I binged this show last night.
Kind of like The Good Place. Only except the “good place” in this scenario is a digitally created virtual world people can download themselves to moments before they die.
Lot’s of funny, and I really liked the world building. A “swipe left” culture to dystopian extremes.
Anybody else give it a go?
I started it yesterday. Ended up watching the first 4 episodes. I liked the first episode and think it’s gotten even better from there. And I seriously love Nora. 
J.
Thanks for the recommendation. The first couple of episodes have definitely hooked me in and I laughed out loud in places. Greg Daniels has a pretty good track record as a writer, as far as I’m concerned.
It’s definitely one of the best bits of original programming I’ve seen on Amazon Prime so far.
I’ve seen the whole first season. I liked the world building. I disliked how inconsistent the world is. If something needs to be different for a laugh, they go for that laugh, then immediately abandon the change.
I dislike most of the characters, because they’re all so flighty. None of them seems to take a moment to actually think about anything before acting. This is typified right at the start when Norman is asked to decide between the operating room and the upload room. What should’ve been a dramatic moment is played for laughs. This happens again and again.
What could’ve been a family-friendly somewhat humourous show with some dramatic moments - like, for example, Royal Pains - contains scattered swearing, sex scenes, and even nudity - that contribute almost not at all to the plot.
I don’t want to give a spoiler, but there’s a time towards the end when the writers need Norman to have certain information. The way the information is supplied is one HUGE Deus Ex Machina. Quite honestly, I couldn’t believe how brazen they were. The problem, of course, was that nobody had planned ahead far enough… and the writers just couldn’t get themselves out of their corner any other way.
In the end, I would give it maybe 1.5 or 2 stars out of five. I’m not planning on watching any additional seasons. One was plenty for me.
I binged it yesterday. I liked it. It was funny with moments of drama, and entertaining overall.
I thought the world-building was haphazard. They made some attempts to explore the effects that should flow logically from virtual immortality, but not in a particularly consistent way. But I was fine with that, since the show is clearly not meant as hard SF.
I really liked the character development for most of the featured characters. I was especially impressed with the writing and acting of one of the minor characters, Tyson (I think that was his name? Nora’s meat “boyfriend”?) He initially comes off as an arrogant, entitled dick. But, as he and Nora actually talk, He reveals some real depths. And in those depths…he’s still kind of an arrogant, entitled dick. But only kind of. He also seems to truly care about Nora.
Nathan’s character development follows a similar arc. The more we learn about him, the more we see that he really is in some ways an arrogant, entitled dick, but that he also really cares about his family. And he really does seem to love Nora, and wants to be a better man for her.
Nora definitely seems to have a type.
Other than the psycho killer, and whoever is pulling his strings, the show doesn’t really have any clear-cut bad guys. Pretty much everyone, even Nora’s cold-hearted boss, and the totally-not-a-Koch-brother billionaire, is portrayed as a flawed human being, rather than a cut-out simple villain.
Also, and after trudging through a number of Netflix series I really appreciate this, the individual episodes and the series as a whole are well-paced. There’s very little if any “Netflix bloat”. Rather than trying to stretch the storylines out to fill a season of 13 hour-long episodes, they made a neat and tidy season of 10 episodes, most of them under half an hour.
I really liked the billionaire. He’s the only one who seems genuinely well informed and/or prepared.
I didn’t have a problem with the occasionally inconsistent tone. Once I realised that the world in the show is a broad caricature with moments of seriousness (rather than vice versa), I was able to go with the flow.
However, I agree that the show sort of fell off a cliff in the last two episodes. And unfortunately I thought the last episode was easily the worst one, by a large margin.
We binged it last week. I wasn’t crazy about the first couple of episodes but the more I got into the story (especially the crime angle), the more I wanted to watch.
It’s a fusion IMO of The Good Place and Altered Carbon.
I like the fact that the writers pulled no punches with the “everybody is a flawed human” theme, as somebody mentioned upthread.
I love Nora. I think everybody loves Nora, LOL.
Learnt about this show from this thread, watched the first episode and it seems interesting. I really like the technology and world-building and I will give it a go for a few episodes at least.
I described it as a fusion of Green Acres and Black Mirror.
[QUOTE=DrForrester;22285370
In the end, I would give it maybe 1.5 or 2 stars out of five.[/QUOTE]
Oh COME ON, the show’s aggregate rating is at 4.598 and it needs at least 4.6 to get renewed!
Watched the first 3 or 4 episodes. I would say Black Mirror with a bit of slapstick and a dash of Catch-22 or Strangelovian satire. I’m finding it fun and watchable.
Amusingly, our stream started getting slightly glitchy once he was in the Heavenly upload place (forget the name) and at first I thought it was part of the place itself glitching.
Have to say it though, a pedantic philosophical problem I have with the uploaded conciousnesss trope is, a ***copy ***of your mind is uploaded to the paradisical hereafter. It may think it’s you and for all outward intents and purposes be you, but the ***real ***you is dead once your head is asploded. Blackness, out, done.
Now that, right there, is a MUCH better joke than anything on the actual show.
Heh, I was wondering if anyone would get that joke from the show context. Clearly you were paying attention to the show and earned your hatred of it!
It sounds from you and the other commenters I’m in for a letdown going forward, but 3 or 4 episodes in, for now I’m enjoying it.
I don’t want to oversell my disappointment at the last few episodes. I’d rate the series an A as a broad satire and a B- as a thriller. (Clearly the comedy didn’t work for DrForrester, though.)
I thought it was really good.
I felt like the romantic liaison and the crime mystery stuff was tacked on and kind of cliche, but overall it was a good show I binged in 2 days.
We finished the last episode last night, and yeah… looking forward to the next season (assuming there’s a next season of anything).
The digital afterlife charging for *everything *was just so damned plausible. There’s no reason why a bag of chips would cost you anything in a simulation, but I can totally see a megacorp doing just that to get you to spend more money.
I have to say: I’ve been craving a bacon maple donut lately.
I just started watching this show and I am on episode 2. Did anyone else notice that the main character’s neighbor is played by William Davis (cigarette smoking man from the X-files)?
The doctors in this world seem to be really lazy. Nathan is told that is is dying of a punctured lung and has the choice of going to the OR or to Upload. In his condition he should be able to survive fairly easily. Perhaps the hospitals get a cut of the upload fees.
Nora’s father brings this up. I’m curious what exactly is the legal status of Upload? It doesn’t seem like they’re considered persons; Nathan’s estate went to his mom and Ingrid can simply delete him at will. How do finances work for the planned Uploads? Do they set up trusts before they die?
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