"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

Altered Carbon

C22B45EC-B7E0-4FE7-9D57-92C23F0D9474
One of the finest sci-fi series I’ve seen in a while starts off with a dissatisfying episode that might give you the temptation to give it up. Don’t. I know that the concept is ripped off a novel by Arthur Clarke and I know that you might feel like you’re trapped in a science fiction trivia, for all the concepts you will see that you’ve already seen elsewhere. And I know that you’d rather feel like stabbing yourself in a leg before witnessing more of Martha Higareda’s “acting”. And I won’t lie to you: the second part doesn’t get any better. The first one, however, reach a certain peak to almost become a feature and one might argue that every episode is centered around a topos of sci-fi. I didn’t read the novel, so I don’t know if this is the case.
However, you should resist the urge of dropping it, and keep going. I promise it will be worth your time.

The story revolves around a former terrorist, whose conscience gets reinstated in the body of… well, ok, no spoilers. It’s an investigation and a damn good one. It has Joel Kinnaman as the main guy and James Purfoy is magnificent in the role of the murder victim who hires him to find the killer. A mention of honour also goes to Chris Conner: his Poe is one of the best characters, brings a little steampunk in an otherwise explicitly cyberpunkish series.
What I found to be more deserving is the way everything is significant to the main plot and how all seemingly loose ends got tied together, in the end. In this way, it is as good as Heroes season 1, or even Westworld. Watch it.

architecture, engineering and construction

The Sustained Path

Every text this last few days has, in one way or another, been circling around the same question: what’s a path and what makes a path? Not a road already drawn and simply walked afterward, but a path in the sense that seems to keep

Read More »
Summertime

The Road is Made by Walking

Antonio Machado was a major Spanish poet and playwright, associated with the Generation of ’98, a group of writers who reflected on Spain’s identity and crisis at the turn of the 20th century. He was born in Seville in 1875 and died in 1939 in

Read More »
Summertime

Kathleen Jamie on Attention and Corridors

Kathleen Jamie is a Scottish poet and essayist, born in 1962, known for her prose and poetry about landscape, place, and everyday life. Findings is her essay collection of personal reflections, first published in 2005, and it moves through nature and cities, archaeology, hospitals, family

Read More »
Share on LinkedIn
Throw on Reddit
Roll on Tumblr
Mail it
No Comments

Post A Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

RELATED POSTS

The Sustained Path

Every text this last few days has, in one way or another, been circling around the same question: what’s a path and what makes a path? Not a road already drawn and simply walked afterward, but a path in the sense that seems to keep

Read More

The Road is Made by Walking

Antonio Machado was a major Spanish poet and playwright, associated with the Generation of ’98, a group of writers who reflected on Spain’s identity and crisis at the turn of the 20th century. He was born in Seville in 1875 and died in 1939 in

Read More

Kathleen Jamie on Attention and Corridors

Kathleen Jamie is a Scottish poet and essayist, born in 1962, known for her prose and poetry about landscape, place, and everyday life. Findings is her essay collection of personal reflections, first published in 2005, and it moves through nature and cities, archaeology, hospitals, family

Read More