critical darlings.
Hoping to merge this passion with her love of writing, Taylor earned a bachelor’s in media arts and design with a minor in film studies from James Madison University. After working in marketing for years, she wanted to sharpen her skills and went on to graduate with a master’s in journalism from Georgetown University. Taylor has since pursued entertainment writing and reporting.
Prime Video‘s exploration of the afterlife has found a new home. Hulu recently added Upload to its catalog. The sci-fi comedy hails from creator Greg Daniels, blending his signature humor from The Office with Black Mirror‘s dystopian view of technology.
Set in the near future when human consciousness can be uploaded into a virtual afterlife, Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell) is a computer programmer who died under mysterious circumstances. His afterlife in the luxe Lakeview is being funded by his wealthy, living girlfriend Ingrid Kannerman (Allegra Edwards). Meanwhile, he is developing a deep bond with his human handler, also known as an angel, Nora Antony (Andy Allo). Rounding out the cast is Kevin Bigley as Army veteran Luke, Nathan’s clingy best friend; Zainab Johnson as Aleesha, Luke’s angel; Josh Banday as Ivan, a night-shift angel; and Owen Daniels as AI Guy and all of his variants. The series ran from 2020 through 2025.
‘Upload’ Feels like an Extended Episode of Netflix’s ‘Black Mirror’
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Image via Amazon Prime Video</figure>
The sci-fi series mirrors many of the same themes seen in Netflix’s Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker’s anthology series investigating the often dark, hypothetical impact of technology. While Daniels worked on the idea of Upload for 30 years, revisiting it as the basis for a sketch, book, and eventually series, it feels like an extrapolation on Black Mirror‘s 2016 episode, “San Junipero.” The atypically hopefully episode quickly became a fan-favorite, following Gugu Mbatha-Raw‘s Kelly and Mackenzie Davis‘ Yorkie as they tour an ’80s-themed digital afterlife in five-hour, once-a-week increments. As they race the clock to live out their unexplored desires, they must decide if their feelings are worth joining its permanent, dead residents.
Upload similarly discusses whether the certainty of a digital afterlife is better than the ambiguity of naturally dying. Though Upload‘s view of this digital world as wish-fulfillment is a bit bleaker. A person’s likeness and even their memories after death are proprietary to the corporations running their afterlife. Nathan soon discovers conspiracies against the democratization of the afterlife and the impact of wealth disparity on its quality. Even in a high-end afterlife, the dead must have reliable funding for the food they eat, the clothes they wear, their room’s view, and even their ability to stay cognizant. Lakeview even comes with pop-up ads.
And while Upload isn’t set all that far in the future, its dystopian view of the world has extended beyond just the afterlife. The reliance on technology has led to increased wealth disparity, no work-life balance, and even food chain supply issues. They are eating printed food and milking soft cheeses from the udders of overly enlarged cows.
‘Upload’ Balances Its Dark Themes with Greg Daniels’ Signature Humor from ‘The Office’
Image via Prime Video- Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
- Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
- Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
- Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
Image via Prime Video
Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection- Image via Prime Video
- Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
- Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
- Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
- Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
Image via Prime Video
Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett Collection
Liane Hentscher / ©Amazon / Courtesy Everett CollectionUpload balances its darker themes with Daniels’ signature humor. He has been behind some of the biggest sitcoms over the last few decades, including King of the Hill, The Office, Parks and Recreation, and most recently, The Paper. In addition to the natural interpersonal comedy, the show plays with the absurdity of the afterlife’s world — with older residents choosing to have their avatars based on black-and-white photos, all of Lakeview’s staff being replicas of the same bumbling AI worker, coding errors glitching the afterlife’s realism, angels pranking their clients, and the full-body scuba suits for afterlife visitors wanting to actually feel their loved ones.
In some ways, Upload is a workplace comedy, with Nora and Aleesha working for Horizen, which runs Lakeview. It includes the typical features of the genre, clashing with upper management, slacking on the job, and fostering co-worker relationships. But Upload is a departure in subject from Daniels’ other work. Shows like The Office were based in “the real world,” he explained to Collider during a 2020 press day. “The thing about Upload is that the parts that aren’t in the virtual world are set in the future, so everything is very production designed. It’s also very cinematic.”
The sci-fi series is less niche and nerdy than it would have been 30 years ago, Daniels admitted to Collider. Those years he took getting Upload on screen allowed the general public to get up to speed with the ideas of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, medical imaging, and self-driving cars. He explained, “All of that heavy lifting has been done in the minds of the audience and I think they can enjoy the story, the characters and the comedy more. It doesn’t have to be explained a whole lot.”
The streaming series has short episode counts, with seasons varying between four and 10 episodes in length. Not having to spend much time with world-building, the show is able to delve into the subject material with both cutting insight and laugh-out-loud humor. Shifting between the two tones helps establish a realism, even in unrealistic circumstances, because the struggles in the real world are often undercut by dark humor and commiseration.
With just 25 episodes across its first three seasons, Upload is an easy weekend binge. While its four-episode final season isn’t currently available on Hulu, it can still be streamed through Prime Video. Funnily enough, Upload isn’t the only show about the afterlife on the two streaming platforms. Michael Schur, Daniels’ co-creator on Parks and Recreation, took a very different approach to what happens after death in NBC’s The Good Place.
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