One of Upload Season 3’s directors shared her thoughts on if Season 4 will become a reality.
Fans have been following the story of Robbie Amell’s Nathan Brown for three whole seasons now on Amazon Prime Video. But since the latest season started airing, there hasn't been much talk about Season 4.
To make matters even more anxiety-ridden, Season 3’s finale ended on a massive cliffhanger. Audiences are praying this isn't the end of their story—because, needless to say, that would truly stink.
Will There Be an Upload Season 4?
This article contains spoilers for Upload Season 3, Episodes 7 and 8.
While speaking exclusively to The Direct’s Russ Milheim, Upload Season 3, Episodes 7 and 8, Director Sarah Boyd offered her thoughts on the series getting a Season 4.
The director admitted she “[doesn’t] have any idea,” but “it would be a humongous disappointment” if fans didn’t see what happens next:
“I certainly don't weigh into the sort of politics of show renewals. I actually don't have any idea. But I'm pretty confident that we're all going to be on the edge of our seats and want to know what happens. So it would be a humongous disappointment if we don't all get to see [what happens].”
For now, fans will simply have to wait and hope that the finale's massive cliffhanger, which revealed that at least one of the versions of Nathan Brown was destroyed, can be resolved in future episodes.
Part of what makes the world of Upload so interesting is how it’s so oddly close to what the real world might look like one day—but just how far apart are the two?
Boyd admitted she “hope[s] we’re pretty far from an uploaded afterlife experience:”
“Wow. I hope we're pretty far from an uploaded afterlife experience... But there's other little parts that I think are interesting. I think this, they're done comedically, so I don't take everything that seriously necessarily. But I love the moment early on, I think it was season one where Nora is about to hook up with this guy, and they have these cameras on their chests where there's, 'I fully consent to what I'm about to do you.' And I feel that in the heat of the moment, the clarity of consent is very interesting as a concept and could be quite useful.”
She pivoted the conversation, mentioning the world has already seen “[those] meal bots that turn nasty by the end of Episode 7” and how she’s really “not a huge fan of self-driving cars:”
“We already have these meal bots that turn nasty by the end of Episode 7. I'm not sure that they're essential for our well-being, and they freak me out [a little bit]. And I'm not a huge fan of self-driving cars, that makes me really anxious. I think there are a lot of last-minute decisions that humans need to make as an accident is about to happen that I don't necessarily trust to a computer.”
Speaking of the meal bot seen in Episode 7, The Direct asked Boyd how they went about shooting the rather harrowing explosion in the final moments of the season’s penultimate episode.
The director admitted that “it was a tricky scene” trying to balance the “really different tonal aspects of it:”
“It was a tricky scene because it has two really different tonal aspects to it. On one hand, Nathan and Nora find out great news. And so they're over the moon. And the other hand, there's this impending sense of doom down below, and then some carnage... We didn't want it to tip the scales too heavy on anything that was gross or overly bloody because I felt it would lack the humor it needed to have.”
She elaborated how they still “had to be fair to the fact that this thing did happen” and that one thing they struggled with was figuring out “how much do [they] show:”
“Still, we had to be fair to the fact that this thing did happen, which is not meant to be hilarious, it's meant to be upsetting as well. So that was tricky. And, so I would say that the hard part there was, how much do we show? And to make sure that what we see isn't such a turn-off that it takes you out of the positive side of it, which is, in the end, Nathan and Nora are really happy, and we should be happy too.”
Another big part of Season 3’s seventh episode was how it featured Nora and Nathan celebrating what was planned to be his last day on Earth as a download.
Boyd made it clear that “the stakes are very high,” which put “a really important emphasis on this day:”
“... The stakes are very high. And I think you feel that throughout the season because you don't actually ever know. Every time he gets a nosebleed, is this going to be the end? But sure, because they're going to proactively upload him, as they've discussed at the beginning, I think that puts a really important emphasis on this day.”
She went on to explain how all of those things going wrong throughout the episode were meant to add some humor to the high stakes:
“But that's, of course, part of the humor is that it's going to be his last day, but all these things keep messing it up. It's supposed to be special, but she can't afford anything really special. It's supposed to be special, but she gets pulled into work. So, I think at every turn, it doesn't have the kind of importance of like a sob story, right--the importance more of like it should be important, but It can't be funny.”
The Direct also asked the director if she could recall any notable scenes in the final two episodes of Season 3 that were, though she couldn’t recall any specifics. However, she did note that Episode 7 did run “a little longer” than it could at one point:
“Yeah, I mean, there were one or two--I don't really know, actually, what was cut. I'm trying to think now… I think that if anything was cut, it was simply cut for time because I really think that there were some fun things that went missing, but really mostly from, I would say, from Episode Seven because that ran a little longer.”
Boyd shared, “It’s hard sometimes [to cut down something] when you’re really happy with what you have:”
“Yeah, I don't know, it's at the end of the day, it's really hard to, and I don't envy--Luckily, the showrunners have to do this, and not the directors of episodic television. Because it's hard sometimes when you're really happy with what you have to cut it down. We all know that more and more shows come in long, and shows are written longer than they know they're going to need to be, but sometimes you want to wait and see how it all shakes out in the edit and then make your decisions later.”
What Would Upload Season 4 Look Like?
There’s been very little public discourse about Upload’s fate, which might be a bad sign—but on the other hand, there were just two historic strikes screwing up the whole industry. So, it’s impossible to say where exactly the show stands.
With the massive cliffhanger the Season went out on, one would hope that there were already plans to continue the series. However, there are plenty of examples where a show was unable to continue after a shocking twist.
But what might a Season 4 entail?
Well, if Download Nathan is the only one left, then it could move most of the story out of Lakeview entirely—though there are still obviously some characters to follow in that world.
Perhaps the next step in Nathan’s story is to start building his own afterlife that he can share with people outside of the control of greedy corporations.
Upload is now streaming on Prime Video.
