Ridley Scott Meets Paul Verhoeven In 2-Part Netflix Sci-Fi Series

While Netflix’s sci-fi output has not always been able to keep up with the streaming service’s competitors, one of its best offerings in the genre melded Paul Verhoeven’s satirical wit with Ridley Scott’s immersive futuristic vision. As the sci-fi streaming wars of the 2020s rage on, it is a good thing that Netflix has the success of the Stranger Things franchise to fall back on. Starting out in 2016, the show quickly grew from a modest small-town sci-fi mystery to a massive pop culture juggernaut.

In the ten years that followed, Stranger Things spawned a two-season animated spinoff, Tales from ’85, numerous tie-in comics and novels, and more imitators than anyone could count. This was just as well for Netflix, since the streaming service is not otherwise known as an industry leader when it comes to sci-fi shows. Instead, that title typically goes to Apple TV, thanks to the Monsterverse prequel Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the multiverse thriller Dark Matter, Silo, Foundation, Severance, and the upcoming William Gibson adaptation Neuromancer.

This string of titles ensures that Apple TV dominates in almost every sci-fi subgenre, although Prime Video’s upcoming Blade Runner: 2099 and Hulu’s dystopian thriller Paradise keep their respective streaming services in the running. Netflix does, however, have one underrated two-season series that took the dark sci-fi satire of Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop or Total Recall and melded it with Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. The series was Altered Carbon, and it deserved more than its brief 18-episode run between 2018 and 2020.

Netflix’s Altered Carbon Mixes Paul Verhoeven’s Ultraviolent Satire With Ridley Scott’s Cyberpunk Future

Based on the 2002 cyberpunk novel of the same name by author Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon followed the former rebel soldier turned prisoner Takeshi Kovacs as he was pulled out of a futuristic prison 360 years into the future to investigate a murder. This was where the show’s ingenious high concept came into play. In the world of Altered Carbon, the rich can transfer their consciousnesses into new bodies, a process called “Resleeving,” to stave off death for another few decades.

As such, when one of the most powerful elites in the world, Meth Laurens Bancroft, tasks Kovacs with solving a murder, there’s a twist. It is Meth Laurens Bancroft’s own murder that he wants Kovacs to solve, as he has resleeved since the attempt on his life. This level of world building makes the story of the Blade Runner franchise seem simplistic and straightforward, but Altered Carbon never let its thrilling noir story get bogged down in lore.

Like Paul Verhoeven’s best sci-fi satires, Robocop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers, the show exposes the ways in which unchecked capitalist greed can foster fascism, resulting in rampant inequality and an increasingly surveilled populace and militarized police state. However, the show also borrows the immersive vision of Ridley Scott’s more ethereal Blade Runner, granting Altered Carbon a neon-soaked future scape that feels as stunning and seductive as it is morally repugnant.

Altered Carbon Deserved More Than Two Seasons To Tell Its Sci-Fi Story

Image courtesy of Everett Collection

The show’s plot is worthy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep author, Philip K. Dick, with twists piling upon twists as various characters change their faces by resleeving. However, while earlier sci-fi shows like Person of Interest mostly ensured that their genre elements felt grounded in recognizable reality, Altered Carbon took the opposite approach.

The show’s world feels entirely unique and unrecognizable, and this works in the visionary show’s favor as viewers are immersed in a future that is as nightmarish as it is enthralling. Thanks to this daring approach, Altered Carbon deserved more than a mere two seasons to tell its complex story, but the Netflix series was sadly canceled after only 18 episodes in 2021.

Release Date

2018 – 2020-00-00

Network

Netflix

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