Emergence of the post-apocalypse TV

In Incorporated, climate change has destroyed world, rendering large parts underwater or unlivablee

It must have something to do with the ground-shifting changes being witnessed in Western politics, for what else can explain the sudden rise of post-apocalypse TV? From 3% and The 100 (both on Netflix) to Incorporated, now running on AXN, content writers on television are taking the idea of a ravaged world and what becomes of it very seriously. (Maybe the thumping victory of French President Emmanuel Macron in the parliamentary polls will give them pause.)
 
In Incorporated, climate change has destroyed the world, rendering large parts underwater or unlivable. What is left has been divided, in a common enough conceit of this genre, into the Green Zone, where a tiny minority of the rich and the lucky lives in a bubble of extreme luxury, and the Red Zone, where numerous others are forced to eke out a meagre existence.
 
Ben Larson (Sean Teale) is a fast-rising executive at Spiga, the kind of multinational corporation that, Google-like, preaches no evil but whose size and scale bestows on it absolute powers. A thoroughgoing resident of the Green Zone, Ben is married to Laura (Allison Miller), a plastic surgeon whose profession allows the show’s writers to meld the search for physical beauty with that society’s classist heart. Laura has a strained relationship with her mother, Elizabeth (Julia Ormond) who, as Spiga’s head, happens to be Ben’s boss.
 
In most series of this kind, the central character, by dint of hard work or ingenuity, overcomes his straitened circumstances and rises to the top only to find that he hasn’t truly escaped his past. Ben, born and raised in the Red Zone, witnessed his father’s suicide, but was saved by a mercenary who spotted the boy’s talent for manoeuvring the latest technology with ease.
 
But Ben’s past is more tangible than a mere backdrop to his present: He is haunted by dreams of Elena (Denyse Tontz), his childhood love who is now a sex worker at the Executive Club, where the top bosses of Spiga let their hair down.
 
This premise set, Incorporated gets its main characters to effect a series of actions and reactions that they hope will get them what they want. For Ben, that means rescuing Elena, even if that risks playing havoc with his marriage and career. Teale (who you may remember from Skins) is fantastic as the conniving, often ruthless strategist whom you nonetheless root for, given his backstory. His willingness to sacrifice his superior is matched by his tenderness towards Theo (Eddie Ramos), Elena’s kid brother who struggles to make ends meet in the Red Zone.
 
Villainy is never exciting unless it is layered. Ormond is slick as the corporate honcho whose ability to swat professional irritants sits nicely with her concern for her daughter who has untreated trauma that the series has thus far only alluded to. The cat-and-mouse game between her and Ben, ably choreographed by Spiga’s security head Julian Morse (Dennis Haysbert), will get viewers to keep tuning in.
 
While it perfunctorily warns us the ill effects of climate change, Incorporated points to that other roiling issue of contemporary society: Corporate control. The public-spirited organisation exemplified by Silicon valley has transformed into something less peachy. Antitrust authorities are back in the news as Amazon continues its plans to dominate every aspect of retail. Edward Snowden may have become a distant memory but there remains little clarity on how much information tech giants are willing to pass to government.
 
Furthermore, events at Uber have raised concerns about workplace culture and whether the new-age organisation, founded on brilliance and rolling in money, might lack the checks and balances that an older, slower system had in place.
 
Incorporated brings all of these doubts to light. Spiga is not just an MNC with great power; it has replaced government altogether. Together with its competitors, it controls the few resources still available to be sold to the highest bidder. Absent all regulation, it is the beneficiary of a libertarian paradise that today’s Silicon Valley stalwarts hanker for.
 
Worse, its transformational reach is built on a tech nirvana whose blinding brilliance hides a dark secret. Every aspect of its employees’ lives is tracked, including their dreams, but what is more surprising, if not entirely unexpected, is that the participants are more than happy to oblige because the alternative is the dank Red Zone.
 
It is in precisely portraying how bad and, at the same time, how inescapable the situation is that Incorporated succeeds. Spiga may be despicable but it is also essential, providing an ideal worth striving towards. The show is set in 2074 but some of Spiga’s messaging is instantly recognisable: It offers itself as the inevitable solution to a problem it played no small part in creating.

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