Round Two: Upload

Upload: Season 1, Episode 2 “Five Stars” (B+)

I really liked this second episode, and I’m thrilled that this show has already been renewed for a second season, a pretty formidable feat just one week after it started given how long it takes most streaming series. I’m glad that we get to see more of Nora’s life and to understand just how lost she feels even though, unlike Nathan, she’s still alive. I enjoyed the vision of consent and protection in the future, followed up by a star-rating that apparently applies to just about everything because of how easy it is to drag your fingers across an imagined screen. Being told that she couldn’t get a loan to assure her father a place in Upload unless she got a 4.8 rating that day was harsh, and things certainly weren’t going well when she had to do degrading things and still only earned a 3 from most of her tormentors. The notion of talking dog therapy is certainly creative, and I also like that there’s a little kid who programmed all the gardener robots to Street Fighter game mode. I was pleased to recognize William B. Davis, best known as the Cigarette-Smoking Man on “The X-Files,” as David Choak, Nathan’s rude neighbor who was pretty sure he got murdered. Nathan constantly rating Nora five stars over and over to make her day was sweet, and they’re clearly building a connection. I wonder how much she’ll share with him of the memories she’s seeing that do suggest a suspicious death, and whether the investigator speaking to the car that claims not to be damaged will go forward with a robot that could benefit him in the digital afterlife. Ingrid’s experience trying to rent a sex suit was gross, to put it mildly.