For every series that exceeds your expectations–say, for example, this weekend’s premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power–a series you have hopes for disappoints. This summer, Apple TV+ subscribers were provided with a weekly dose of what was billed as a psychological thriller. Surface follows a woman of uncertain identity as she tries to find herself after she may have tried to commit suicide by jumping off a ship into the ocean and awakened afterward with amnesia. A series with such a preposterous starting point owes it to viewers to provide some compelling storytelling. With the final episode of its first season arriving this past week, the truth set in. A payoff never happens. Just a corporate effort to get viewers, complete with corporate logos waved at the viewer, banking on doses of cliffhanger endings, all setting up for a batch of unanswered questions for the final scene in hopes someone will pick it up for a second season? Save yourself the time: You have tens of thousands of other series–especially British-led series as this is–with far more compelling stories.
Last week we previewed a teaser for the coming second season of Netflix’s Altered Carbon, and we now have a full trailer from the streaming provider showing us even more. The new trailer confirms the near wipe-out of the main cast from the first season, with only the artificial intelligence named Poe remaining, played by Chris Conner(Burn Notice, House, Bones) and a new kind of robot. Two supporting characters clearly get a bigger role this season: Renee Goldsberry (Star Trek Enterprise, Life on Mars) as Falconer, a platoon leader from the past, and the original form of the series lead, played by Will Yun Lee(Hawaii Five-O, Bionic Woman, Witchblade). It’s too bad for those who thought cop Kristin Ortega, played by Mexican actress Martha Higareda(McFarland USA, Royal Pains), was the highlight of the series–she and first season lead Joel Kinnaman(RoboCop, Suicide Squad) seem to be out this time.
In fact other than Poe the new trailer appears like Season Two could easily be an entirely new sci-fi series. Alison Schapker is the new series executive producer and showrunner. Anthony Mackie(Captain America: Winter Soldier, The Adjustment Bureau) is in the driver’s seat as the new “sleeve” or body inhabited by Takeshi Kovacs, hero of the Richard K. Morgan novel the show is based on. Kovacs is a future soldier in a world where science has developed a hard drive called a “stack” that is implanted in humans’ necks, enabling our memories to be uploaded to storage and replanted over and over so we seemingly can live forever, even in new bodies (see our review of the first season here). Allowing Kovacs and other characters to be played by any number of actors (so the series could potentially run forever like Doctor Who) for the second season will be something new for many Netflix viewers.
Season Two begins thirty years after the last episode, with Kovacs continuing his search for Falconer (explaining why so many first season characters are no longer around). New to the series, and highlighted in this trailer, are Simone Missick(Marvel’s Luke Cage, The Defenders) as Trepp, Lela Loren(Chuck, Lost) as Governor Danica Harlan, and Torben Liebrecht(Homeland, Luther) as Colonel Carrera, with James Saito(Prodigal Son, Law & Order) as Tanaseda Hidecki.
Check it out the new poster (above) and this new trailer:
It’s a fantastic sci-fi series with a stellar cast and a story and production values that rival the original Blade Runner and its 2017 sequel. It’s Netflix’s Altered Carbon, based on Richard K. Morgan’s novel of the same name, a story about Takeshi Kovacs, a future soldier in a world where science has developed a hard drive called a “stack” that is implanted in humans’ necks, allowing our memories to be uploaded to storage and replanted over and over so they seemingly can live forever, even in new bodies called “sleeves.” See our review of the first season here. Allowing Kovacs and other characters to be played by any number of actors (allowing the series to run forever like Doctor Who), for the second season that means Anthony Mackie(Captain America: Winter Soldier, The Adjustment Bureau) is replacing Joel Kinnaman(RoboCop, Suicide Squad) as series lead. Netflix revealed its first teaser for the new season this week. Check it out below!
So fans of the Syd Mead, Ridley Scott, and Philip K. Dick brand of futurism, and all things borg, should catch up on the first season now. What does it mean to be human, and how much can you shed away and replace with technology and still retain the “self”? Altered Carbon tackles the philosophical questions The Matrix film series tried to answer. Kovacs is a 300-year-old soldier. As a seasoned fighter 250 years ago he was the last of a mercenary group called the Envoys, leading a rebellion against the new world order. This is a bleak world, filled with virtual reality and virtual sex, body swapping and trafficking, and the kind of tech noir, bleak, dystopian realm seen in Strange Days, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Ready Player One, The Running Man, Brazil, Total Recall, with the violence of A Clockwork Orange.
The new teaser trailer showcases Mackie, but also shows glimpses of returning characters, including Kovacs former platoon leader, played by Renee Goldsberry(Star Trek Enterprise, Life on Mars), the original Kovacs, played by Will Yun Lee (Hawaii Five-O, Bionic Woman, Witchblade), the artificial intelligence named Poe who is the runner of a seedy hotel, played by Chris Conner(Burn Notice, House, Bones). Unfortunately it doesn’t look like the fantastic cop Kristin Ortega, played by Mexican actress Martha Higareda(McFarland USA, Royal Pains), will be back, but new additions include Simone Missick(Marvel’s Luke Cage, The Defenders), Neal McDonough (Captain America: The First Avenger, Walking Tall, The X-Files,), and Alessandro Juliani(Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Battlestar Galactica).
