Altered Carbon Season 3 is its kind of sci-fi cyberpunk drama series available on Netflix. It is based on a 2002 novel by Author Richard K Morgan of the same name. Currently, the show has two seasons available on the streaming platform. Created by Laeta Kalogridis, this television series is all about the concept of interstellar travel which is facilitated by using “sleeves” to transfer consciousness. As exciting as it sounds, there are some speculations about its third season. Are you waiting for Altered Carbon Season 3? Is it canceled? Get updates about it here.
ALTERED CARBON-PLOT
The show starts with the story set in the year 2384 in the futuristic metropolis known as Bay City. In the future, a disk-shaped device called cortical stack is used to record an individual’s memories and consciousness. It is placed in the back of their neck. So basically these cortical stacks have been reverse-engineered and mass-produced as they are more of an alien design. They are only made out of material on Harlan’s World. Before you get confused, yes that’s the planet where the show takes place and definitely not Earth. These stacks are a key focus in the entire series and the events that follow throughout are based on its changes.
“Sleeves” as mentioned earlier refer to physical human or synthetic bodies and these stacks can be transferred from dead bodies to new bodies. However, interestingly if the stack somehow gets damaged and in case of no backup, the person can still be killed.
Well, the wealthy part of the population mostly known as Meths(about Methuselah) has an advantage as they can store their data in satellites to avoid dying out of old age before they are resleeved and they can also change bodies via clones.
Altered Carbon takes a turn when a former soldier turned investigator named Takeshi Kovacs comes to investigate a murder after being released from prison. Takeshi is quite amazing at mercenary skills especially after being the only survivor left of a rebel group called Envoys that was defeated in a fight against the new world order. The first season is set 250 years ahead of the destruction of the Envoys. That is when Meth Bancroft, the oldest being 300 years old and one of the wealthiest men takes out Takeshi’s memory stack while he was in prison.
Bancroft wants Takeshi to solve his own murder to get another chance at life. Whether or not he is successful, is for you to see on Netflix when you binge-watch both seasons if you haven’t watched it till now. Without giving out too many spoilers, Let me tell you that season 2 gets more interesting as Takeshi sets out to find his long-lost love, Quellcrist Falconer who was the leader of Envoy. Altered Carbon Season 2 takes place 30 years later in the story.
RUMORS ABOUT ALTERED CARBON SEASON 3 CANCELLATION
Unfortunately after 8 episodes of season 2, Netflix officially announced that Altered Carbon Season 3 has been canceled on August 26, 2020. The reasons are most likely the failure of viewership during the 2 seasons and other popular shows on the streaming platform put on a halt due to the pandemic. Altered Carbon’s first season was released on Netflix on February 2, 2018, with 10 episodes. Initially, the show received a good response from the audience in the form of good ratings but as the show progressed to the second season, viewership started dropping down.
The next big factor for Altered Carbon Season 3 cancellation was the increasing cost of production. These kinds of sci-fi shows are largely dependant on visual effects and graphics making it a very expensive affair. In fact, according to some reports, it takes almost $7 million to make each episode which could have easily gone up due to the protocols of pandemic and otherwise too. The budget of the show is approximately more than the first 3 seasons combined of Game of Thrones as said by Joel Kinnaman.
Apart from viewership counts, the increase in subscription also affects the renewal or cancellation of a TV show on Netflix. So maybe the show couldn’t excite many people to join and hence was struck out of the list of shows for renewal.
Season 2 also saw a big change in the casting of the show. The protagonist Takeshi Kovacs was played by Joel Kinnaman but due to some issues he quit and Anthony Mackie became the Takeshi Kovacs. This change was incorporated with Takeshi getting resleeved and getting a new body.
Moreover, an anime spin-off called Altered Carbon: Resleeved was also released by Netflix to make the world of Altered Carbon bigger. It focused on the events that took place 250 years ago.
Although fans made quite a chaos on social media after knowing about this cancellation of Altered Carbon Season 3, it doesn’t seem to make Netflix change its mind. But maybe if other production houses willingly take up this show and expand it then there might be some good news. As of now, season 3 won’t happen.
CAST OF ALTERED CARBON
Joel Kinnaman as Takeshi Kovacs in Season 1, and Anthony Mackie in Season 2
Martha Higareda as Kristin Ortega
Dichen Lachman as Reileen Kawahara
James Purefoy as Laurens Bancroft
Kristin Lehman as Miriam Bancroft
Renee Elise Goldsberry as Quellcrist Falconer
Ato Essandoh as Vernon Elliot
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