Loveday Writing

We are then introduced to Nathan (Robbie Amell), a computer programmer who is working in what is revealed to be a self-driving car. He then switches it to manual where he can steer it with a PlayStation-like controller and begins to race the other oblivious “drivers” on the road. He is eventually pulled over by police in the form of a drone and is eventually let off. It’s revealed shortly after this that he was making his way to Thanksgiving dinner with his family and stereotypically shallow girlfriend, Ingrid (Allegra Edwards).

The tradition of a family eating Thanksgiving dinner together is juxtaposed with the discussion taking place, where it’s revealed there are multiple types of Heaven or the afterlife. The first hint that there is a socioeconomic factor to the afterlife is shown when Ingrid tells them that her family have unlimited data on “both sides” and a relative of Nathan’s tells her that they can’t afford Upload so he will be stored on a SIM card until Nathan and his best friend and business partner, Jamie (Jordan Johnson-Hinds), get their free afterlife up and running.

After they leave, Nathan buys groceries from Bloomingdale’s and on his way home, his self-driving car malfunctions, hitting a parked truck it didn’t notice but Nathan did. We then switch to Nora’s perspective where she is rendering Nathan for Upload. From Nora’s perspective, we see that Nathan appears to be a shallow and materialistic man, and she deliberately leaves a hair strand sticking out to drive him crazy. Nora also comes across damaged memories of his and proceeds to put them in their own folder.

We then switch to Nathan’s perspective when Nora opens his memory of being in the hospital after the car crash. It’s revealed he is severely injured and is dying of a punctured lung. Ingrid tells the doctors she wants to Upload Nathan and does so under her Upload ID. We then witness the Upload process, which involves Nathan losing his head and his body falling into a tub filled with ice, to Ingrid and his mother, Viv’s, horror.

We then see Nora guiding Nathan as he is being uploaded, and his vision coming together in the form of pixels. Their first interaction alternates from being business-like to friendship-like, especially when Nathan expresses his vulnerability when he breaks down and Nora comforts him.

The episode then goes on to show Nathan discovering Lakeview’s various aspects, such as being able to adjust seasons by a thermostat, meeting someone who’s avatar is black-and-white as it’s based on an old photo, and his ability to call Ingrid from the afterlife where it’s revealed that time also passes by differently between the two worlds.

We also get an insight into Nora’s life when she is having dinner (which has been “cooked” by a 3D printer) with her father, Dave, who is dying and refuses to be uploaded.

We then switch back to Nathan getting breakfast in the dining hall, where the food immediately disappears at 10am much to his dismay and he meets another resident, Luke (Kevin Bigley), who is angry about missing out on breakfast. He proceeds to go to a random machine, bangs the door of it multiple times and a bread roll appears in an adjacent basket, revealing Lakeview’s first glitch. Luke introduces himself, revealing he was a veteran who lost his legs in Iran and committed suicide after spending five years in a wheelchair. Luke also reveals that the afterlife has had its own evolution as the first Uploads never went to the toilet or ate, they also didn’t have eyebrows or islands, and went psychotic in a week. He also tells Nathan about the data torrent, a data stream between Lakeview and the real world, and that people have used it to go back to the real world but it destroys them. He also tells Nathan he needs to embrace the reality of Lakeview to stay sane.

Eventually the restrictions and eccentricities of Lakeview overwhelm Nathan to the point where he makes the decision to commit “virtucide” by going into the Data Torrent. Nora visits him to talk him out of it, where Nathan proceeds to go on a rant about the problems of Lakeview. Nora reminds him of their first interaction and tells him that it feels unnatural at Lakeview due to his consciousness comparing it to memories of his life, and that Lakeview’s imperfections makes it just as real as life. Nathan figures out that she is a real person and she tells him her full name, where she lives, where she works and what the weather’s like, and removes his rogue hair strand.

The end of the episode has Nora going home after finishing her shift and the reveal that someone is accessing her computer remotely and is deleting some but not all of the damaged memories.

The pilot successfully manages to balance futuristic clichés (i.e. self-driving cars) with clever futuristic humour (Nathan’s shopping basket telling him to buy spinach because he looks tired, Nora telling Nathan “don’t do it” when he is told to agree to Upload’s terms and services knowing full well he agreed, and the juxtaposition between how an Angel looks when they visit their clients in Lakeview and how they really look and what they’re up to at their desks).

The pilot also manages to establish Nathan as a well-rounded character by at first making the viewers believe he is a cookie-cutter, shallow, sex-minded man, only to reveal that he is (reluctantly) capable of being vulnerable as shown in his breakdown, intelligent through his job and his speed at figuring out the imperfections of Lakeview, and kind with his interactions with Nora.

The pilot also manages to create a mystery to keep the viewers engaged with the reveal of the damaged memories, Nathan’s inability to remember what kind of job he had, and the episode ending with someone remotely accessing Nora’s computer to delete the damaged memories. What this all means remains to be seen.

Overall I found the pilot to be captivating for many reasons. While a television show on the afterlife is itself not original, the fact that the afterlife in this show is heavily technological and people not only know there is in fact an afterlife, but you can choose which one you go to, makes it original.

I’m looking forward to seeing where the rest of the season goes.

Stray Observations:

-Jamie’s bike wheeled itself down the road, was anyone else curious as to where it went?

-Nathan was born on 8 September 2006 and died on 24 November 2033.

-Apparently Oprah ran for President in 2024, although we don’t know if she ended up becoming President.

-A dead body can’t be uploaded.

-According to Nora, a lot of people set their Upload voice to an Australian accent.

-Nathan’s Upload password is “brunomelrose18” the name of his first dog and the street he grew up on and is also his porn name. Nora comments it’s pretty poor security for a coder.

-Lakeview is the only digital afterlife environment modelled on the Grand Victorian Hotels of the United States and Canada.

-Nora can’t tell Nathan (or any of her clients) whether she is a living person or not.

-Apparently there is a rejection rate in a digital afterlife for the unprepared.

-Louie makes a live video on a 19^th century camera.

-Luke plays Checkers with an AdBot.

-“Like a G6” (released in 2010) is regarded as a “classic” song in 2033.