Incorporated is a Dark Vision of Humanity

Our future is in peril; look no further than rising global temperatures, extinction of species, and massive unrest in countries worldwide.

Incorporated, executive produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and premiering tonight on Showcase in Canada, and SyFy in the United States, paints a post apocalyptic world in this vein.

Governments around the globe have fallen; corporations have risen to meet the needs of the few, providing for somewhere in the neighbourhood of 90% of the world’s population.

The show centres on Ben, devoted husband and corporate security drone. The audience learns quickly, however, that Ben is not all that he seems to be. He isn’t who he says he is and he uses his position in the corporation (at times as viciously as imaginable) to advance his own agenda.

“Ben is pragmatic,” said Sean Teale, doing interviews from Toronto. “He is quite wary. It’s unfathomable that he’s able to get this far [and] the deeper he goes, the more he’s seen. At this point, the only way out…is through.”

In the world of Incorporated, corporate espionage has replaced terrorism as the looming threat and the show is heavy handed about the layers of security faced by those in the “green zone” (the area protected by the corporations.)

“Ben starts with a noble quest,” says Teale in reference to the dubious lengths to which his character goes to advance his agenda.  “In his mind he rationalizes that the green zone is so far from the outside and that the corporations are profiting from the suffering of the masses, that anything he does is less of a cost.”

And he does some horrible things; I won’t ruin them, but suffice it to say that Ben’s no angel. “Human’s aren’t one thing. They are at once capable of great love and great evil.” Such is the very essence of human nature and is territory that Incorporated may mine heavily in the episodes to come.

The bitter irony, at least as it appears from the first episode, is that Ben’s fantasy life may be better than his real one. It may well be more real, too.

Time has passed since he began his quest and time is the greatest change agent of all. Will Ben be able to survive the great scrutiny of the corporation to complete his agenda? How deep will his mission take him?

“It’s only when pushed to extremes that you know who you really are.”

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Incorporated is executive produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and was filmed in Toronto. The series premieres Wednesday, Nov. 30 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Showcase.