Summary
Upload season 1, episode 1, “Welcome to Upload” is a great opening chapter showing the audiences the concept and introducing two lead characters.
How does Upload season 1, episode 1, “Welcome to Upload” start?
To kickstart proceedings, there’s a woman called Nora who heads to her workplace — a high-tech office. The office is for Upload, a company that gives people a virtual after-life in a place called Lakeview.
She’s a customer representative there, looking after the people who are in Upload.
Okay, so where does this lead?
This is where we are introduced to Nathan; he is quite arrogant, driving his own self-driving car and inviting a woman named Ingrid who he doesn’t dare break up with over for dinner. He still has sex with Ingrid though because she’s “super hot”.
One evening, after driving home in his self-driving car, he struggles with the voice commands and crashes into a lorry.
Ah, so that brings Upload into Nathan’s life?
Yes, at the Upload office, Nora opens Nathan’s file and looks at videos of his life.
And then it flits to Nathan in hospital, with the doctors saying he has not got long to live and Ingrid insists he signs a contract to Upload so they can be “together, forever”. He accepts the terms and conditions for Upload as he felt he had no choice. They send him to the Upload surgery room where his head is incinerated right off.
Nora loads Nathan into the system and runs some diagnostics to make sure his avatar works correctly. Nathan gets accustomed to Lakeview.
And then the reality hits that he’s dead and Nora reassures him and tells him to explore. Nathan cries again so Nora puts him to sleep.
Yes, this is a very strange series so far, but intriguing.
What’s Lakeview like?
The next day, Nathan checks out Lakeview and rings Ingrid to check up on her. She tells him she misses his body. Nathan asks for the password so he can buy things but Ingrid says she likes to have text alerts so she can check up on him. The conversation is very awkward.
Nathan does not make it to breakfast in time, so another man called Luke shows him a glitch where it produces a bread roll. Luke tells Nathan about the torrent that people throw themselves in to try and make it back to the real world, but it doesn’t work — they disappear forever.
Nathan also finds out that you can only see certain people at a time from his floor and that there are millions of people on the resort that he cannot see. Nathan is frustrated by his life already on Upload, including his spiky hair, and starts having a breakdown.
How does Upload season 1, episode 1, “Welcome to Upload” end?
Upload season 1, episode 1, “Welcome to Upload” ends with Nora getting an alert by Nathan so she visits him in Lakeview via VR. Nathan threatens to jump into the torrent.
Nora gives Nathan an emotional speech about consciousness and staying alive after death. She also states that she’d like to get to know him. Nathan figures out that Nora is a living person. She admits it and gives Nathan her real name even though it is against company policy, including her address. Nathan finally calms down and calls Nora pretty.
When Nora leaves the office, someone starts hacking a folder on her computer and throwing it into the trash.
Other points
- Nathan meets an avatar where they used a photo of her from 1961 so she’s black and white.
- Nathan can urinate from anywhere and it still hits the urinal.
- Nora tells her father about the new upgrades on Upload but he isn’t interested because “her mother is waiting for him”.
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