More Future Shocks in Syfy's Sobering 'Incorporated'
Our imminent real-life futures may be problematic enough after a certain power shift takes hold early next year. But time will tell.
It’s long been clear, though, that little good can come from the more distant fictional futures depicted on television or the big-screen. Dystopia is 100 percent guaranteed, whether it’s:
A. An Earth taken over by colonizing extraterrestrials who view humans as inferior germs.
B. An Earth ravaged by other wars or environmental disasters caused by humankind.
C. An Earth run by sinister, multi-national corporations bent on enriching themselves while impoverishing the masses.
The Syfy network’s Incorporated goes with option C in the not-so-great year of 2074. Its principal executive producers, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, don’t do any cameos in the five episodes made available for review. But they do invest this sobering drama series with impressive production values and an array of eye-catching innovations if you happen to be among the privileged few living in a Green Zone. The lumpens otherwise are left to claw, scrape and scrap in seriously deprived Red Zones.
Our featured multinationals are the “bio-technical giant” SPIGA and its arch rival, the INAZAGI Corporate Army. But SPIGA gets most of the play, with venerable Julia Ormond doing whatever it takes as an amoral CEO named Elisabeth Krauss.
Krauss’ daughter, Laura (Allison Miller), who of course doesn’t like her, is married to up and coming junior executive Ben Larsen (Sean Teale, right). Unbeknownst to both women, Ben’s real name is Aaron. And he’s a former member of the rabble class who’s bent on finding and freeing his first and enduring love, Elena Marquez (Denys Tontz). Alas, she’s been sold into the “sex slave” trade, which services upper-crusters. Elena also has a chafing brother named Theo (Eddie Ramos), who becomes a tool himself as part of a brutal cage match industry operating in the Red Zone. One of its main venues is a club called the Meat Grinder.
Veteran actor/pitchman Dennis Haysbert (below) climbs aboard as Julian, who heads up Elisabeth’s security unit and when necessary, terrorizes suspected traitors in “The Quiet Room.” Haysbert drops in and out more than the other featured players, but does have a nice one-on-one scene with Miller’s Laura in an eventful and revealing Episode 5.
Incorporated makes fairly heavy use of flashbacks throughout these initial five hours, but never confusingly so. There’s nothing exceptional about the acting or characterizations. But the intersecting storylines carry their weight and the various gizmos on display are both imaginative and suitably futuristic. This is a world where spray-on medications make lacerations vanish while babies can be genetically hand-crafted before “gestators” do the heavy lifting. But only if you have the money.
Episode 3 so far has the most inventive beginning. Kids are shown watching a propaganda cartoon in which Officer Bucky urges a little girl to snitch on her mom if she ever says anything bad about a ruling multi-national. The kids then chant, “If you hear something yucky, tell Officer Bucky.”
Reviewers such as your friendly content provider also heard multiple, fully elucidated f-bombs during these episodes. A Syfy publicist clarified matters, saying they’ll be “audio dropped” from the on-air versions. But a villainous character will still be allowed to say in Episode 3: “If I wanted to listen to an old hag talk dirty, I’d give my mom a call.” Don’t worry. She gives him his comeuppance -- and then some.
Although its super-bleak future is nothing new, Incorporated does an above-average job of bringing it all home. And by the time all of this is over, perhaps the price of bacon can be brought down just a little bit. A pound or so costs $600 at “present.” Let them eat cake.
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