‘Altered Carbon’s Premise Could Have Let It Run For Decades Like ‘Doctor Who’

Since debuting in 1963, Doctor Who has been shouldering the burden of existing as an unusually sustainable sci-fi show. However, Netflix once had a cyberpunk project that could easily have taken over as Doctor Who‘s spiritual successor. If only it hadn’t been canceled after just two seasons. While the show in question had several big differences compared to the long-running British franchise, a key part of its central premise was remarkably familiar.

Of course, Doctor Who is still going, despite its fall from grace in recent years. So, Doctor Who is actually the modern-day Doctor Who. The show’s revolving door of lead actors is baked into its generational storyline, which gives it the chance to continue without end. It thrives on the concept of change, which is a true rarity in the TV industry. Audiences generally love consistency, which makes Doctor Who‘s ongoing success even more of an outlier. It’s uncommon for a formula like this to come along, but Netflix found a cool variation on the BBC’s blueprint. Sadly, it failed to achieve anything close to Doctor Who‘s longevity.

‘Altered Carbon’ Offered Netflix the Chance To Have a Long-Running Sci-Fi Show

Altered Carbon ran for two seasons between 2018 and 2020. The Netflix show’s inaugural run was led by Joel Kinnaman as Takeshi Kovacs, but the in-universe canon immediately made it clear the main character isn’t defined by the actor playing him. Within Altered Carbon lore, human consciousness is backed up to a storage device called a stack, which is implanted at birth. If the stack survives, it can be inserted into a new body in the event of death, and the person is functionally resurrected.

Even in Altered Carbon Season 1, Kinnaman shares the role of Kovacs with Will Yun Lee. Kinnaman stepped aside for narrative reasons in Season 2 and was replaced by Anthony Mackie, with Lee’s Kovacs also remaining part of the story. The rampant recasting of Altered Carbon‘s protagonist is openly acknowledged by the Netflix show, just as Doctor Who draws attention to when a new actor takes over from their predecessor.

Sadly, Season 2 didn’t perform as well as Altered Carbon‘s first run, and Netflix pulled the plug. What’s frustrating about this is that the show had limitless potential when it came to how long it could run. Interplanetary travel is a big part of Altered Carbon‘s larger story, but it’s achieved by transmitting consciousness between worlds. This means a new body is often necessary after the digitized journey across the stars. There’s no reliance on a consistent face of the show for Altered Carbon, and it actually would have made less sense if anyone played Kovacs for too long. Still, it wasn’t to be, and Doctor Who remains one-of-a-kind in refining this formula.

‘Altered Carbon’ Season 2 Had Already Made a Necessary Change to Accommodate a Long Run

A book trilogy by Richard K. Morgan is what Netflix used as the source material for Altered Carbon. Season 1 is an incredibly faithful adaptation of the first novel. This initially made it seem like Netflix intended to make three seasons and adapt one book each time. When Season 2 landed, this assumption evaporated. Anthony Mackie’s Takeshi Kovacs experienced what was essentially an entirely original cyberpunk story that only borrowed a handful of very specific elements from the books.

In theory, Altered Carbon could have continued to disregard the source material, treating it largely as a narrative sandbox to help write countless new seasons that felt like they belonged in the same universe. Each successive run could have introduced a new star as Kovacs, and the show had already proven that the coming together of multiple versions of the character is possible for landmark events. This would have created an awesome semi-anthological formula where every run formed a standalone adventure. This is also essentially how the Altered Carbon books work. It would have been incredibly unlikely to run anywhere near as long as Doctor Who, but it still would have been great to see a whole lot more from Takeshi Kovacs.

Release Date

2018 – 2020-00-00

Network

Netflix

Directors

Alex Graves, Ciaran Donnelly, M.J. Bassett, Nick Hurran, Peter Hoar, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Uta Briesewitz, Jeremy Webb, Andy Goddard, Miguel Sapochnik

Writers

Brian Nelson, Garrett Lerner, Russel Friend, Steve Blackman, Adam Lash, Laeta Kalogridis, Nevin Densham, Alison Schapker

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