Altered Carbon: Netflix’s Cyberpunk Series About Digital Immortality
I watched this series a couple of years ago, but I still meet people who have never heard of it – so I decided to write a short post.
If you like science fiction, cyberpunk, AI, flying cars and digital consciousness, Altered Carbon is worth watching.
Altered Carbon – a Netflix cyberpunk series
It’s a cyberpunk detective story about a murder investigation in the 24th century, where humanity has reached digital immortality and the rich can change bodies – called “sleeves” – as often as they like.
What the series is about
Netflix made the series from Richard K. Morgan’s 2002 novel; it was developed by Laeta Kalogridis. Season 1 (10 episodes) came out on 2 February 2018, season 2 (8 episodes) on 27 February 2020.
Season 1 is set in 2384 in the megacity of Bay City. Takeshi Kovacs, a mercenary and former Envoy, is downloaded into a stranger’s body 250 years after his death. Laurens Bancroft, one of the richest people alive, offers him his freedom in exchange for an investigation. Bancroft wants to find out who killed him: he survived only because his mind had been backed up.
How the world works
A person’s mind is recorded on a “stack” – a small disc implanted in the spine at the base of the neck. As long as the stack is intact, the person can be moved into a new sleeve: a natural, cloned or synthetic body. Destroy the stack and it’s real death.
A sleeve – the body a mind is downloaded into
The very richest – the “Meths”, after Methuselah – keep spare clones and backups of their minds, so they live for centuries and look down on everyone else. Others have to take whatever the state provides: in the first episode a seven-year-old girl who died is brought back in the body of an elderly woman – whatever was available. And some can’t afford even that.
Immortality technology hasn’t made life a paradise – quite the opposite. The worlds are run by the Protectorate, an interplanetary government, and its power rests on eternal life being available only to the chosen few.
Cast
- Joel Kinnaman – Takeshi Kovacs (season 1);
- Anthony Mackie – Kovacs in season 2, in a new sleeve;
- Will Yun Lee – Kovacs in his original body;
- James Purefoy – Laurens Bancroft;
- Martha Higareda – police lieutenant Kristin Ortega;
- Chris Conner – Poe, the AI who runs the Raven hotel in the likeness of Edgar Allan Poe.
Season 2 jumps about 30 years ahead to Kovacs’s home planet, Harlan’s World. In 2020 there was also an anime film, Altered Carbon: Resleeved, and in August 2020 Netflix cancelled the series after two seasons.
Is it worth watching?
Great idea, good execution. Season 1 was reportedly Netflix’s most expensive production at the time – and it shows in the city and the effects. On Rotten Tomatoes the critics gave season 1 70% and season 2 81%.
Be warned: it’s a harsh show with violence and explicit scenes – not one for family viewing. But if you liked Blade Runner and Black Mirror, you’ll probably like this too.