Unless your show starts with the word “Stranger” and ends with “Things,” you’re never truly safe at Netflix. The axe-wielding streamer has just announced the sudden cancellation of their sci-fi drama Altered Carbon, after a lot of hype and hopes that it would become their next mature-audience hit.
Altered Carbon was a story set in a future cyberpunk dystopia where money literally means life. Technology has advanced to the point where human brains can be stored as data and transferred into a new host, thereby extending the participating party’s life indefinitely. Since it’s an expensive procedure, it’s a privilege only enjoyed by the wealthy…or the friends of the wealthy, in the case of Takeshi Kovacs, the resurrected soldier and focus of the short-lived show.
Some of Netflix’s most recent cancellations have been due to the COVID-19 shutdown, like
The Society. But they claim a...