History Series / Upload

* InsistentTerminology: Residents aren't supposed to know the names of their customer service representatives and are told to just call them "Angel".

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Nathan's fellow Upload Luke claims to have served active duty as a Corporal in Iran, but the rank on his dress blues is that of a first lieutenant.

* PossibleWar: Based on a throwaway comment by Luke, the US actively went to war with Iran at some point in the 2020s.

* OlderThanTheyLook: Some of the Lakeview residents have this going for them, for better or worse.
** Mildred, Ingrid's grandmother, who is well into her hundreds, but her avatar is based on a photo of her in her thirties.
** Dylan died at age 11 but is chronologically 18. His body is stuck the same because his parents (who control his account) won't agree to age up his avatar.

* RichBitch: Ingrid, though a slightly more sympathetic version.
* SassyBlackWoman: Nora's co-worker Aleesha. She's Luke's Angel, but in practice they're [[SitcomArchNemesis Sitcom Archnemeses]]. She steals his fingers when he makes her mad, and threatens to steal other parts of him if he runs out of fingers.

** When Nathan is assigned the task of meeting five new people in Lakeview by his therapist, the checklist is called [[Literature/TheFivePeopleYouMeetInHeaven The Five People You Meet In Upload]]

* TalkingAnimal: Turns out "Pet Therapy" in Lakeview involves this. They're voiced by living Horizen psychologists.

* ToiletHumour:
** As Lakeview is the "perfect" afterlife, Nathan discovers that no matter where he aims, his stream always lands in the urinal. He proceeds to have some fun wiggling the stream back and forth, running around the bathroom, and eventually jump-roping the stream.
** The digital avatars are programmed with the totally unnecessary need to fart. Their farts can be programmed to smell like cologne or fresh cinnamon rolls.
%%* ToxicFriendInfluence: Luke to Nathan.

* WhamLine: [[spoiler: Ingrid]], at the end of the first season.
--> [[spoiler:'''Ingrid''': I uploaded for you.]]
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Nora has a lot of trouble convincing her dad to agree to be uploaded to a digital afterlife when he thinks it couldn't be heaven without her mother there.

* YourHeadASplode: The upload process involves disintegrating the upper three quarters of the person's head. In one episode it's revealed that there are "upload scams" that promise cheap uploading but just destroy your head after the scammers take your money.
** The first attempt to download an uploaded person back into a physical body [[spoiler:ends with the subject's head rather dramatically exploding on live television after a few seconds of consciousness]].

* AffablyEvil: Nathan's neighbor in Lakeview, David Choak, is a CorruptCorporateExecutive who had the last living black rhino killed so they could [[ExoticEntree program the taste for him to eat]] in Lakeview. But for all that, he's remarkably friendly.
* AIIsACrapshoot: Played with. The AIs we see in the show generally seem to work as intended, but the AI in Nathan's car seemingly malfunctioned leading to his crash. However, it's implied that this was a case of deliberate tampering by an outside party.
* ALittleSomethingWeCallRockAndRoll: In the pilot, Nathan helps his niece with her homework for "Classical Dance". The routine's song? The 2010 house hit "Like a G6" by ''Far East Movement''.

* ArtisticLicenseMedicine: Nathan is told he is "dying of a punctured lung" after his car accident. While a punctured lung is serious, it's rarely fatal, especially in someone otherwise young and healthy. [[spoiler:This becomes somewhat justified when it's revealed that Nathan was in fact ''recovering'' before he was uploaded, but it still doesn't explain why a nurse was so quick to jump to it being a fatal injury]].

* TheAtoner: [[spoiler:Nathan]], when he regains his memories.
* AutoErotica: Nathan and Ingrid do it in her car on the way home after Thanksgiving dinner at his parents'. Since everyone uses self-driving cars, this isn't a problem.

* BadBoss: Lucy, the manager of the Horizen customer service center. She treats Nora with no respect, threatens to fire her, and refuses to give bonuses to her employees. Lucy also undermines the competence and abilities of her employees when they deal with pushy customers in order to make herself look better.

* BlackSheep: Ingrid. Her two siblings and both her parents treat her like complete garbage and, while she's still shallow and manipulative, she also has some genuinely caring moments.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive:
** Jack Kanneman, Ingrid's dad [[spoiler: who secretly paid off Nathan to give him the code for Beyond, allowing Horizen to create its own version. He was somehow involved in getting Nathan killed afterward.]]
** Nathan’s neighbor, David Choak, was one in life, but dying and being allowed to enjoy the fruits of his labor in Lakeview seems to have mellowed him out considerably.

* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Mildred Kannerman, Ingrid's grandmother, has an avatar that looks like she stepped right out of a black and white film. It was based on a more than sixty year-old photograph of what she looked like in her 30's (or possibly what her sister looked like -- no one is sure if they got the right photo). Her greyscale coloring makes her stand out in the lushly colored environs of Lakeview.

* DisappearedDad: Nathan's dad left him when he was young.

* ElevatorFailure: [[spoiler: Nathan]] remotely hacks an elevator to wildly move up and down when [[spoiler: Nora is being chased by an assassin]]. Results in a GoryDiscretionShot.

* EverythingIsOnline: In 2033, you can remotely hack an elevator.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Nora is introduced watching Film/FiftyFirstDates, and later falls in love with someone with [[LaserGuidedAmnesia gaps in their memory.]]

* FriendToAllChildren: Nathan gets along very well with his niece and with Dylan, another resident of Lakeview who was uploaded when he was 12.

* GenderBender: In an attempt to update his avatar to his chronological age, Dylan has a black market "puberty hack" installed. It works but, because he didn't think to check what sex the patch was designed for, it also turns him into a young woman.

* IdiotHair: When uploading Nathan's avatar, Nora leaves in a cowlick in his avatar's hair. But she quietly removes it once she gets to know him a little.
* IncurableCoughOfDeath: Used to communicate that Nora's dad is seriously ill during his introduction. We later find out he's got a serious condition known as "Vape Lung."

* InterruptedSuicide: Nathan attempts this in the first episode but Nora's impassioned pleas to get him to give the digital afterlife a chance make him reconsider.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold:
** Ingrid usually comes across as very shallow and self-centered, but occasionally shows that she's got a good heart buried deep (''deep'') down. [[spoiler: There is a definite hint that she downgraded Nathan's "accident" to a non-fatal one that left him with survivable injuries, so she could get him uploaded because the next murder attempt might be one she couldn't interfere with.]]
** Nathan [[spoiler: sold out his best friend to Ingrid's father, but it was for the sake of getting money for his family, who aren't very well off, and he's shown to be a pretty nice guy on the whole]].
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Lucy begins to loosen up during the holiday party a bit, and tops it off with an announcement everyone on the staff is getting bonuses. Except she was just kidding, no one is getting bonuses, and she is quick to remind everyone to be at work the next day at 7:00am sharp. Her tone implies she thought the joke about bonuses was hilarious.

* TheLoinsSleepTonight: Nathan is having trouble getting it up when Ingrid finally rents a sex suit and visits him in Lakeview. She assumes it's a tech issue, but he is actually having second thoughts about their relationship. Nora is able to get him hard by touching his chest, but she is annoyed that he then used on Ingrid rather than her.
* LonelyRichKid: Ingrid's openly antagonistic interactions with her family suggest that her desperation to hold on to Nathan is because he is the only source of positive connection she has, and the only "real" thing in her life.

* MissingMom: Nora's mother died a few years before the series. As it was sudden, she was not uploaded.
* MrsRobinson: Mildred, who was over 100 years old when she was uploaded, takes a liking to Luke.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: David Choak is a barely even veiled stand-in for David Koch, an American billionaire who died less than a year before the show premiered.

* YourCheatingHeart: [[spoiler: Ingrid]] is revealed to have cheated on [[spoiler: Nathan]], several times. Not that [[spoiler: Nathan]] cares that much, as [[spoiler: he is fast falling for Nora.]]

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: First aired in 2020, set in 2033. Self-driving cars are everywhere, food is usually 3D printed, instead of physical phones people have smartwatches that project screens in their hands - oh and there is an ArtificialAfterlife (available to those that can afford it)

* AIIsACrapshoot: Played with. The AIs we see in the show generally seem to work as intended, but the AI in Nathan's car seemingly malfunctioned, leading to his crash. However, it's implied that this was a case of deliberate tampering by an outside party.

'''David''': (laughing) Yeah sure. You just threatened a six-hundred-billion-dollar-a-year industry and no one murdered you.
* ArtificialAfterlife: You can have a digital copy of your consciousness uploaded to a corporately-owned afterlife. The process involves a scan of your brain (which results in an unfortunate case of YourHeadASplode) ...and you have to be able to afford it.

