After completing another series that ran along for 6 seasons, I was looking forward to try a new series that did not have too many episodes in a season. While searching for it, I found this series playing on Netflix which only had 10 episodes, plus the story seemed really interesting. So I decided to start watching this one. OK, let us get into the series now.
Brief Story Line
Story was set in the very distant future where a person's memories and consciousness could be backup in a chip (referred to as "stack") put inside the neck and when the person died, the stack could be put inside another body and the person would be "alive" again with his memory intact. The body which was called "sleeve" could be other people who had suffered "real death" (permanently died without the backup when stack was destroyed) or it could also be the clone of the person's body. This could result to people literally live forever, but usually only the very rich called Meth could enjoy such privilege.
When the last remaining envoy (a group of rebel army that had been stopped centuries ago) named Takeshi Kovacs was sleeved into a new body after 250 years (played by Joel Kinnaman - Suicide Squad, House of Cards TV series etc), he was hired by richest Meth in the world named Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy - Rome TV series, Equity etc) to solve his own murder. However, the police lieutenant Kristin Ortega (Martha Higareda - No Manches Frida etc) suspected Takeshi's motive being an envoy who was stamped as terrorist.
Takeshi who finally accepted the assignment, enlisted the unlikely help from an AI who ran a hotel called Poe (Chris Conner). He also suspected various people including Bancroft's wife Miriam (Kristin Lehman - The Loft, Motive TV series etc) and a former military named Vernon Elliot (Ato Essandoh). Takeshi also being haunted with his past, especially from his younger sister Reileen (Dichen Lachman - Dollhouse TV series, Too Late etc) and his former leader/lover Quell (Renée Elise Goldsberry - The House with a Clock in Its Walls, One Life to Live TV series etc).
So could Takeshi solve the murder while being suspected by police all the time? And could he be completely free from his past? Find them all in this cool sci-fi series.
End of Brief Story Line
As you can see in the brief story line above that the plot was not really simple. To be honest when I first tried watching the first episode, I was a bit confused and it was a bit challenging for me to understand the story. I even dozed off a bit in the first half hour (although to be fair I might be sleepy coz I watched this at almost midnight). But when one of my wife's best friend's husband told me he just completed the series and he thought it was very good, I decided to give this another chance. So feeling energized, I gave this series a second try and watched this on Sunday evening and I was hooked ever since. I completed 7 episodes so fast and the remaining 3 episodes I finished last night.
To be able to understand the plot you need to concentrate quite hard especially in the first 2 episodes. By then you could already grasp the concept of stack, sleeve, real death and so on which would make you enjoy the series more. Once you understand it, then you could focus on the main plot which was the murder mystery to solve, plus the side story of Takeshi's history and other bit of background story involving the main characters (which were surprisingly quite a lot with 9 overall).
The series was classified as cyber punk due to its story involved a lot about cybernetics, AI etc, although I personally thought that it felt a bit of neo-noir due to its murder mystery and private investigation with Takeshi Kovacs often giving narrative. But whatever the genre it was, you would feel like you were in the world of Blade Runner, or its sequel Blade Runner 2049, especially with those holographic advertisements on the buildings, those flying cars around etc. So fans of this type of genre would surely love this series.
Aside from the stylish way of story telling, it also had a seriously well made visual effects for a TV series. The setting which really looked like in the future, the buildings and many other effects were awesome. There were also quite a lot of very wonderfully done fight sequence. Joel Kinnaman was pretty awesome in playing his character and good in those fight scenes. One thing that I was surprised was his body which was a lot bigger than when he played the detective in The Killing TV series, or even in Robocop. Other cool fight scenes were especially good as well when it involved Martha Higareda and best ones with Dichen Lachman, plus the mysterious killer Ghostwalker (Trieu Tran). There was also a nice guest appearance by Will Yun Lee (Elektra, The Wolverine etc).
The things that I think would be really disturbing to general audience were definitely the quite huge amount of violence and naked scenes, plus some love making scenes. I was quite shocked when even the males were shown naked full frontal. But perhaps nowadays with series like Game of Thrones (earlier seasons) or Spartacaus or Westworld, such scenes are no longer a taboo. Btw, this series was adapted from a novel of the same title written by Richard K. Morgan who also wrote 2 more sequels from this novel. And by the looks of the season finale, it definitely gave us a hint of what the second season would be (it had been announced that there would be a second season).
Overall, I really enjoyed the series, especially with the story, the special effects, the action scenes and some of the twists. My favorite episodes were episode 3, 4, 6 and of course the finale with that surprising twist and climax fight scene, although there were also slower paced episodes in the middle. If you are fans of this type of genre, it is definitely a nice option and since it plays in Netflix, it should not be difficult to watch it. But if you are not a fan of such type, or you dislike the amount of violence & nude scenes, then you probably could not enjoy the series. The choice is yours.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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