Altered Carbon Season 2 Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

An inconsistent second season for Netflix's sci-fi romp.

Altered Carbon Anthony Mackie
Netflix

After an agonising two-year wait, the second season of mega-budget sci-fi series Altered Carbon has finally dropped on Netflix - though given their baffling lack of marketing, you'd hardly know it.

The first season received much attention for its unique genre premise and undeniably blockbuster-caliber production values, even if many ultimately felt that the series didn't quite realise the full potential of Richard K. Morgan's 2002 source novel.

Season two effectively acts as a soft-reboot for the show, with protagonist Takeshi Kovacs once again being re-sleeved, this time with Anthony Mackie taking over the lead role from solid forebear Joel Kinnaman.

It's a transition that's mostly effortless, yet while the show retains most of the first season's lavish wow-factor, it's still the storytelling that's in desperate need of greater nuance and clarity.

Though this new season gets plenty right, it doesn't quite feel like the decisive improvement that many pre-release reviews have hailed it as, but rather a consistent follow-up that largely retains the same positives and negatives...

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.