Futuristic cyber punk murder mystery. I think I read that this was the most expensive show Netflix has ever produced, they are going all out, lots of tits, ass, bush, and even dong. Although I am very much not a fan of the main actor, Joel Kinnaman, through 2 episodes I am very much enjoying the show (I did have to turn on subtitles though to understand most of the dialogue). It’s based on a book, but I am not familiar with it, anyone else checked it out yet?

2/2/2018 7:45:34 PM

Love the books, want to check out the show

2/2/2018 10:08:38 PM

Also 2 episodes in. Special effects are very good, very Blade Runner-y in a good way

Writing, directing and story have been excellent so far, the world seems to have a lot of depth to it and internal consistency.

2/4/2018 12:40:51 AM

Also 2 eps in! Although it guess I'm gonna be contrarian a bit. It's just a little too much. Too many modern Sci fi shows feel like everything you see has to be some amazing artistic statement.

If I hadn't read the book, I'm not sure I'd keep going

(also to be the annoying book guy, they've made some strange plot changes so far)

2/4/2018 9:08:18 AM

About halfway through. Damn, this is good. Cyberpunk/Bladerunner-esque vibe to it, and also functioning as a pretty interesting homage to Noir Private Detective movies.

Ortega is smokin' hot.

2/5/2018 8:56:23 AM

^agreed

Really loving the series so far. Watched 5 episodes on Saturday.

2/5/2018 9:14:45 AM

The torture episode was phenomenal, one of the best tv episodes I think I’ve ever watched

2/5/2018 6:11:09 PM

I’ve got one episode left, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it

2/5/2018 6:57:11 PM

This show is a cross with Ghost in the Shell and Cowboy Bebop

2/5/2018 9:51:47 PM

I finished it last night. The last couple episodes felt a little rushed compared to the first 8, and had quite a few things that didn’t make sense to me. Overall though I still really enjoyed it as a series.

2/7/2018 12:34:28 PM

Maybe I'm just getting old, IDK, but I felt like all the nudity was a bit too gratuitous, almost like they were trying to make themselves seem like an HBO production.

2/7/2018 12:38:04 PM

Well, they were, it was billed as Netflix’s answer to GOT. I did not find it too gratuitous however

2/7/2018 1:00:53 PM

After a while you stop noticing the naked people. Same thing happened with West World.

2/7/2018 2:45:20 PM

^^^^ same thoughts on the last few episodes

^^^ i thought the same thing too but in a lot of the scenes the nudity made sense.

*******SPOILERS *********************










for example, when a clone comes out the incubator you wouldn't necessarily expect them to be clothed, or if a character is a nymphomaniac or in a brothel, you expect some seductive nudity.

I have noticed a trend though in HBO/Showtime shows the first 2-3 episodes have an excessive amount of nudity to try to bring people in then they dial it down.

2/7/2018 3:38:20 PM

Earlier this week one of my buddies texted me to say he started watching since I had recommended it. But he said he was struggling to get hooked.

I then mentioned that if he kept watching he'd see Ortega naked. That was all he needed to hear.

2/9/2018 10:31:47 AM

Great series, but it got a little hammy when









*********************Spoilers*****************************

Everyone came together and fought as a single unit at the end. Such a big deal was made about how most of the individuals were loners all throughout their (several) lives, even then I didn't really see them coming together like that. It was still very entertaining though, and I'll def. be tuning in to season 2.

2/9/2018 11:58:10 AM

All the new Netflix shows are garbo. Most of the threads now are about garbo comic movies. I'm too old old to give a shit about that shit. Who mods this. It's lame.

Mosaic on HBO is pretty good. Mosaic is good.

2/10/2018 12:59:49 AM

Good but I could have done with less sleeve-jumping. It's too convenient.

I also don't get why the Meths' synths seem fully autonomous without stacks implanted (Rei vs Ortega scene, orgy island, etc)

I enjoyed Mr Tattoo guy speaking Spanish then Russian

2/11/2018 9:36:51 PM

All the clones do have stacks. You can technically load your personality into as many bodies as you want, but it's super illegal. Penalty of erasure. The Twin assassin guy did that.

The wife obviously does too but nobody knows, or nobody that can do anything about it

2/12/2018 7:25:16 AM

I don’t think clones and synths are the same. Lizzie ended up in a synth, and they were just sitting around being stored in hallways, and she was able to change its look, the Rei vs Ortega were all clones. I took that fight as her jumping into the next clone body after one was killed, and that’s why (from what I recall) there was never more than one attacking at a time.

