Veteran television writer and producer Greg Daniels has recently compared his latest series Upload to his other hits series Parks and Recreation and the US version of The Office. Starting his writing career on Saturday Night Live during the 1980s, Daniels would eventually make the leap over to animation after being tapped to join the writer’s room for The Simpsons during season 5. Four years later, he would depart the series to work on King of the Hill with Mike Judge, before being tasked with the US adaptation of the BBC’s mockumentary series The Office. In 2009, he would also co-create another mockumentary series, Parks and Recreation, and spend much of his time alternating his attention between the two hit shows during their respective runs.
Work on the sci-fi series Upload was first announced as far back as 2017 when Amazon ordered a new series pilot from Daniels. Starring Robbie Amell and Andy Allo, the show follows Amell’s computer programmer Nathan when his consciousness is uploaded into a highly commercialized, virtual afterlife following his death. Just seven days after season 1 premiered in 2020, Amazon announced Upload season 2’s confirmation, which itself finally hit the Prime Video streaming service just last week.
In honor of Upload season 2’s streaming release, Daniels recently sat down with Supanova Comic-Con & Gaming to talk about his plans for the show moving forward. Admitting that his creative teams are hoping for more seasons, Daniels also took the opportunity to compare his latest television outing with his previous hits, though admitted it was “very hard” and he could not possibly pick his “favorite child.” Check out his full comments below:
“The whole landscape’s changed. It’s very hard to compare a streaming show that maybe has 10 episodes every couple of years to a show that had 25 episodes a year for years and years. It’s a little bit of a different genre, so I love Upload, and I also really like the show Space Force that I do on Netflix. They’re just different from The Office and Parks, and I feel like for me as a writer, I have different phases.
I did The Simpsons and King of the Hill – that was like my animated phase, and then I had the mockumentary phase, and now I’m kind of in this science fiction phase. It’s hard to compare. It’s like comparing your children. Which is your favorite child?”
Much as Daniels suggests, both Upload and his Netflix series Space Force are very different shows to The Office and Parks and Rec. With streaming services like Prime Video and Netflix dropping entire seasons at once, fans will often engage with a show by bingeing it all at once, as opposed to the weekly release schedules of network shows with larger episode counts. This, in turn, helps support the development of more complex and interconnected narratives, as opposed to the far more episodic nature of Daniel’s two immensely popular mockumentary series, which can often be enjoyed by tuning in at any point.
Though Daniels may be reluctant to name his own “favorite child,” fans of his work have certainly given voice to their own opinions on the matter. While Upload has not had the same level of public exposure that either the beloved The Office or Parks and Rec has previously enjoyed, it is still relatively early days for the series, and it has the potential to become a new fan favorite. What’s more, even despite their differences, Daniels’ trademark sense of humor can be felt across his entire body of work, which is well pronounced throughout the recent Upload season 2.