Check out this quick look at season two of Altered Carbon:
It’s a fantastic sci-fi series with a stellar cast and a story and production values that rival the original Blade Runner and its 2017 sequel: Altered Carbon is based on Richard K. Morgan’s novel of the same name, a story about Takeshi Kovacs, a future soldier in a world where science has developed a hard drive called a “stack” that is implanted in humans’ necks, allowing our memories to be uploaded to storage and replanted over and over so they seemingly can live forever, even in new bodies. That conceit allows Kovacs and other characters to be played by any number of actors, which could allow the series to run forever much as Doctor Who’s regeneration mechanism allows replacement Doctors. Originally launched on Netflix in 2018, Altered Carbon has been extended for a second season, with filming underway last year, and viewers should expected a second season trailer and 2020 air date any day. Which means fans of the Syd Mead, Ridley Scott, and Philip K. Dick brand of futurism, and all things borg, should catch up on the first season now. What does it mean to be human, and how much can you shed away and replace with technology and still retain the “self”? Altered Carbon tackles the philosophical questions The Matrix film series tried to answer.
Kovacs, played by several actors (more on that below), is a 300-year-old soldier. As a seasoned fighter 250 years ago he was the last of a mercenary group called the Envoys, leading a rebellion against the new world order. Kovacs’s stack is shelved for the intervening 250 years until one of the wealthiest men alive, Laurens Bancroft, played by James Purefoy (an actor who has been runner up for the James Bond film roles and appeared in A Knight’s Tale and The Following), buys his stack and puts it in a new body or “sleeve,” giving Kovacs the opportunity to live anew if he agrees to find Bancroft’s killer. This is a bleak world, filled with virtual reality and virtual sex, body swapping and trafficking, and the kind of tech noir, bleak, dystopian realm seen in Strange Days, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Ready Player One, The Running Man, Brazil, Total Recall, with the violence of A Clockwork Orange, but maybe not so hopeless as in Elysium, Mad Max, Gattaca, Terminator, and Dredd.
The series, which has a slow start and doesn’t kick into high gear until the second episode, also has the John Carpenter Escape from New York vibe but with Blade Runner visuals and effects, plus the creative elements of Total Recall that made for some unexpected surprises. Altered Carbon is a close match to RoboCop as future science and technology goes, so it’s easy to see why the casting agents brought along RoboCop remake star Joel Kinnaman as Kovacs’ primary sleeve in the first season. This sleeve was last owned by a cop killed in duty named Ryker. Ryker’s partner, Kristin Ortega, played by Mexican actress Martha Higareda(McFarland USA, Royal Pains), takes on the role of the season’s co-lead, struggling as she sees her old partner’s body and acting to protect his sleeve, trying to solve the murder of Bancroft, and uncovering the bad cops in the bureau. Ortega is a badass character in a small package who gets in and out of several fights that would take down anyone else in any other story, and she is the high point of the series–at one point an incident results in a loss of an arm, soon replaced by a powerful cybernetic arm. An interesting twist is that her family are Catholics, and in this future Catholics don’t believe in the stacks, which means once they die they are dead forever. This sets up one of the more interesting plot threads. If it seems like the series has a lot going on, that’s because it does. But it all comes together in a satisfying way in the final episodes.
Start with the obvious comparison: Marvel’s Iron Fist. If you were disappointed with that series, get ready for what you probably wanted. It’s called Wu Assassins, and the ten episodes of the new direct-to-Netflix series arrived late this past summer. Wu Assassins weaves so much into its ten very different chapters of its storytelling, you’ll quickly find it’s not only an American attempt at a wuxia martial arts heroes show–it bends the genre into a supernatural, urban fantasy story with characters on the brink of their unique brand of apocalypse, with several Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Grimm parallels. And lots of lots of great hand-to-hand fight scenes. This may not measure up to being the next Buffy or a top Chinese tale like Legend of the Condor Heroes, but as a watch-alike, it far surpasses the Buffy spinoff Angel, as well as most of the Marvel Netflix series. If Netflix can pull together series like Wu Assassins, especially with absolute writing freedom and without the need to rely on some existing brand like DC or Marvel (or anything Disney), then its future is secured.
The world of Wu Assassins begins in our world today, as we meet Kai Jin, played by 36-year-old Indonesian actor and burgeoning martial arts pro, stuntman, and fight choreographer Iko Uwais. Kai is a young master chef who wants to own his own food cart in San Francisco’s Chinatown. This is a Chosen One story, and Kai is introduced to a world where the Chinese philosophy of wuxing is interpreted to rely on human masters of the elements of this world (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water) who can exist both in this realm and a supernatural otherworld. In the middle of an already difficult life, Kai is tapped as the Wu Assassin and he is told by a bellwether and instructor from the otherworld named Ying Ying, played by Celia Au(Lodge 49, Iron Fist, Gotham), that he must kill the Fire Wu, who just happens to be Kai’s adoptive father, known by most as Uncle Six. He’s not just any dad, as Uncle Six, played masterfully by the scene stealing Byron Mann(The Expanse, Arrow, Smallville, Dark Angel), is also the head of the Chinese crime family, the Triads.