* AutomatedAutomobiles: They're the rule rather than the exception. Nathan likes shutting off his car's camera, plugging in a controller, and racing down the highway. He can usually talk his way out of a speeding ticket, since the car's AI can't confirm that he was driving manually. Cars can be set to follow another, such as when Nathan's car is following Ingrid's while they are engaged in AutoErotica in her's.
** However New Yorker Nora is pretty unused to them [[spoiler: when she goes to Los Angeles.]]
* BadBoss: Lucy, the Horizen manager. She treats Nora with no respect, threatens to fire her, and refuses to give bonuses to her employees. Lucy also undermines the competence and abilities of her employees when they deal with pushy customers in order to make herself look better.
* BlackMarket: A digital version called "The Grey Market" exists on the fringes of Lakeview. Among other things, you can buy celebrity memories and avatar modifications.
* BlackSheep: Ingrid. The only point of sympathy with her character is that her two siblings and both her parents treat her like she's second rate.
* BrainUploading: An afterlife has been created by means of uploading people's minds into an immense shared server. It's a profitable industry.
* CocaPepsiInc: Many real-life corporations have combined together and become market dominators, for example [[Website/{{Google}} Google]]-Samsung.

** Jack Kanneman, Ingrid's dad [[spoiler: who secretly paid Nathan for the code for Beyond to create his own version, and then was somehow involved in getting Nathan killed afterward.]]

* CrapsackWorld: The "2Gig" section of Lakeview. The living space resembles a hospital ward with virtually no decorations, amenities are nonexistent and the food is provided by Lean Cuisine to test flavors for the living. When the 2 gigabytes of data is used up, the user is frozen in place for the rest of the month, or until someone provides more data. When Nathan and Nora first visit it, they see a boy trying to kill time by reading the first five pages of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheSorcerersStone'', since the full book would cost money.

* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Mildred's avatar looks like she stepped right out of a black and white film, having been based on a more than sixty year-old photograph of what she looked like in her 30's (or possibly what her sister looked like -- no one is sure if they got the right photo). Her greyscale coloring makes her stand out in the lushly colored environs of Lakeview.

* DomesticAbuse: They're not in the same plane of existence but because she is paying for Lakeview, Ingrid ultimately has ''complete'' control over Nathan. She even threatens to [[spoiler: delete him at his own funeral]], which she later brushes off as [[IWasJustJoking just kidding]].

* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: In the pilot, it's explained that a lot of the architecture is designed to appear palatable to the Lakeview residents. There are millions of people uploaded to Lakeview, and well over 10,000 virtual floors. From outside the building, residents can only see five floors. It looks like a quaint hotel beside a lake, not a towering digital skyscraper.

* GenderBender: In an attempt to update his avatar to his chronological age, Dylan has a black market "puberty hack" installed. It works, but because he didn't think to check what sex the patch was designed for it also turns him into a young woman.
* AGlitchInTheMatrix: Lakeview's processing power is immense but it isn't infinite, and computer glitches occasionally result. A man is shown to glitch out when diving into the lake due to the processing load of the immense number of people in the program, birds occasionally glitch out in midair, and the sunshine on the lake is a .gif that repeats a touch too fast to be immersive. [[spoiler:In one episode, when a Luddite attempts to destroy Lakeview’s servers, the significantly reduced processing power renders the residents akin to ''{{VideoGame/Minecraft}}'' characters, but they soon revert to normal when the servers are restored]].

* PossibleWar: Based on a throwaway comment by Luke, the US has actively gone to war with Iran at some point in the 2020s.

** Dylan died at age 11 but is chronologically 18 and stuck that way. It’s implied his parents could age his body to that of an adult, but refuse to.
* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: It's implied that few people still believe in the spiritual afterlife. Most prefer the artificial version. Nora considers her father to be weird for wanting to join her mother in the Christian Heaven. She would much rather her father upload himself into Lakeview, so she could visit him.

* VideoPhone: Obviously the technology already existed when the show was made, but by 2033 regular phone calls are enough to make characters surprised and/or suspicious that they've been put on "voice-only".

** However, Iran veteran Luke lived for five years with the loss of his legs, before opting for a "sui-scan".

* YourHeadASplode: The first attempt to download an uploaded person back into a physical body [[spoiler:ends with the subject's head rather dramatically exploding on live television]].

** Ingrid usually comes across as very shallow and self-centered, but occasionally shows that she's got a good heart buried deep (''deep'') down.

* ArtisticLicenseMedicine: Nathan is told he is "dying of a punctured lung" after his car accident. While a punctured lung is serious, it's rarely fatal, especially in someone otherwise young and healthy.

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Lakeview is explicitly billed as being Heaven, an eternity of living in a beautiful luxury resort with all your needs met. In practice, it's full of annoying pop-up ads, getting food means either [[{Microtransactions}} constantly paying]] for it or being beholden to an extremely strict schedule, and the constant UncannyValley vibe of the AI servants slowly drives everyone insane.

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Lakeview is explicitly billed as being Heaven, an eternity of living in a beautiful luxury resort with all your needs met. In practice, it's full of annoying pop-up ads, getting food means either [[{Microtransactions} constantly paying]] for it or being beholden to an extremely strict schedule, and the constant UncannyValley vibe of the AI servants slowly drives everyone insane.

