Hello my dear Hivers, I am going to dedicate today's post to a review of Altered Carbon, one of the series that I have recently seen on Netflix and that is among my favorites.
For those who haven't seen it yet, Altered Carbon is set in a futuristic world where the perpetuity of human consciousness is made possible by cloning technology and computing.
In this series we are presented with a humanity that has traveled the universe, colonized several planets and where, in addition, each being that is born is implanted with a super advanced memory chip that is capable of storing all the data of its life, as well as their ideas, thoughts and personality.
image source: estamoscuriosos.me
These incredible chips are known in the series as Cortical Stacks and are implanted in the back of the neck, when a person dies it is possible to bring them back to life by inserting the stack into another body.
The bodies are known as sleeves and a cortical stack can be implanted in any body, however people who have used different sleeves to live tend to suffer from multiple personality disorders.
Despite how wonderful all of this sounds, the series presents a very dark atmosphere at all times, since what would clearly seem like a blessing has been perverted by humanity, as Takeshi Kovacs (the main character in the series) often says.
Altered Carbon is not one of those light series where if you miss a dialogue or stop paying attention for 5 minutes, nothing happens, on the contrary, the plot demands a lot from the viewer because it is extremely rich and dynamic.
Starting with the fact that the first season begins by telling Takeshi's story in two different times, first showing how Takeshi dies in his first life and then his resurrection in another body some 250 years in the future.
Before watching a series like this I would recommend having seen other lighter science fiction series, otherwise it would be very difficult to understand Altered Carbon. One of the details that can confuse the viewer a lot at first is that Takeshi Kovacs is played by two actors: Will Yun Lee, who plays Takeshi in his original sleeve (the body he was born with), and Joel Kinnaman who plays the reincarnated Takeshi; 250 years in the future after the death of his first slevee.
This type of series is perfectly recommended for the viewer experiencing science fiction who expects a rich and complex plot.
It is also a series full of reflections and approaches about what would happen if humanity achieved immortality, and it also states that no matter how much we advance as a species, we never leave behind our bad passions, our greed or our pyramidal social system.
It should also be said that this is a series loaded with scenes of action, sex and a lot of emotion. At a plot level, it didn't seem as intense as The 100, but Altered Carbon's script does have the power to hook the viewer and keep him interested in front of the screen.
The first season of the series takes place on earth, however we will see many memories of Takeshi in Harlan, his home planet.
The second and final season takes place in Harlan 30 years after the conclusion of the first, and here of course we will see a very different Harlan from the one Takeshi knew.
For this second season we will have to get used to another change, since Takeshi will change his sleeve again and this time he is played by Anthony Mackie.
If you haven't seen this series yet, it's time to look for it on Netflix and enjoy its two seasons. I watched the two seasons in a row, every night I watched between 2 and 3 episodes because the series really managed to catch me.