Netflix Orders The Verge Docuseries ‘The Future Of…’ From Vox Media Studios, Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps (EXCLUSIVE)

Courtesy of Netflix

Netflix has ordered a docuseries from Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps, Vox Media Studios and The Verge about how technology will affect the basic aspects of our lives in the future, Variety has learned exclusively.

Titled “The Future Of…,” the show asks: “What if we could look into the future to see how every aspect of our daily lives — from raising pets and house plants to what we eat and how we date — will be impacted by technology?” Per Netflix, “We can, and should, expect more from the future than the dystopia promised in current science fiction. ‘The Future Of…’ will reveal surprising and personal predictions about the rest of our lives — and the lives of generations to come.”

The series will be released globally in two batches, with the first six episodes premiering Tuesday, June 21, and the remaining six episodes on Tuesday, June 28.

“The first episode of ‘The Future Of’ that we really cracked was ‘Dogs,'” Nilay Patel, The Verge co-founder, editor-in-chief and executive producer of “The Future Of,” told Variety. “It’s a pretty intense thing to think about. I remember very clearly in one of these writers’ workshop rooms wondering, if a dog could actually talk to you, are you going to like what it has to say? What if a dog is like, ‘I dislike you. I’m unhappy being in this apartment all day long when you’re gone. I would like to talk to other people.’ And that just recalibrates the way you might think about your relationship with this animal and maybe that will change the nature of dog ownership itself.”

He added: “It’s just that exercise of spinning this out and getting to a place where now that you can communicate with a dog or a plant or something, how will that feel in that moment? And it won’t just be, ‘I finally understand my dog wants to go outside with this specific toy,’ which is what you instinctively think, but you get all the way to, ‘Oh man, am I going to have these emotional conversations with my dog?’ You end up in a place that has nothing to do with the technology and everything to do with how we live and the structures in which the world is created. All of our episodes make that turn, and that’s the surprise.”

“The Future Of” is executive produced by Patel and Eleanor Donovan for The Verge; Josh Barry and Levy for 21 Laps Entertainment; and Chad Mumm, Mark W. Olsen, Max Heckman, Michael John Warren and Chris Grosso for Vox Media Studios.

“From the first meeting where Chad Mumm and I started conceptualizing this idea, we knew that sharing an optimistic view of the future was something that 21 Laps, The Verge, and VMS could craft into innovative stories for Netflix,” Barry said. “We look forward to sharing the ideas and technology that the series explores as a hopeful and innovative look at the future.”

Vox Media Studios chief creative officer Mumm added: “We are thrilled to be expanding our relationship with Netflix and collaborating with The Verge and 21 Laps. “’The Future Of’ is a great example of how we work with our award-winning editorial networks to create new and compelling series for today’s audience.”