Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber Early Review: Joseph Gordon-Levitt's series is dreary but occasionally fun

Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber

Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Uma Thurman

Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber Director: David Levien, Brian Koppelman

Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber Streaming Platform: Voot

The Battle for Uber, the first episode of Showtime's anthology series Super Pumped, is full of corporate shouting fights and deceit, press controversies, and people in suits becoming enraged about huge amounts of money. It is based on the story of Travis Kalanick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the CEO of Uber during its most rapid time of growth and scandal. He's the kind of man that asks the crucial question at the start of a job interview: "Are you an a**hole?" And he wants your response to be a "yes."

'Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber' is about Kalanick, the Uber CEO, and his meteoric ascent and equally spectacular fall, and the first episode, 'Grow or Die,' is all about setting the scene and defining the character he is. A guy like him is simple to describe: charming, feisty, confident, and downright egotistic. In the first episode, the UberCab CEO is on the hunt for a partner to help fund his budding firm, and he has VC giant Bill Gurley (Kyle Chandler) in mind. To summarise, Kalanick's "die on the hill, but fight for it" approach satisfies his investor, and the two establish a partnership. Randall Pearson, the San Francisco MTA's power broker, is the source of trouble (Richard Schiff). However, Gurley's money isn't enough to lift the firm out of its rut, so it's up to the rest of the team to win the war one day at a time.

Near the conclusion of the episode, CEO Travis Kalanick is attempting to figure out how his young firm might avoid paying penalties imposed by the town's transport levy. That's when Emil Michael, whom Kalanick has only just met, proposes a simple and perhaps immoral solution: "What if it was categorized as a ride-sharing service?" That's when Kalanick announces that Uber, not UberCabs, would be the name of his firm and unfortunately that is when the plot really swings into high gear, and then the credits roll. 

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Interestingly, as the series is about cool tech youngsters, "Super Pumped" uses video game images on the screen to help explain narrative developments. Quentin Tarantino offers inconsistent and overly caffeinated voice-over narration. The pop soundtrack is slathered on thick with well-chosen era classics (hello, Pearl Jam). At one point in the first episode, Tarantino's voiceover repeats, word for word, what an on-screen character has just stated. It's an odd usage of such a well-known individual, and it comes off as being included only to get Tarantino's name in the credits.

To be honest, the first episode was all about superfluous details and did not entice me to continue with the second episode. The makers of "The Battle for Uber," which is based on Mike Isaac's novel, are not amateurs. The genealogy of Showtime's "Billions," which can hold a place as one of the finest series in this Golden Age of television, is shared by Brian Koppelman, David Levien, and Beth Schacter. It's infinitely dynamic, with massive personalities, great stakes, and incredible wit — things that according to me, "Super Pumped" can only aspire to.