Altered Carbon Season 1by Patti MartinsonReviews may contain information that could be considered 'spoilers'. Readers should proceed at their own risk. Network
Credits Grade: 7 Takeshi Kovacs is an Envoy, an enhanced soldier who was part of a rebellion against a regime known as the Protectorate. Captured and imprisoned, he is put in stasis until 250 years later he is "reborn" in a new body, courtesy of the insanely wealthy Laurens Bancroft, who wants him to solve his own murder.In this future, people's consciousness can be saved to a disk and transferred to different bodies. The kind of body you can get depends often on how much money you have, and your status in society. Kovacs turns down Bancroft's offer flat, until Kovacs is attacked by an assassin who knows who Kovacs is, something no one should have known other than Bancroft. Kovacs investigation is initially simple, but turns out to be far more complicated and involves people and events from 250 years earlier. A friend of mine raved about this series, so I thought I'd give it a try myself. I was pretty much hooked from the get go. The world of Altered Carbon is pretty familiar, especially since I have seen the Matrix as well as Blade Runner two movies that this series borrows a lot from, in themes as well as look. I didn't particularly care for Kovacs initially, but the concept of a transportable consciousness interested me. It is a familiar one, but it played out in very interesting ways. One example is the grandmother of one of the characters in the show. You envision the grandmother as an elderly, maternal-type woman, but in this series, the grandmother consciousness is in the body of a heavily muscled, tattooed, and pierced man. The reason that the grandmother is in this body is that this was the only body to be had at the time. Later in the series, this same body houses a very different consciousness. I found that fascinating. As the series goes on, there is more complexity and permutations of this kind of body swapping that keeps me intrigued, even though I'm not exactly invested in or fond of any of the characters in the show, aside from the Artificial Intelligence based off the character of Edgar Allen Poe. How that works in cyberpunk is a joy in itself. With concepts that intrigue more than the plot and or characters, I found this a worthwhile show to binge. Written: January 5, 2020
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