Back in May of 2020, Prime Video released a new series from “The Office” creator Greg Daniels called “Upload.” Now, five years and four seasons later, “Upload” is complete — against quite a few odds.
The sci-fi comedy premiered on May 1, as the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic fully sunk in after two months of lockdown (and no end in sight). Season 2 released almost two full years later, as Amazon Studios closed on a merger with MGM. Season 3 dropped on October 20, 2023, as Hollywood’s double strikes were still ongoing. The show got one last renewal in March of 2024. Just over a year later — still several months before the final season dropped — Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke was ousted from her position.
A complete run is never guaranteed for any show, but with all these external factors, it was perhaps even more improbable for “Upload.”
“I think, if this hadn’t been such a passion project, and I hadn’t had such a great cast that I really wanted to do justice by, I mean, there was — this is a very difficult show,” Greg Daniels told TheWrap ahead of the season 4 release.
There were some challenges from the start. The pilot episode was filmed in Los Angeles in 2019, but the series ended up moving to Vancouver for budgetary reasons, meaning locations had to be rebuilt and characters had to be recast. This isn’t out of the ordinary for TV series, though.
The COVID-19 Pandemic, on the other hand, very much was. And among the casualties of the widespread shutdowns that began in March, 2020 were the show’s entire promotional plans.
“We had an amazing rollout planned at South by Southwest, where they were re-creating the hotel, and they had 100 redheads hired to be AI guys, in uniforms,” Daniels recalled. “There was all these wonderful ways that we were going to promote it, and we had to shut them down all at the last minute from season one, and we went virtual for all of the promoting.”
It’s ironic, considering “Upload” takes place in a technologically advanced, near-ish future. In this world, humans can opt to have their consciousness “uploaded” into a virtual afterlife when they die, allowing them to live on electronically.
The story follows Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell), an app developer who hastily agreed to be uploaded due to pressure from his wealthy girlfriend Ingrid (Allegra Edwards) before dying from injuries he sustained in a self-driving car accident. He ends up in her family’s luxurious virtual afterlife, a resort known as Lakeview, where he meets his customer service “Angel” Nora (Andy Allo).
What unfolds over the next four seasons is at once a love story, a cautionary tale about tech industry excesses, morality play, class warfare satire and more. These layers were how Daniels tried to ensure a proper run for the series from the jump.
“When I sold the show, the whole point was intensity,” he explained. “I was like, ‘We’re in this universe where there’s so many shows, and I want to do something that’s like the everlasting gobstopper, if you remember from ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’”
“If you only get one candy a year, then you’re going to have this candy that has every flavor in it, and you can suck on it forever. So I was really, really trying to make it the most powerful show possible with as many fun aspects to it.”
Though Daniels noted that there was a lot of work required for each season of “Upload,” particularly with VFX, part of the extensive waits between seasons simply came down to how Amazon assesses their series.
“It’s not like they ever said, ‘Oh, you did such a good job season 1, we’re going to pick up season 2 right now,’” he explained. “It was always a process of looking at the numbers, and the rating. The season would have to be over for several months, and then they would pick up the next season, which would we would have to start writing.”
The numbers were there for “Upload,” but then came the external forces. COVID specifically “added tons of time” between seasons 1 and 2, as the show had to develop safe shooting protocols.
For the actors on the show, that meant remaining under contract for a long time, waiting and watching as the unprecedented series of events in the world and industry unfolded. But, according to Robbie Amell, Daniels made returning to shoot more episodes feel like a matter of when, not if.
“Greg was always so chill about everything and he kind of set the tone for everyone else,” Amell told TheWrap.
“It never seemed too scary that we weren’t going to [return] until maybe after the third season, because we couldn’t promote the strike season,” he added. “It was really tough to know what the numbers were, how we were doing, if anyone was watching it. And I still have people come up to me, who love the show, and ask about season 3. And I’m like, ‘Season 3 is available. You can go watch it right now.’”
Numbers aside, Daniels also used the series’ massive finale cliffhangers as a strategy to keep the show going, because an unresolved plot “means that you can’t just end.”
Season 4 of “Upload” ended up being only four episodes, as opposed to the typical seven to ten of the previous seasons. Still, Daniels and his cast recognized that getting a chance to properly wrap up their story was a rare gift.
“It’s unheard of!” Allegra Edwards told TheWrap. “Especially for a comedy on like — these streaming platforms can be so saturated, you know?”
“It’s been a gift of grace the whole time, even when it felt kind of dire, and ‘Gosh, the strike could really put us back,’ or ‘Is covid going to shut us down?’ A lot of these big questions. But boy, this has been the Little Engine That Could.”
“In some ways, I feel like we’re lucky” Andy Allo said. “In some ways, I feel like, man, we got the tough end of the stick, you know? But we’ve been so resilient, and it’s been really cool to see how our fans and the audience have just rallied around us.”
Likewise, Daniels was thrilled that his long-held idea — he’s had “Upload” for years, even trying it as a novel back in 2008 — managed to survive to a proper end. Now, he’s just excited for any new fans who find “Upload.”
“I’m very happy we got to have a beginning, middle and end, and anybody new who’s coming to the show can just binge it,” he said. “If you’re a new viewer, and I hope we get a bunch, and you sit down, the show is now something that all that time disappears, and you can just watch the episodes one after another. And I think that’s actually the best way to watch it.”
“Upload” is now streaming in its entirety on Prime Video.
