Upload is an imaginative look at a hyper-consumerized near future in which even death can be avoided - for a price. It would have been easy to play this scenario for cheap laughs - and sure, there are some - but Upload goes further, exploring relationships, ethical boundaries, and most of all, the blind spots in the mirror we hold up to ourselves. The series has more range than you'd expect: mostly cheerful, but with moments of suspense, disappointment, and even (real) death. It reveals itself in stages, as each two-dimensional character, in turn, suddenly displays real depth. It's like watching popcorn, wondering when the next kernel is going to blow, always a little surprised by which one it turns out to be. The humor is pervasive, and the writers didn't settle for (only) the obvious "hey, remember, I'm actually dead" jokes. The laugh-out-loud moments, for me, were much subtler - like in the news video showing a group of headless bodies as they are encountered by first responders, one of whom slips a pulse-oximeter on a corpse's finger. My wife and I pretty much binged this series in about three sittings. I only wish we'd discovered it later, as a second season may be as much as two years away. Regardless of when that actually happens - unless I've been uploaded by then myself - I'll be watching.

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