Companies love misery.
Syfy's Incorporated premieres Wednesday, November 30th. However, the pilot episode is available online to watch for free over at Syfy.com. This review will still skirt around all major spoilers.
From executive producers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and creators David and Alex Pastor (Self/less), comes a new dystopian sci-fi series set in a future world where, thanks to the disastrous effects of climate change, multinational corporations control 90 percent of globe.
It's an interesting, foreboding premise, for sure, but -- based on the pilot episode, "Vertical Mobility" -- not one that can stand entirely on its own. There are a ton of borrowed elements here, from the stories (and cinematic adaptations) of Philip K. Dick to movies like Gattaca, RoboCop, and Elysium, to certain episodes of Black Mirror to... well, just about any maladjusted premonition of society that involves cold corporate cruelty and a massive gap between the rich and poor.
Incorporated isn't bad, just overly familiar, featuring a fair amount of twists and turns that, if you're in tune with the genre, you'll see coming -- and that's okay. It's the first episode (out of a 10-episode season) so there's room to improve. The most disappointing thing about Incorporated though is the fact that the whole "corporations now rule the world" aspect of the series doesn't quite stand out enough. There's little to distinguish the show, based on the first episode, from any other future series where certain folks get to live high on the hog because they do the bidding of the "powers that be." USA's Colony, in fact, uses this blueprint as well.
The very Oscar Isaac-esque Sean Teale is our lead Ben Larson, an upwardly mobile executive at Spiga, a sprawling biotech firm that, like all the other conglomerates that cover the planet, is severely obsessed with preventing corporate espionage. Run by Julia Ormond's Elizabeth and protected by Dennis Haysbert's calmly ruthless Julian, Spiga finds itself under attack by a group of rebels called the Sons of Tomorrow. Or are they being targeted by a rival company? Whatever the case, and beset on all sides, Spiga's paranoia is rampant. All its employees are kind of a-holes and Ben, the most agreeable exec we meet, gets to live a marginally happy life with wife Laura (Allison Miller).
So then how does Ben's life begin to unspool? Where's the intrigue? Well, it turns out our well-behaved suit, who gets to live in the "Green Zone" (those who don't work for a major company live in "Red Zones"), is dead set on tracking down a mysterious young woman from his past (Denyse Tontz). Through this search, more is revealed about Ben's backstory and the tension begins to pick up. Again, it's nothing revolutionary, but it was smart to pare this story down to something personal -- to, essentially, a rescue mission.
There's no way Ben's going to, say, topple Spiga or bring down all the companies controlling the planet. The world is ruined and corporate tyranny is the status quo. Giving his covert mission a human face allows this large premise to start off comfortably restrained, giving us more of a buy-in.
The Verdict
Based on its first episode, Syfy's Incorporated may seem like a slick, patchwork creation pieced together from other/similar stories. Authors and filmmakers have, essentially, been telling this "relevant" story of soulless corporate control for decades, so there's nothing exactly new to discover here. That being said, our lead, Sean Teale's Ben, isn't exactly out to change the world. Not yet. Everything starts off on a much smaller, more personal level as out complex hero tries to locate a loved one in the midst of the world's hostile takeover.
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