Article first published as TV Review: ALTERED CARBON on Seat42F.
Netflix’s newest drama, released
yesterday, is ALTERED CARBON. Set centuries in the future, it is part
science fiction adventure, part murder mystery. In the ten-episode first
season, Takeshi Kovacs, a violent mercenary, is woken from a 250-year
slumber at Alcatraz. He is told he can either go back to prison forever,
his sentence, or solve the murder of an extremely wealthy man, Laurens
Bancroft. Obviously, Takeshi chooses the former, and he sets off into
the world he knows little about to investigate a crime of which he knows
even less.
Joel Kinnaman (The Killing, House of
Cards) stars as Takeshi, which ties into a few important things. One,
part of the premise is that the essence of people have been boiled down
into “stacks,” basically big computer chips that can be inserted into
any body, deemed “sleeves.” While Takeshi is Japanese and Eastern
European, played by Will Yun Lee (Falling Water, True Blood) in
flashback, he now inhabits a different ethnicity form. There is
certainly an argument to be made that the series whitewashes its lead,
but the cast is pretty diverse, and from a story perspective, the swap
makes sense. So ALTERED CARBON tries to make up for that in other ways.
(Whether it does or not, I leave for someone more qualified to decide.)
Bancroft is also a white man, played by
James Purefoy (The Following, Hap and Leonard), as is the AI construct
Poe (Chris Conner, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime
Story). But others are not. The love of Takeshi’s life is Quellcrist
Falconer (Renee Elise Goldsberry, The Good Wife, original cast of the
Broadway musical Hamilton). Takeshia’s sister, Reileen, is played by
Dichen Lachman (Dollhouse, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). The primary
cop who is interested in Takeshi is Kristin Ortega (Martha Higareda,
Royal Pains). ALTERED CARBON also stars Ato Essandoh (Copper), Kristin
Lehman (Motive), and Trieu Tran (The Newsroom).
The series itself is getting mixed
reviews, and that’s fair. There’s certainly a large amount of
exploitation of women in the dark corner of the world Takeshi is dropped
into, prostitution, physically real or not, abundant, and drugs
rampant. Little about the underworld isn’t a trope, and the main plot
seems to be a basic murder mystery, albeit the intended victim isn’t
really dead because his stack was backed up by a very expensive
satellite, so all he lost as nearly two days of memories.
However, I found it an exciting romp
with a complex, if a little two-dimensional, world. The visual effects
are absolutely stunning, the futuristic city, including buildings that
extend above the clouds, seeming very real. The rules of the world seem
to be incredibly well thought-out and stuck to, though not overly
explained, and there’s quite a bit of mystery surrounding Takeshi’s
circumstances. Certainly this is more than just an episode of CSI
stretched out. The acting is also pretty solid across the board, though I
don’t yet see many similarities in personality between Lee and
Kinnaman’s portrayals, so I’d like, over time, for the show to establish
a more solid link.
There is also a trippy aspect to the
production because Takeshi, as part of the side effects from being
asleep so long, hallucinates people that aren’t there. This potentially
calls into question the reality of what we’re seeing in every scene,
even when he’s sober, and will have viewers looking for clues that
things might not be real. That is an exciting element to toss in,
especially when it’s so well integrated to the story.
Having only seen one episode so far, I
can’t contradict entirely the uneasiness of other reviewers. What I can
say is that as soon as I turn this in, I’m jumping right into episode
two because I was left very much wanting to see more.
ALTERED CARBON season one is available now, streaming on Netflix.
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