Kai’s Buffy-esque band of friends includes a restaurant owner named Jenny Wah (Li Jun Li, The Exorcist, Quantico), her drug-adled brother Tommy (Lawrence Kao, Sleepy Hollow, The Walking Dead), and Kai’s oldest friend Lu Xin (Lewis Tan, Iron Fist, Deadpool 2), who is a suave up-and-coming thief of high-end cars. Spliced into the story is a San Francisco cop played by The Vikings queen Katheryn Winnick, a badass on a motorcycle who knows her own street fighting and inadvertently witnesses the magic of the otherworld while undercover trying to bust gang activity at China Basin. These lead characters are just the beginning, as the series packs in a few seasons’ worth of ideas, and all of it is great fun.
When she last left us at the end of last season’s finale of the USA Network TV series Fairly Legal, Sarah Shahi’s character Kate Reed shouted defiantly “I’ll be back!” challenging the network to not renew for another season. Luckily for all of us, she was right, as the series continues Friday, March 16.
Fairly Legal was a great series all season long last year, and here are 5 reasons why you should catch up on episodes online or on demand and get ready for the season two premiere:
(1) Sarah Shahi. So many actors and actresses get boring over the course of a weekly TV series. Likely the brutal production schedules wear people down, especially for leading roles such as the one Shahi plays as lawyer Kate Reed where Shahi is in pretty much every minute of production. This often makes it to the screen. Not so for Sarah Shahi. She is like a bottle of pure energy. She has an infectious smile and sells the role as a put-upon, modern lawyer trying to juggle professional duties and private life in the modern world. If you want to see Shahi in another great series, check out the two seasons of Life, co-starring the brilliant Homeland star Damian Lewis.
(2) Gerald McRaney. Not since he starred in Simon & Simon has McRaney played such a likeable character as his decidedly unlikeable Judge David Nicastro. McRaney drove Kate relentlessly through the first season not for the sake of keeping Kate in line, but to bring out her best. McRaney’s Judge is very real–practical in his needs and not the textbook black and white executioner type that appears in so many legal dramas.
(3) Good writing. Kate Reed is probably the most realistic depiction of a working lawyer that has ever appeared on a TV legal drama. Unlike district attorneys Jack McCoy and Ben Stone from the original Law and Order, who, to be sure, were characters that all lawyers aspire to, Kate doesn’t deliver perfect advice her first time out. She does not come off as polished. She deals with hostile conditions. She has to be both juggler, policeman, and fire fighter. And that means prioritizing, and like most lawyers she over-commits her time, resulting in the need to make quick decisions. Kate illustrates that the number one of job of any lawyer is problem solving, and like most real lawyers, she doesn’t spend the day arguing in court, but instead trying to settle disputes, attempting always to reach the coveted “win-win.”
(4) San Francisco. Let’s face it, San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities to film a TV series. Over the years countless stories have been filmed there, including Bullitt, Streets of San Francisco, Dirty Harry, Monk, Sneakers, Star Trek IV, Vertigo, and So I Married an Axe Murderer, and the bustling but sunny and vibrant downtown with iconic filming locations make San Francisco come off as not a big city full of dangers, but a place you can see Kate making her mark.
(5) Supporting cast. If you are a fan of the reboot Battlestar Galactica, you will remember actor Michael Trucco, who plays Kate’s on again-off again husband on Fairly Legal. He plays the typical lawyer you’d see in any other legal drama, which, in contrast to Kate, allows us to see how exceptional her skills really are. Baron Vaughn’s character Leonardo Prince is Kate’s also-put-upon assistant. He is hilarious as a legal assistant who behind the scenes is a big pop culture junkie, and over the course of the first season showed that Kate, even as chaotic as she seems, may very well be a good mentor.
So what’s the series all about? Kate Reed’s father died, living his law firm to Kate and his second wife, Lauren, played icily by Virginia Williams. Kate decided not to be a traditional lawyer, but instead be a mediator–here a lawyer hired by two parties to a dispute to resolve their differences, much like a dual agent. Kate and Lauren barely tolerate each other, and Lauren actually fires Kate from the firm at the end of season one. Once Kate takes a case she is fiercely passionate and is willing to tear up her own personal life to get to a happy result for her disputing clients. In one superbly crafted scene last season, Kate encounters a bicyclist and a taxi driver in an altercation. Although she is a mere bystander, she bends the world to fit her logic, practically strong-arming both of them to resolve their differences and move along. And she lives on a boat.
Fairly Legal airs this spring along with the equally brilliant In Plain Sight Friday nights on USA Network.
