With many movies moved back due to the ongoing pandemic, it at least frees up some time to check out some new TV series. Here’s my thoughts on two new sci-fi comedy shows, Avenue 5 and Upload.
Avenue 5
Avenue 5 is created by Armando Iannucci and premiered on HBO in February. The first season of this sci-fi comedy series 10 episode long, each episode just 28-29 min long. It has been renewed for a second series.
Set in an unspecified future, the series follows the hapless crew and passengers on a space cruise that due to an accident gets of course and struggles to get back to Earth, combined with the efforts to handle the disaster back on Earth. The overall plot is very similar to Aniara, an sci-fi movie that itself is based on a poem from 1956 by the Swedish poet Harry Martinson. While Aniara is very bleak and dystopian, the struggles in Avenue 5 all seem superficial and never really tackled in any depth. It could be a lot more biting in it satirical nature, but Iannucci, known for series like The Thick of It, has taken a somewhat slapstick approach to the whole premise. It works OK most of the time, in large part helped by some excellent casting. Hugh Laurie as the posterboy (but basically clueless) captain is superb choice, and there are plenty of more or less subtle references to his other well known role as Dr. Gregory House in House. Other actors like Rebecca Front (who has previously worked with Iannucci in The Thick of It) and Suzy Nakamura, Josh Gad, Daisy May Cooper and Lenora Crichlow give some really good performances, while others seems to struggle with their characters and never really fitting particularly well, like Zach Woods and Himesh Patel.
All in all, Avenue 5 is a fairly enjoyable but uneven watch. Some characters, particularly the passengers seems very bland and I feel they could have taken a few pages from Aniara to make more of the black comedy that is struggling to really break through in the show. We’re in for more in the next season, but when this will be released is currently unknown, and most likely will be delayed due to the pandemic.
Upload
Upload is a sci-fi comedy-drama series created by Greg Daniels that premiered on Amazon Prime on May 1. Daniels is a very well-known american comedy writer, having worked on shows like The Simpsons, before adapting The Office to the american version and going on creating Parks and Recreations and more recently Space Force on Netflix (reuniting with Steve Carrell). Upload is in fact something he has been working on since The Office ended and in many ways been his own personal”baby”.
The first season of Upload is 10 episode long (it was renewed for a new season mid-May), with the first episode being about 45 min and the rest about 25-28 min long. The premise is that in the near future (2033 to be precise) people can choose to “upload” their consciousness when they are dying and end up living forever as digital version of themselves. The theme of people being able to be digitally stored and live on is not unique in sci-fi, and is an idea that has been explored by sci-fi greats like Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick. Upload still managed to be a pretty good take of the concept and managed to blend drama and comedy surprisingly well, but in fact the comedy is something that takes a backseat in favour of some very interesting characters that develop over the series in many surprising ways. They even leave enough red herrings that keep the audience guessing on a potential murder plot.
Again, Upload is not a perfect series, and have some weird albeit mostly minor “plot holes” that seems pretty odd when you stop and think about it. It however has some very strong characters that actually you start caring about, even though some of the actors perhaps aren’t the best. The biggest draw is Andy Allo who plays the digital “handler” Nora who give support to the newly uploaded, including the male main character (who might have been murdered). Andy Allo is best known as musician (she was discovered and played with Prince) but is is a great find as the lead, both funny and extremely charming, but also with some depth in her acting. It’s also fun to see William B. Davies playing David Choak, a multi billionaire living and enjoying his “afterlife” as a Upload (Davies is for me best known as the Cigarette smoking man, the main antagonist in the X-files series).
Both series are worth a watch, but I’d pick Upload over Avenue 5, but both are fairly short watches, and with so many movies delayed it’s not like you haven’t got the time to binge them both.
Tabletop Cave 