I’ve got a couple questions about the last couple episodes, I know they did touch on some of these, so not sure if they are plot holes or I just didn’t understand the explanation. Why did he have to have the camera installed in his eye, I thought it was so he could trick her to confessing and get it secretly recorded, but the very first thing he did was tell her it in was there. Also they said something about the final base only let signal in/out once every 24 hours or something, and there was only one small opportunity to intercept the backup. But then Poe was able to send Lizzie up there into a synth whenever he wants?

2/12/2018 8:10:28 AM

^ The once every 24 hours thing was for sis' backup. Like James Purefoy's. I assume that'd not have a lot to do with hacking Head in the Clouds systems to send Lizzie up there to secure a synth.


Finished over the weekend. Loved pretty much every second. I do wonder what is going to happen to Tak's sleeve though...didn't they mention Skinner being exonerated...so he'd get his body back I assume. Wouldn't mind seeing Tak back in his original body for season 2.
I, too, got used to the nudity after a while...and in a future where your body is almost just another piece of clothing I could see society-at-large being more inured to the taboo of nudity.

2/12/2018 9:06:43 AM

Clones and synths aren't exactly the same (although they are similar since they're both man made bodies at the end of the day, as opposed to nature made) but both have a stack that can load any person even if that person is already in a body

2/12/2018 9:47:12 AM

My understanding is that Synth is more cyborg-esque than human. A clone is just that, a clone. Both have stacks though.

2/12/2018 9:57:52 AM

^^^Kinnaman has indicated that he's not sure he'll be back for season 2, because apparently the novels have set up a scenario where that couldn't happen. I don't know though as I have not read any of the books.

2/12/2018 10:03:42 AM

^^but even the clones have modifications like the wife that secretes drugs. I guess that could be just gene modification instead of "cybernetic" but the point is that they are on a scale. The synths have human features/biological material. It's semantics though.

^yea each book has Tak in a diff body, diff planet even. They are also diff genres, this is the only detective one. One is sorta action/military, the other is harder to classify but maybe a spy action thriller

Also some of the plot changes in this one would make the 3rd book more challenging to pull off

[Edited on February 12, 2018 at 10:17 AM. Reason : R]

2/12/2018 10:14:45 AM

Quote :

"I took that fight as her jumping into the next clone body after one was killed, and that’s why (from what I recall) there was never more than one attacking at a time"

Hmm interesting point: so Rei receives a vault alarm, kills herself, is reanimated in a vault clone, and goes after whatever intruder she finds. As a measure, one of the clones is the little girl.

Quote :

"have a stack that can load any person even if that person is already in a body"

Then she could have loaded 10 stacks for a 10 vs 1 fight instead of 1 after the other.

Either way, I didn't mind the slight plot holes; I just think sleeve-jumping (without some sort of time limit or recovery period) is too deus ex machina

---------------------------

I would take the synths as fully cybernetic, as they're just stored in backrooms with no apparent life support systems

---------------------------

I demand
1) Asian Tak!
2) Fine ass girl Tak!

2/14/2018 12:23:52 PM

But clones are just empty vessels without the stack.

I would assume if they were decanted without the personality download they would be essentially braindead

As for twinning, I assume the only reason it's expensive for Ishi is bc he has to do everything on the black market including buying a new body and stack

Other people don't do it bc it's one of the few things just about anybody would be prosecuted for. The book implies the meth wife would be in huge trouble if her fantasy island was found out

2/14/2018 1:27:33 PM

This was just OK for me. There were way too many instances where some small event allows the characters to make an enormous leap that was a stretch. I'm still not positive on why they broke into the son's house (other than the dad beating him on footage) or how Ortega knew where to find the sister's main clone facility. Or why the main character continued looking into Lizzy when the dad was no longer a suspect.

2/14/2018 7:58:11 PM

Quote :

"Or why the main character continued looking into Lizzy when the dad was no longer a suspect."

They made it fairly clear that Tak had a soul, he saw a girl that has been abused and was damaged and he felt bad for her and her father, so he helped. Plus part of the Envoy training was to assimilate yourself and find others to join your cause, helping her bonded her dad to help him and he knew his wife was a big-time hacker that could probably come in handy if needed.

Quote :

"how Ortega knew where to find the sister's main clone facility"

Her little tech guy found a vault in his search and it was registered to no one, so she wanted to investigate it. Then she visited a guy she previously busted who worked there, and strong-armed him into helping her get into the vault. The guy then betrayed her.

The only thing I found really odd, and I guess they didn't take time to go into it, but Ortega literally loses EVERYONE that is close to her while she's captured, and then she doesn't seem devastated after and is still 100% focused on Tak/Ryker. I mean she lost her cop buddy, her mother, her tech buddy at the precinct, and even lost the little kids in her family, like EVERYONE she knows was dead and stacks destroyed. Now it's just her and an exonerated Ryker...who I can't even imagine how he's going to take this entire story of an Envoy using his body and such when he wakes up.

