Upload Season 3 Review Episode 1-2: The Season Is More Ambitious Than Previous Seasons
Cast: Robbie Amell, Andy Allo, Allegra Edwards, Zainab Johnson, Kevin Bigley, Owen Daniels, Jessica Tuck, Mackenzie Cardwell
Director: Jeffrey Blitz, Alberto Belli
Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime Video
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Upload Season 3 is now available to stream on Prime Video, the TV series that mixes comedy and science fiction. After seeing the first episodes of Upload Season 3 you can already sense further progress in this series which already seemed more mature in the second season compared to the first. Before explaining better what we mean by this last sentence, and with the title of this review, let’s say something more (but not too much, so as not to spoil) about the plot of Upload Season 3. Amazon’s Upload TV series has returned with its third season which once again shows the (mis)adventures of young Nathan Brown, Uploaded into his “afterlife” in the virtual reality of Lakeview. Available for streaming on Prime Video from 20 October 2023, the Upload Season 3 comprises eight total episodes, published on the platform two at a time per week.
The Upload TV series created by Greg Daniels and with Robbie Amell and Andy Allo as the main protagonists, is a 2020 comedy/sci-fi genre title. It is a combination that has managed to make Upload original and intriguing content, as it is a show capable of entertaining but at the same time also making you think. In fact, despite being a mostly satirical television series, Upload is set in a context not very different from the problems present in our current society. A context where technology and the virtual world for many people have ended up taking over everything else. And in some cases, even going as far as replacing real life.
Upload Season 3 Review: The Story Plot
In the second season of Upload after having previously discovered that Nathan‘s car accident was an attempted murder, the latter together with Nora begins to investigate it. Precisely because of this research, Nora also suffers an attack, and her father decides to hide her from a group of Luddites of which she is part. Here Nora meets the leader Matteo with whom she later has a brief flirtation. She also discovers that Ivan, her colleague from Horizon, is an infiltrator of the Luddites. Who wants to boycott the Upload system as they are against digital life after death? Nora is eventually persuaded to their cause, and she returns to Horizon as a mole for the Luddites along with Ivan. Meanwhile Nathan, in the period in which Nora suddenly disappears without leaving a trace, ends up returning together with his girlfriend Ingrid. She pretended to have died in real life and to have Uploaded so she could stay with Nathan forever. In reality, Ingrid is secretly keeping Nathan‘s body in a regenerative tank, where at the end of the process she will be able to download it and bring him back to real life.
During an argument with Ingrid, Nathan eventually discovers the whole truth and reveals it to Nora, declaring to the girl that she wants to download it because it is the only way to stop the enemies. During their research Nora and Nathan discover that Ingrid‘s father Oliver Kannerman and David Choak, the well-known billionaire who lives in the apartment opposite Nathan in Lakeview, are behind their attempted murders. The two men possess the code that Nathan created when he was alive and with which anyone can save their Upload for free via an application. However, in the code, there is a backdoor that can only be accessed by scanning Nathan‘s retina, and he wants to download it so he can access the system in person.
Nora, together with Matteo and Ivan, manages to find Nathan‘s body and starts his download, while Ingrid is convinced by the trio to give up her attempt to have the boy back all for herself. While Nora and Nathan enjoy their first moments together in real life, new problems are already on the Horizon. Ingrid, more determined than before to have Nathan by her side, recovers her ex-boyfriend’s DNA from an old brush to try to clone him. Meanwhile, Tinsley, the assistant who took Nora‘s place during her absence at Horizon, after noticing that Nathan no longer appears in Lakeview, decides to restore him, convinced that it is a system bug. Finally, Nathan himself, despite his download being successful, begins to bleed from his nose, thus ending the second season of Upload with this cliffhanger.
Upload Season 3 Review Episode 1-2 and Analysis
Like probably many others, we had begun to watch the first season of Upload in the same spirit in which we had seen The Good Place. The two series were a bit similar, given that they mixed comedy and alternative worlds (religious or technological) and in both cases, the protagonist character is technically dead and doesn’t know if he ended up in a paradise or rather elsewhere Hell. If, however, the first season was decidedly more unbalanced on comedy, and therefore on the strange/funny/funny things that can happen in a digital universe, leaving the mystery of Nathan‘s death in the background, already in the second season we had noticed a clear change of direction, with comedy that left a lot of room for satire, in what is essentially a denunciation of the American system in which even death and the afterlife become a question of money and the power struggle.
