Review: 'Upload,' Season 2, Has the Right Formula but Too Few Episodes

The mix of comedy, mystery, drama, and romance are back for a seven-episode second season of Amazon's "Upload."

A quick recap: Season One saw tech entrepreneur Nathan Brown) Robbie Amell) end up in a digital afterlife following a car crash, thanks to a panicked decision by his super-wealthy girlfriend, Ingrid (Allegra Edwards). It doesn't take Nathan long to work out that he's been murdered by sinister corporate goons who want his code. Ironically, Nathan was working in his own version of a digital afterlife when he got "uploaded."

Now Nathan is trapped in a digital purgatory that's a blend of luxury and constant surveillance, and he finds himself among soulless magnates (including the viciously capitalistic David Choak, played by "The X Files" actor William B. Davis) as well as more ordinary people like himself – including his new best friend, Luke (Kevin Bigley), a happy-go-lucky horndog who loses no time in bro-crushing on Nathan – and crushing hard.

Not so hard, though, that he doesn't lust after Aleesha (Zainab Johnson), a still-living "angel" who interfaces with the digital afterlife from her workstation in the real world. Such romantic mis-matching is at the core of the show's comedic threads, and Nathan's own growing attraction to another angel –�Nora (Andy Allo), who has a complicated personal life to balance against her own growing interest in Nathan – provides the series with both a reliance source of rom-com complications and tech-noir suspense, once Nathan enlists Nora's help in figuring out who wanted him dead, and why.

As Season Two commences, Nora is hiding out with anti-technology terror group the Luds following an attempt on her life. It seems her poking around on Nathan's behalf has unsettled the wrong people; what's more, the digital realm holds much less interest for Nora now that Nathan has gone radio silent.

What Nora doesn't realize is that Nathan has had his service plan downgraded and now has only very limited data. (And you thought you had it tough when you ran out of minutes.) This is a dilemma that's handily solved when Ingrid uploads herself into the afterlife, telling Nathan that she's sacrificed her life in the real world in order to be with him again and restoring his top-tier service plan in a way that indebts him to her. The wrinkle – and it plays a part in how the season unfolds – is that Ingrid isn't dead; she's using a full-body VR suit for hours on end in order to keep up the pretense. It's a ploy with no realistic chance of long-term success, except that it's also part of a larger scheme Ingrid has set in motion.

This being essentially a romantic comedy, though, we can't help rooting for Nora to find her way back to Nathan... even though a handsome leader among the Luds, Matteo (Paolo Costanzo), has captured her attention.

Series creator Greg Daniels and his writing collaborators manage the same deft blend of genres they pulled off so well in Season One, and know how to use even the most dubious comedic tropes to good advantage –�especially Owens Daniels' dimwitted, but kind-hearted, A.I. Guy, an all-purpose avatar who is omnipresent in the simulacrum in multiple variations. Daniels' stellar work gains another dimension when he appears here and there as the real-world actor who provided the digital template for A.I. Guy, but even without that extra bit of comic shading there's some dramatic nuance in A.I. Guy's subtle, but ongoing, evolution toward fuller consciousness and even compassion.

Season Two ups the ante (and you see a major plot point coming from the opening moments of the first episode), resolving much of the initial mystery and complicating the romantic entanglements in ways that could pay off nicely in Season Three and beyond. Not all of the show's comic efforts work: There's a misjudged running gag about a sexualized Roomba, and a few references to Robby Amell's passing resemblance to Tom Cruise that feel extraneous. Moreover, not all of the season's dramatic threads are adequately developed; the series is set sometime in the 2030s, when economic inequality has only grown worse, and this has some serious consequences, including a shocking choice made by a recurring character that's given so little preparation that it feels unearned.

But as the show's mysteries start to come to light, the series ingeniously ties back to some of today's most alarming problems –�which, sad to say, aren't getting the attention they need to avoid the sort of dystopia that the show flirts with.

Season Two could really have used another three episodes, bringing the count up to equal Season One's batch of ten. While "Upload" is certainly worth watching, especially for fans of any of the show's artfully blended genres, it feels a little cheap of Amazon to force Daniels and company to shortchange some characters and story elements in order to shoehorn everything into a truncated season. True, "Upload" can't be an inexpensive show to produce; neither was "The Expanse," which recently completed its final, similarly too-brief season. But with news that Amazon is increasing the cost of its Prime membership to $130 per year, it's the sort of corner-cutting that feels too close to the bone.

"Upload," Season Two, premieres on Amazon March 11.