Netflix cancels 'Altered Carbon' after just two seasons | Hacker News Reader

Netflix cancels 'Altered Carbon' after just two seasons

engadget.com

36 pointstosh25 comments

Not surprised, season 2 was rather lacking, especially after the amazing first season.

If you liked the story and idea I would recommend breading the Novel trilogy it's based on. Season 1 was fairly close to the first book while the second one was a really weird and IMHO badly done mix of the later two.

Wow. I’m amazed you thought season 1 was even vaguely close to the book.

I never even tried season 2, they diverged so much (and so irritatingly!) from the books in season 1.

My comment wasn’t on the book or the show’s relation to the book, just the Netflix series.

Is it a good book/series?

tl;dr I've enjoyed them enough to buy them three times: once on kindle, once paperback, and again paperback as a set.... but I wouldn't rate them as 'high literature'.

I enjoyed them, though they do have flaws. They embody some of the firm tropes of cyberpunk--lots of sex, lots of grisly violence.

The first one is a fantastically done mystery, IMhO. The second and third do some marvelous worldbuilding.

In hindsight, they do remind me of The Expanse's writing a bit.

IMHO, much like the show it started spectacularly and spent its fuel too soon. I thoroughly enjoyed all 3 books, but there were definitely diminishing returns.

I will say even at its worst the trilogy is still better than the show (at least season 2)

Season 1 was fantastic. Season 2 was meh. I would have been surprised if there was a third, not only because S2 was lacklustre but because Netflix is known to cancel after 2 seasons from a cost perspective. It turns out they don't do S3s because contracts are up for renegotiation and they repeat their formula on a new and different show. It's purely optimising cost and investment on a show.

I can watch pretty much anything with a spaceship in it. You put it a spaceship, it's like i'm 60 IQ points dumber (if we believed that IQ points were a real thing and the intelligence can be measured on a one dimensional objective scale). If there's a spaceship I will tolerate bad dialogue, cardboard characters, absurd plots even absurd lack of plots. I'm willing to give you spaceship show makers a budget of 60 IQ points worth of stupid, but why? why do you need it?

The good writers have no shows and the shows with great budgets appear to not have writers.

Frustratingly, the books had a brilliant set of concepts for them to work with--and even tweak, a bit! But they diverged so crazily from that in S2 to go off in a "Netflix tries to create 3am Syfy" direction.

Even with reliable material, Netflix finds a way to make it disappointing.

Seems to be an incredibly common problem. TV writers don't seem able to make good stories, perhaps the skills needed are quite different. It's notable that nearly all high budget TV serials in recent years are adaptations of books. Knowing the books were successful surely reduces the risk, but then having found a winning formula the TV firm wants the series to last forever. They run out of book material and then the story goes off the rails as the TV writers can't match it. GoT being a classic example.

I suspect the issue is timelines. TV projects are managed with tight deadlines because they expect a new series within a year. A book can be released more or less whenever the writer wants, as they answer to nobody unless they signed some sort of multi-book deal which is rare. Writers take more of the financial risk on themselves, whereas in TV it's the TV firm taking all the financial risk. So you get whatever plot they could come up with in 6 weeks or however long they have, and it can't match the quality of a story where perhaps the writer spent a year on it.

It also appears that society as a whole is over-optimizing using clustering in a low dimensional space. It is quite ironic to me that I will say this, as I love animation as an art form, it can convey abstract ideas that are almost impossible in any other medium. But, the world is becoming more cartoonish and flat as PCA and k-means amplify the dimensions that optimize the outcomes. Equivalence is skin deep, we wrap things in a veneer of chrome, carbon fiber and hardwoods. The message is 100% medium.

Sucks, I'd like to see them stick with and develop a good show for a while. Many older shows didn't get really good until the third season. Orange ITNB survived a bad season.

Re Altered Carbon, I loved S1 because of the mystery. A minor reason was because I wasn't familiar with any of the actors, makes it easier to get immersed. Didn't like S2 as much, partially because of the new leads, who tended to be folks from other shows... the Avengers guy, the lady cop from Luke Cage, and Damian Dark. I think I let out an audible grown when he came onscreen.

I'd rather watch fewer higher quality shows than the next one, they will now produce instead. I suppose my new strategy is to not start a Netflix show until it hits its third or fourth (cough Daredevil+) season.

They broke too much of the universe in the first season. The second and third books are largely unworkable after the changes they made. Like the envoys being revolutionaries in the show but being ultra competent UN soldiers who terrify planets due to their personalities and training in the books. Or Quellcrist Falconer being turned into his girlfriend as opposed to a historical figure. Or not having the retired envoys turned surf bum bank robbing gang.

Not supprised. Season 2 had clearly outlived it's premise and had nothing more to offer around the whole body swapping concept. Season 1, while not perfect, made a good contribution to small screen sci-fi and had nice thematic and stylistic elements.

As usual, budget constraints ruin all artistic visions.

Because writers demand such large salaries, if only they would lots it over the rest of society.

I watched Star Trek (TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise), The Expanse, Orville, Continuum, Altered Carbon S1, Farscape, Firefly, Travelers, Dark, and even Stargate Universe.

What do you recommend watching next?

Battlestar Galactica (2004)

Fringe, Stargate, Stargate Atlantis (though Rodney's constant yelling gets annoying, sort of like Scott Bakula's of Enterprise; neither are great actors). Dark Matter is good too, but it ends abruptly after 3 seasons without an ending.

Fringe gets a little lame/silly when the alternate universe starts getting featured in the later seasons, but at least it does have an actual ending.

I really hate that aspect of the new TV programming models: studios don't even have the courtesy to write a few "wrap up" episodes at the end. Instead, they show a preview of the next season, then have no problem with just canceling it.

Babylon 5

Did the show have a good ending (ie no cliff hangers?) It is on my watch list, but not if everything is unresolved...

Watching S1 is worth it in my opinion, it wraps up the story line but still leaves a lot unanswered. S2 might as well be a different show and I wouldn't bother.

SOB I was just finishing up Season 2.

yea I trudged through season 2.. season 1 was great and had all sorts of good stuff going on with it... I kind of want to watch season 1 again to try to figure out what went wrong..

this was my favorite show by far!

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