Judging from the first episodes of Upload Season 3, and from the mission that awaits the Luddites, we seem to be able to say that even in this new season the series continues its satirical criticism of the powerful who dispose of common people with a cynicism that would leave one astonished if we’re not so dissimilar from what happens in reality. In this sense, therefore, Upload Season 3 marks the definitive growth of this series, which is no longer just gags and investigative interludes but represents an allegorical denunciation of the distortions of our society. Nonetheless, or rather precisely because of this, the third season has so far seemed too far from the science fiction comedy that we loved in the first episode. This is demonstrated by the marginalization of characters like Aleesha and especially Luke, who in this third season seems more than anything else to serve as a comic interval between one moment of tension and another. It is not certain that as the episodes go by the balance between the various components of the series changes, but what is certain is that no, Upload is not (anymore) a comedy like The Good Place.
In the TV series Upload Nathan Brown is the undisputed protagonist of the story, although there are other notable main characters present in the Amazon show. Everyone revolves around Nathan because they are connected to him for one reason or another. The young computer scientist has become almost an obsession for most of them or more simply someone they can’t do without. Nathan Brown has all it takes to be appreciated by those around him such as beauty, friendliness, charm, sensitivity, sweetness, and intelligence. All qualities cannot always be found in a single person, although this does not make them particularly rare qualities. So, what is it that makes Nathan so special that they almost want to have a copy each? It’s not about how unique Nathan is, but rather how insecure others are. Each of the people mainly linked to the protagonist is dissatisfied with their life. For this reason, he projects his ambitions onto Nathan, seeing a sort of perfection achieved in the boy. A situation that continues to repeat itself in the Upload Season 3 as the story continues.
Ingrid has a family that is more concerned with its interests than with affection and for this reason, she has built her hushed reality which also includes Nathan as the “perfect boy”. For Ingrid, losing Nathan as the only real element means losing everything she built “with him” while in truth she only did it for herself. So, when the boyfriend leaves her and later downloads her, Ingrid decides to recreate another Nathan from scratch with the DNA of her ex-boyfriend. On another front, there is Luke, who in Lakeview found in Nathan his first true friend and the only person willing to truly listen to him. When Nathan downloads for Luke it’s like he’s lost a part of himself. Just like in reality, as a former war veteran, he had lost the use of his legs, feeling lost and useless in this context. For this reason, after Nathan‘s “departure”, Luke searches for a replacement among the members of Lakeview, but without success. While later he uses a photo of his friend and a sculpture in the likeness of Nathan as surrogates, to feel him somehow closer.
Even the latest arrival Tinsley, as an insecure and awkward new Horizon employee, immediately sees Nathan as her starting point for asserting herself in her work, only because the boy was kind and understanding with her (in addition to considering him good-looking). Nora herself found her smile again after meeting Nathan, while until recently she was divided between occasional relationships with strangers she met online and a seriously ill father who was against making a future Upload. So, what would Nora have left after the loss of her only parent? A job she’s not even really satisfied with and her endless daily routine. Nathan was the light at the end of the tunnel, the adrenaline rush with which the angel broke the strict rules of Horizon and the first man who, instead of seeing her only as a sexual object, looked at her with the eyes of love, appreciating her in every aspect of it.
But some are obsessed with Nathan in a negative sense like Oliver Kannerman and David Choak. Two millionaire entrepreneurs who, despite their resources and knowledge, are surpassed by a “simple” video game programmer. Who, between the creation of one freeware game and another, created a free application accessible to all to Upload independently. That is the same service that the company present in the world of Upload has been using for years to profit from, making a distinction between rich and poor and thus deciding who should (re)live and who should die. Nathan‘s invention is therefore a humiliating defeat but above all too expensive to digest, to the point of leading Kannerman and Choak to want to eliminate Nathan from both real and virtual reality.
“Welcome to Lakeview!”. This is how each newcomer to the virtual world is welcomed in Upload following the death of their body in reality. Places like Lakeview are a fictional representation of the so-called afterlife. That place is often considered the beginning of true spiritual life, after abandoning a material shell and an existence that is only transitory on Earth. In the Upload TV series, instead of the soul, it is the conscience that survives, the essence that contains all the memories and knowledge of every human being, allowing them to continue their journey toward eternity. But is it really like that? Is having a digital scan of your brain the ultimate solution to immortality? Given that it is not humanly possible to know exactly what is in a hypothetical afterlife until you reach it, it is certainly not a tailor-made scenario like the one proposed in Lakeview. This type of virtual reality does not aim to make the “dead” live in a mystical place where they can perhaps make amends for past mistakes, find eternal peace, or purify their inner self.