* SassyBlackWoman: Aleesha.

* DatingServiceDisaster: The app Nightly appears to be a BlandNameProduct version of Tinder, except no one is under any illusion that it's a dating app. It's for hookups and that's it, and people get rated for their performance. Nora and her roommate use it, and neither seems weirded out by the roommate and her date going at it a few feet away from Nora (although she's in VR at the time). Nora ends up getting matched to the same sleazy guy twice. The guy has multiple accounts and uses fake photos to trick women. He also lies when he says that they will talk after sex. His version of it is "have a quick chat while getting dressed immediately after and asking for 5 stars". In addition, partners wear body cams as a form of legal protection, as both clearly speak their consent to engage in sex.

** Nora has a date with her Nightly fling in a restaurant called [[Creator/IsaacAsimov Asimov]].

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Lakeview is explicitly billed as being Heaven, an eternity of living in a beautiful luxury resort with all your needs met. In practice, it's full of annoying pop-up ads, getting food means either constantly paying for it or being beholden to an extremely strict schedule, and the constant UncannyValley vibe of the AI servants slowly drives everyone insane.

* ArtisticLicenseMedicine: Nathan is told he is "dying of a punctured lung" after his car accident. While a punctured lung is serious, it's rarely fatal, especially in someone otherwise young and healthy.
* ArtificialAfterlife: You can have a digital copy of your consciousness uploaded to a corporately-owned afterlife. The process involves a scan of your brain (which results in an unfortunate case of YourHeadASplode) ...and you have to be able to afford it.

By the year 2033, humans have developed the ability to [[BrainUploading upload themselves]] into their preferred choice of ArtificialAfterlife. In LA, software engineer Nathan (Creator/RobbieAmell) is fatally injured in a self-driving car accident. His shallow girlfriend pressures him into agreeing to be uploaded to her family’s luxurious virtual heaven, Lakeview. Once there, he is greeted by Nora (Andy Allo), his customer service representative (or [[InsistentTerminology "angel"]]), who appears as a holographic avatar while actually working in an office in Queens alongside other "angels". The series follows the two as Nathan grows accustomed to his imperfect afterlife with Nora's help, while the still-living Nora struggles to stay afloat.

By the year 2033, humans have developed the ability to [[BrainUploading upload themselves]] into their preferred choice of ArtificialAfterlife. Software engineer Nathan (Creator/RobbieAmell) dies far earlier in his life than expected, and chooses to undergo the transfer, entering his version of heaven. Once there, he is greeted by Nora (Andy Allo) his customer service representative, who appears as holographic avatar while actually working in an open office area alongside other customer service representatives. The series follows the two as Nathan grows accustomed to life away from his loved ones, and the still-living Nora struggles to stay afloat working her job.

!!This series contains examples of:

By the year 2033, humans have developed the ability to [[BrainUploading upload themselves into their preferred choice of]] ArtificialAfterlife. Software engineer Nathan (Creator/RobbieAmell) dies far earlier in his life than expected, and chooses to undergo the transfer, entering his version of heaven. Once there, he is greeted by Nora (Andy Allo) his customer service representative, who appears as holographic avatar while actually working in an open office area alongside other customer service representatives. The series follows the two as Nathan grows accustomed to life away from his loved ones, and the still-living Nora struggles to stay afloat working her job.

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Lakeview is explicitly billed as being Heaven, an eternity of living in a beautiful luxury resort with all your needs met. In practice, it's full of annoying pop-up ads, getting food means either constantly paying for it or being beholden to an extremely strict schedule, and the constant UncannyValley vibe of the AI servants slowly drives everyone insane.
* CrapsackWorld: The "2Gig" section of Lakeview. The living space resembles a hospital ward with virtually no decorations, amenities are nonexistent and the food is provided by Lean Cuisine to test flavors for the living. When the 2 gigabytes of data is used up, the user is frozen in place for the rest of the month, or until someone provides more data. When Nathan and Nora first visit it, they see a boy trying to kill time by reading the first five pages of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheSorcerersStone'', sine the full book would cost money.

* CocaPepsiInc: Many corporations have combined together and become market dominators.

* BadBoss: Lucy, the Horizon manager. She treats Nora with no respect, threatens to fire her, and refuses to give bonuses to her employees. Lucy also undermines the competence and abilities of her employees when they deal with pushy customers in order to make herself look better.

* TakeThat: Lots of them, mainly targeted at big corporations like Horizon.

* Nora has a date with her Nightly fling in a restaurant called [[Creator/IsaacAsimov Asimov]].