Based on Richard K. Morgan’s celebrated cyberpunk novel of the same name, Altered Carbon looks to be one of Netflix‘s more promising — if not visually stunning — contributions to 2018’s already over-stuffed slate of new shows. The first teaser for the series dropped in early December, but a new full trailer out today offers hardcore fans of the original book (and audiences recently re-introduced to Blade Runner‘s gorgeous aesthetics with Blade Runner 2049) something to chew on. After all, the show does feature a jacked-up Joel Kinnaman leaping around a futuristic San Francisco (now called “Bay City”) in a coat while carring a big gun.
Will Yun Lee plays Takeshi Kovacs, who was “the lone surviving soldier in a group of elite interstellar warriors who were defeated in an uprising against the new world order.” 250 years later, Kovacs is revived (and then played by Kinnaman) by Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy), one of the wealthiest and longest-lived human beings on the planet. Why? So that he can solve Bancroft’s murder. In exchange, Kovacs’ new benefactor will grant him his freedom and allow him to live again — though only so long as the man out of time solves the case while combing through “a world he doesn’t recognize.”
Throw in a slightly remixed version of Nine Inch Nails “The Beginning of the End” and eureka! Netflix has its very own cyberbunk television series, which begins streaming Friday, February 2nd.
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