But it aims to offer a life far better than the earthly one through all sorts of comforts, excesses, futility, and superfluous goods, all thanks to a simple snap of the fingers (or more precisely through a call to one’s angel) and without the though minimal effort or effort. Only for those who can afford it, since as previously explained Uploading is not fair for everyone. Some don’t have enough money to do it or those who have to settle for the bare minimum. Like those forced to stay in the two-gigabyte zone where even just talking consumes the data necessary to continue living digitally. And so, on the one hand, there are people like David Choak who, having already had a full and comfortable life, spend his fortune in Lakeview to satisfy some whim. Including eating rare animals in danger of extinction or having former rivals appear for the sole purpose of mocking them by beating them at golf.
On the other hand, there are children like little Dylan who died prematurely. Who, while his consciousness matures with time, remains trapped in his eleven-year-old body because his family cannot afford an upgrade. So, is this the famous Uploading “paradise”? A place where the richest continue to earn and spend money in bizarre ways, no longer knowing how else to use it, while the poor remain poor and go on with their lives made of hardship? So, nothing is that different from the true reality. In the midst of all this is Nathan, the only one who has given tangible meaning to his stay in Lakeview. When he is almost forced by Ingrid to Upload, Nathan says goodbye to a life he was satisfied with, ending up in a gilded cage completely managed by his ex-girlfriend. This new reality leads Nathan to reflect not only on their relationship but also on the mistakes he made while alive. Later when Nathan downloads and returns to real life, he almost feels out of place. Simple things like breathing fresh air or holding a person’s hand become precious and unforgettable moments compared to Lakeview‘s fake sunset made of pixels. After having “died” and later “resurrected” Nathan understands what things matter, regretting not having understood it sooner. Because life, the real one, is off the screen.
Although the TV series Upload focuses on deceased people who can somehow continue to live in virtual reality, there were no actual deaths as such in the first two seasons. Nathan himself, having just returned from a serious car accident, is still alive, albeit in a bad way, when he lets Ingrid convince him to Upload. With the third season of the TV series, Amazon instead raises the bar with real crimes, partly inserting a more dramatic and less humorous atmosphere. However, this is not an addition that compromises the quality of what this show has been so far, but a “system update” with new functions just to use terms inherent to the world of Upload. In the finale of Upload Season 2, Nora and Nathan together with the group Luddites are ready to attack the society of Freeyond, a topic that serves as a central theme in the third season. As can already be understood in the pilot episode of this TV series with the attempted murder of Nathan, those who are part of this society are not very subtle.
Naturally, therefore, the closer Nathan and the others come to discover the whole truth behind Freeyond, the more they put themselves in danger by stepping on the toes of the wrong people. Despite this, the Upload TV series also manages to maintain its verve in the third season with the typical black humor that distinguishes it, through which it lightens dramatic elements but without diminishing their importance. While Nora and the real Nathan are busy in the field risking their lives to fight the strong powers, Lakeview also has no shortage of new features that provide the most comical part of Upload. When previously Tinsley, unaware of Nathan‘s download in the real world, reset the young man’s profile, she inadvertently created a copy within Lakeview. A maneuver that creates a surreal situation in the virtual world of Horizon. With characters like Ingrid and Luke stunned to see Nathan back in Lakeview after downloading him, being unaware that he isn’t the real Mr. Brown.
Upload Season 3 Review Episode 1-2: The Last Words
The first impressions on the Upload Season 3 are overall positive, as for the moment the TV series seems to maintain the captivating and at the same time zany pace of the previous episodes. The new features introduced in Upload Season 3 are different and all interesting, such as the twists linked to the Freeyond conspiracy and some insights into certain characters. In all this, there are two Nathans, each unaware of the existence of the other and placed in two different realities. In this regard, Upload Season 3 also introduces new locations linked to the “trip out of town” of the real Nathan, who has returned to enjoy the real world in the company of his Nora. In the meantime, his clone, fresh from a system reset, must think about the latest events and interact with people convinced they are talking to the original Nathan. In short, a lot of irons in the fire certainly encourage you to continue watching Upload Season 3 to follow further developments. Also, this time it will most likely not be enough to invoke your guardian angel, immediately ready to solve all problems with a couple of clicks.
Upload Season 3 Review Episode 1-2: The Season Is More Ambitious Than Previous Seasons - Filmyhype
Director: Jeffrey Blitz, Alberto Belli
Date Created: 2023-10-20 12:52
4
Pros
- The cast is still great.
- The satire is sharper than ever.
- The season is more ambitious than previous seasons.
- The show is willing to take risks.
Cons
- The tone can be inconsistent at times.
- The story can be uneven at times.
- Some storylines are underdeveloped.
