In the 2074, the line between the have and have nots looks more like a series of beautiful projection screens masking the horizon spanning ghettos. On the streets, the poor make do however they can often without basic necessities like power and clean water. The beautiful meanwhile people work for the corporations, living in sleek apartments surrounded by technology and staff to meet their every need. With climate change scouring the planet and natural resources becoming scarce, corporations have stepped in where regional governments have failed and true power rests not in the White House or the Kremlin, but in the top floor board rooms. But if the corporations provide a good life, they do it at the cost of basic human rights and often decency. Above the 40th floor, where the real movers and shakers work, the sex trade is alive and well. Minor infractions of corporate policy result in public humiliation at best, torture and death at worst. As the line between these worlds is crossed and blurred, loyalties are tested and bodies are broken and souls are bought and sold.
Produced by the Brat Pack pals Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Incorporated takes us to a world of ostensibly viable extremes. Clearly a tent pole show for Syfy, production values are high and the writing is tight. Within the first episode our protagonist Ben (played by Sean Teale, Skins, Reign) finds himself caught in an expanding web of interpersonal compromise and tension as he takes one more step up the corporate ladder. With a veteran cast to back him up and the basso profundo of Dennis Haysbert as our apparent villain, there is little to fear in the acting department. While the promotional materials reference Ben’s desire to save the woman he loves, the actual story is nothing so simple and before long we’re left wondering what and who actually drives our hero and who it is he actually loves.
Long time fans of dystopian fiction will find very little new in the setting of Incorporated. Many of the proposed ideas about the coming social divide and dystopian degradation of society have existed since the end of World War II. We have likewise seen the gleaming white surfaces, stainless steel, self driving cars, cool clothes, and glowing holographic displays in everything from Hunger Games to Maze Runner to the most recent Star Trek movies and Apple products.
Visually or conceptually the show doesn’t break new ground, or even say anything new or incisive about our foreboding future. On the other hand Incorporated shows just enough story telling acumen that it leaves you wondering just how things will end and just how far our hero will go to get the girl.
