The entirety of “Upload” Season 3 is now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video and, like the seasons before it, it ends on a pretty big cliffhanger. But with two strikes this year heavily impacting future projects, the question is, will the series get a chance to resolve it? Well, series creator Greg Daniels is feeling pretty good about their chances.
“I’m super optimistic about it,” he told TheWrap. “You know, we are the number one half-hour on the platform, and I think we do a good job in terms of bang for the buck. So I would bet on the fact that there’d be another season. I don’t want to jinx it, obviously. But certainly, we were writing it that way.”
Given the intricate nature of the show, with so many mysteries and intertwining plotlines, Daniels noted that he and his team “want the opportunity to craft a good ending for it.”
“So I’m looking forward to definitely getting the chance to do that,” he said.
Nonetheless, no official decision has been made on the afterlife dramedy, as the industry gets its feet back under it after the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
Ironically, Season 3 of the series itself did end up being eerily prescient when it comes to one particular issue at the heart of both strikes: artificial intelligence. In Season 2, “Upload” revealed that the AI Guy in the show (Owen Daniels) was based on the appearance of a man who was only paid $1,200 — one time.
In Season 3, the discussion expands into whether or not people who are uploaded have rights, considering their scans are now owned in perpetuity by the corporations that own the afterlives these people chose. Meanwhile, just days before the strike ended, it was reported that the AMPTP was seeking to secure AI scans for certain performers, as well as the right to use scans of deceased performers without the consent of their estate or SAG-AFTRA.
Believe it or not, that was just a coincidence. But it was an informed one.
“A lot of times the way that we figure out what to write about is we do a bunch of research about what technology is about to drop, and then we start to imagine, ‘Well, what would be like a weird, unintended consequence or backfiring of some of this technology?’” Daniels explained.
He continued, “Like how could you misuse that for extreme capitalist profit, or you know what I mean? We’re sort of debating how it could be misused. And of course, it’s not insane that we would anticipate the thought patterns of some of the people who are actually trying to make money off these different things.”
That said, Daniels and his team weren’t trying to sway people’s opinions on this use of AI one way or the other.
“I don’t think that the show is necessarily trying to preach a particular outcome,” he confessed. “I think the fun thing is to show a bunch of possibilities and how it would impact a few characters that you are following, that you find interesting, and let people draw their own conclusions about whether that would be a horrifying outcome or just sort of a weird, interesting, entertaining outcome. I think that’s up to them.”
That said, Daniels does hope that the concepts in “Upload” stir up discussions on certain matters.
“I’m hoping that there’s a lot to think about that the show brings up, but that the show itself doesn’t stop and debate it, you know?” Daniels said. “We just sort of make reference to it. And then hopefully, you kind of leave watching the show with a little bit of a buzz, and you want to talk to your friends about some of the ideas.”
Season 3 of “Upload” is now streaming on Prime Video.