2/20/2018 8:38:10 AM

He also didn’t really continue to look into Lizzy’s crime. He brought her to the hotel to get help just to convince her dad to help him. He did go to her work, and pretend to be her mom, but that was in order to get more info about who might have killed Bancroft, not to solve Lizzy’s crime.

2/20/2018 10:13:16 AM

I am glad the brother sister drama is over. That, to me, felt like they forced it too much. The whole "I'll do anything it takes to bring you back to me" dialogue from the sister drove me insane and felt stupid. Otherwise, loved the show.

2/20/2018 1:10:55 PM

Quote :

"But clones are just empty vessels without the stack. I would assume if they were decanted without the personality download they would be essentially braindead "

They would be, they were multi-stacking-- essentially illegally duplicating their stacks to the clones.

2/23/2018 11:14:46 PM

Maybe I missed something, but why are there empty bodies in the first place? If you die, your body isn't useful, so all of the bodies are just criminals or what

2/24/2018 9:25:52 PM

Mostly criminals but also alot of things can be repaired if you can afford it

2/24/2018 9:47:24 PM

Who was the guy that told Dim the Twin to stay away from Kovacs? The one he tricks to meeting in VR, says "....Takeshi, is that you??" before Ortega pulls him out.

2/25/2018 5:43:29 AM

Sister.

2/26/2018 9:49:59 AM

this has a lot more nudity than i expected, the rich chick is hot

2/27/2018 10:38:53 AM

Jesus, Exiled, bit of a spoiler there.

2/27/2018 10:56:46 AM

Finally finished up this season over the weekend. One question I have though -- maybe it was explained originally and I somehow missed it -- but after Kovacs wakes up, how does he immediately know how to "do" everything? It is 250 years after his stack was frozen, so the world would have completely changed, right? And he seems to be fully adjusted and not have a single question about anything? Lets say someone from the 1980s was in a coma and woke up today, it would take them months to adjust, and that was only 30 yrs ago.

3/26/2018 9:46:35 AM

I think the better comparison would be...

If a guy died in 1810 and woke back up in 1850, then died in 1865 and woke back up in 1925, then died again in 1935, and woke back up in 1950 and died again in 1980, then woke up in 2015.

Add in the fact that these people lived in a future filled with technology and are envoys which are trained to deal with adjusting to their environment and blending in, I think it's not too ridiculous to think he could adjust quickly. He also went to the "old" part of town that people had abandoned because he knew about it and was familiar with some of it's "features". I imagine if you were re-sleeved dozens of times, you probably get accustomed to not freaking out when you wake back up.

3/26/2018 11:19:07 AM

In the books, the reason envoys are feared is less bc of military training and more bc of their "environmental" training. They can soak up a new culture to the point of blending in, in almost no time. The envoys are a spy/infiltration force first, full on military second.

The person that got out at the same time in the old ladies body was completely disoriented, but they don't have that training.

However the show ditches that a bit by making the grandmother totally fine and at ease in some big dude's body.

3/26/2018 1:40:46 PM

^That makes sense, the only time they ever showed Tak working as an envoy they made it more like he was a SWAT team member and less spy like.

3/26/2018 2:05:20 PM

Yea they changes a ton of that for the show. Not a spoiler for the book though, they get to that pretty early in book one.

3/26/2018 2:06:38 PM

i enjoyed the show, but read about a lot of changes they made. some seemed for the better, others were sounding unnecessary to look future-y

4/3/2018 11:16:53 AM

just finished the series and i loved it. The show is pretty dense, and there were definitely times i had to go back because I missed something and didn't get how some plot point progressed or got resolved, and upon revisiting an earlier sequence, it was definitely explained or set up properly. I probably need a full rewatch at some point.

Getting on the books next.

5/11/2018 11:41:53 AM

Oh we back!

Season 2 is happening and will star Anthony Mackie. I’m very happy this is getting a second season

https://io9.gizmodo.com/anthony-mackie-is-altered-carbons-new-leading-man-1827925687

7/27/2018 3:15:22 PM

fuck yeah!

7/30/2018 11:33:07 AM

Can’t wait! I am curious what the budget for season 2 is though. Season 1 was the most expensive show Netflix had made to date. I’m wondering if they ponied up that much again, and if not, will the quality take a hit.

2/4/2020 1:10:18 PM

I finally finished the last ep of S1 last night. I was looking forward to S1 and watched almost all of it when it came out but was generally disappointed in a lot of things so never made it through. Not sure whether I'll give S2 a shot yet.

2/4/2020 3:21:31 PM

I enjoyed it, I'll probably give it a shot unless it goes way off the deep end.

2/5/2020 10:02:19 AM