Why Altered Carbon should be your next TV binge

SET among the sunless streets of a neon dystopia, Netflix’s new sci-fi series Altered Carbon is a warning of just how bad things could become if we continue on our current trajectory.

The big-budget Blade Runner-esque production set in the 26th century is a world of constant darkness, where the gap between rich and poor is extreme and people can live forever thanks to a technology called ‘stacks’ which allow consciousness to be transferred between bodies or ‘sleeves’.

Based on Richard Morgan’s 2002 book, Altered Carbon has at its heart an old-fashioned murder mystery, but this cyberpunk tale is overflowing with themes more relevant than ever.

The story centres on Takeshi Kovacs (played by The Killing’s Joel Kinnaman), a former special forces operative who’s been in digital prison for 250 years until he’s brought back to life by ultra-wealthy Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy).

Bancroft offers Kovacs a job he can’t refuse: solve his ‘murder’ and receive a pardon and obscene wealth. Bancroft believes he was killed in his home; his stack survived but a glitch meant he’s missing the memory of his death.

This puts Kovacs out on the streets of Bay City, a futuristic version of San Francisco, where he must negotiate a violent underworld, a tenacious detective Kristin Ortega (Martha Higareda) and a world corrupted by power, greed and the desire for eternal life.

The series is a meditation on immortality, and even Kinnaman admits the temptation to “resleeve” and continue living beyond your natural expiry date is immense.

“If you gave me the opportunity personally I think it would be really hard to turn down,” he told Insider. “I’m fascinated by the idea of where we will be in 150 years.

“I love life, I would love to continue to live, but I think for society as a whole it would be devastating.”

While many science-fiction stories are set in a bleak future destroyed by generations past, Altered Carbon is made more compelling because it’s themes are closer to reality than we’d like to imagine, says James Purefoy.

“Our show takes place 350 years in the future but I’m not sure it’s really going to be that long ... if we’re around at all,” he tells Insider. “It’s happening, the evidence is right in front of us. Global warming is happening, the fact that the world is drowning in junk and plastic, it’s happening.

“Two-thirds of the world’s population already live in a form of apocalypse and a dystopian future. We’re incredibly lucky, it doesn’t really touch us.”

Mexican actor Higareda agrees, saying things in her home country are at breaking point.

“Coming from Mexico, this is something we see every day — the difference between the rich and the poor, the gap is just getting wider and wider,” she says.

“The interesting thing about science-fiction is that it takes what’s happening in the present and does it exponentially and then it makes us really imagine what that future would be.”