Netflix Cancels ‘Altered Carbon’ After 2 Seasons

Netflix Cancels ‘Altered Carbon’ After 2 Seasons

There’s no re-sleeving this time… Netflix has cancelled sci-fi drama ‘Altered Carbon‘ after two seasons it has been announced…

Based on the classic cyberpunk noir novel by Richard K. Morgan, ‘Altered Carbon’ was an intriguing story of murder, love, sex, and betrayal, set more than 300 years in the future. Society has been transformed by new technology: consciousness can be digitized; human bodies are interchangeable; death is no longer permanent.

Season 1 starred Joel Kinnaman (‘Suicide Squad’, ‘Hanna’) as Takeshi Kovacs, the lone surviving Envoy soldier, a group of elite interstellar warriors, who were defeated in an uprising against the new world order. His mind was imprisoned, “on ice”, for centuries until Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy – ‘Hap and Leonard’, ‘The Following’), an impossibly wealthy, 300yr old “Meth”, offered Kovacs the chance to live again. In exchange, Kovacs has to solve a murder… that of Bancroft himself.

For the 2nd Season saw the MCU’s Anthony Mackie take over the role of Kovacs in a new upgraded “sleeve”. 30yrs after the events of season one, Kovacs is working as a mercenary for hire, and finds himself in the employ of another “Meth”, Axley… Unfortunately, Axley has been murdered, and Kovacs is the prime suspect. With no memory of what happened, Kovacs runs, aided only by his faithful, but failing, AI companion Edgar Poe (Chris Conner). It soon becomes apparent that Quellcrist “Quell” Falconer (Renée Elise Goldsberry), his old Envoy leader, was involved in the murder.

It seems that the decision to cancel the show wasn’t COVID related for a change, and was the old problem of cost vs. viewership. As you would probably imagine, ‘Altered Carbon’ is not a cheap show to make, and it would appear that it wasn’t drawing in the numbers it needed to keep the series viable for the streaming service.

‘Altered Carbon’ was created by Laeta Kalogridis, and produced by Skydance Television. Alison Schapker, Laeta Kalogridis and James Middleton served as executive producers for the series, alongside David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross for Skydance.