Imagine a future where humanity finds a way to store one’s conscience outside the brain. A world where bodies are just “sleeves” for the chip that stores your mind. A world where you don’t truly ever die, you just get a new body from time to time. Imagine a world where human cloning is perfected and you can live over and over and over again in your own body, retaining all the knowledge and experiences you’ve acquired during many lifetimes. Imagine a world where we discover immortality through technology… And now remember humans are greedy as fuck and imagine all of what I just mentioned is only available to the super rich and powerful, which now become even more rich and powerful. That is the world Altered Carbon shows us.

In the first season of the show, we follow Takeshi Kovacs (badass name, isn’t it?), a very talented former soldier, now turned mercenary. Takeshi’s body is killed within the first few minutes of the first episode, and his “stack” (the chip that contains his mind) is locked away in prison. However, almost 300 years later he is “resleeved” (put in a new body) by one of the most rich and powerful man in the universe to work for him. This Meth (short for Methuselah, referencing their almost immortal nature) has a mission for Kovacs. He has to solve a murder… his own. Apparently, someone killed the Meth, but he was able to back up his mind and transfer it to clone just before the murderer pulled the trigger, but he can’t remember who the perpetrator is, and now Takeshi has to find out who it was in order to regain his freedom.

I really enjoyed this show. It has a very good mix of sci-fi, action, and detective-esque narratives. Also, I found the cast super likeable, with great performances across the board, and some very interesting characters. And the visual effects and cinematography are just stunning.

Season 2 takes a little bit of a dip narratively speaking, but what it loses there, it gains it in visual impact and action scenes, so it’s pretty enjoyable as well.

If you like police-action shows and sci-fi, you should definitely watch Altered Carbon. You can do so on Netflix.