Altered Carbon

Think of Altered Carbon as a cyberpunk “Game of Thrones,” except that winter is already here, three centuries into the future.

The roads that Altered Carbon takes to its destination aren’t new to us but enough of us have enjoyed previous versions of these trips to appreciate this version of the ride.

The show’s thought experiment about the end of death in the future is particularly intriguing. What isn’t so thrilling about Altered Carbon is the complexity of the story lines set within the carefully imagined cosmos. The more we learn about Kinnaman’s Takeshi Kovacs, the more slippery the show becomes. ... Kinnaman is good enough to rise above the chaos.

This show tackles race, gender, and class with all the subtlety of a blowtorch. (Also: There is a blowtorch.) I’m happy to live in a future where studios pay big money for sexy-­violent meditations on the slippery state of humanity--and there’s a real promise for far-out further seasons--but right now Altered Carbon is all sleeve and no stack.

Big issues of body, mind, identity and technology shuffle around the Altered Carbon universe, but the show often drags its feet in order to fill its individual episodes’ running times.

Altered Carbon tries to meld a dystopian class-warfare story and a hard-boiled detective story by simply piling on both the pseudo-philosophical blather (much of it delivered in voice-over by Renée Elise Goldsberry as a rebel leader and Kovacs’s former lover) and the film-noir clichés. ... Mr. Kinnaman wears a bad attitude as easily as most actors wear a shirt, but playing a reluctant Philip Marlowe-style gumshoe with the soul of a freedom fighter (the embodiment of the show’s dual nature) doesn’t suit him, and he lacks his usual spark.

Netflix has taken more than a few flyers on big, splashy, time-wasting projects, and Altered Carbon -- a sci-fi experiment gone awry -- joins that pantheon of the quickly forgettable. Based on Richard K. Morgan's novel, the series looks great -- starting with Joel Kinnaman, who spends a lot of time showing off his commitment to the gym -- but in terms of substance, offers little more than an empty sleeve.

Soooooo sad to see this one go. Season 2 was very good. Season 1 was an absolute masterpiece. The depth. The tones. The futuristic grit. Mixing the familiar with the non. Using sci-fi elements to comment on today's issues. Around episode 3, I knew this show was meant for me.

First season was good the second season was not, yes it has a lot of what you might call it 'Woke' but this is not the main issue but its the change of the main protagonist, i really like Joel Kinnaman as Takeshi it fits him very well and his acting was perfect for that role, and then comes Season 2 they changed it to the worst actor who i personally dislike Anthony Mackie which was huge disappointment and the absolutely terrible actress Renee Elise Goldsberry (Quellcrist Falconer) she was wooden the entire series i hated her so much, not to mention the second season was boring in storyline, characters and writingso for me Season 1 is 8/10 , and season 2 is 4/10

Lots and lots of style with very light substance due to mediocre writing and really dreadful dialogue.

The show deserves a few stars for the cinematography, CGI, acting, and the general concept for the story. In this futuristic cyberpunk world, everyone has a computer chip in their neck that somehow stores a person's mind, thereby allowing it to be placed in other bodies. The rich can to afford to back up their mind to the cloud and grow clones of themselves. Everyone else is not so lucky. So if their "sleeve" (body) is killed they have to take what they can get as a replacement body. And if their chip is destroyed, they suffer "real death", since they have no backups. Where it fails, for me, is setting up the main character as some kind of elite soldier with a highly trained mind, and then having him act like little more than a meathead who almost never utilizes any of his special abilities. But far worse than that, is the rampant sadism in the show. This is not what people need injected into their minds right now (or ever). It's not "just a show". Everything we consume is a form of programming. It all builds up as part of a network in our minds. The more sadism you consume, the more that becomes a feature of your mind, and the more likely you are to have such thoughts arise in your mind. This is also one of those shows that heavily promotes drinking alcohol. I can't recall seeing anyone drink anything other than some sort of brown liquor. After our main character wakes up after almost dying, his sister doesn't hand him a glass of water, she hands him a glass of brown liquor. Alcohol is literally poison, which inhibits both your immune system and judgment (the two most important things for maintaining your health). I wish more writers could imagine a world where humanity becomes more reasonable and kind.

An interesting story, something different from your average show. Season 1 was a 9/10 for me, season 2 is more of a 2. It's a good thing that they've cancelled this show, instead of continuing with a third season they should remake season 2 first. Normally I'd say if you have nothing to do it's okay to watch a 'bad' movie or series, but in this case just don't... Just keep it with season 1 and forget that season 2 exists. Imho I think it's actually an achievement to start something so good and then just f*ck it up so bad.