While both Altered Carbon and True Detective are modern classics, only one upcoming Prime Video show can promise to be the perfect mashup between them. It is hard to overestimate just how much True Detective changed the game for modern detective dramas. While the Justified franchise might have more seasons and spinoffs to its name, HBO’s acclaimed 2014 hit helped shape the style and tone of everything from Mare of Easttown to Mindhunter to Sharp Objects to Under the Banner of Heaven.
The twisty, unpredictable first season of True Detective followed Matthew McConaughey’s Rust Cole and Woody Harrelson’s Marty Hart investigating a string of seemingly interconnected killings that all bore the hallmarks of ritual sacrifices. As the pair gradually began to uncover a shadowy human trafficking ring, their respective personal lives fell apart over the show’s two intersecting timelines. Although all of True Detective’s seasons are worth watching, the show never topped its mesmerizing, endlessly influential debut outing.
One only few similarly acclaimed detective dramas that is rarely compared to True Detective is Netflix’s Altered Carbon, a cyberpunk sci-fi thriller based on the novel of the same name by author Richard K. Morgan. Set 360 years in the future, Altered Carbon takes place in a world where “resleeving,” i.e. transferring a human consciousness from one body into another, is a privilege the ultrarich can use to cheat death. While this high-concept sci-fi show may sound nothing like HBO’s comparatively grounded crime drama, Prime Video’s upcoming Blade Runner 2099 promises to blend True Detective perfectly with Altered Carbon.
Blade Runner 2099 Is One of The Most Exciting Sci-Fi Noir Series Ever
Altered Carbon season 1 sees Joel Kinnaman’s rebel soldier turned reluctant detective, Takeshi Kovacs, tasked with solving the murder of a rich, corrupt elite, Meth Laurens Bancroft, who survived his apparent death by resleeving. Of course, this being a cyberpunk story, things soon get more complicated as Kovacs realizes he is being set up by some shady actors and ends up needing to resleeve himself as the show’s knotty plot unfolds.
Since Blade Runner was based on one of the most iconic cyberpunk novels of all time, author Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, it should come as no surprise that the upcoming spinoff Blade Runner 2099 will share some stylistic trademarks of the genre with Altered Carbon. The show’s story is set to follow Everything Everywhere All at Once star Michelle Yeoh’s Olwen, a Replicant who faces her imminent termination as she reaches the end of her predetermined lifespan.
With a stacked supporting cast including Hunter Schafer, Johnny Harris, and Amy Lennox, Blade Runner 2099 promises to be one of the most exciting upcoming sci-fi shows. However, the show will also be a detective thriller, with Olwen playing the story’s unconventional sleuth. As such, like the upcoming DC series Lanterns, Blade Runner 2099 is likely to borrow some stylistic tricks from True Detective, too.
Blade Runner 2099 Cements The Cyberpunk Genre’s Small-Screen Comeback
Since True Detective season 1 set the gold standard for detective shows in the 21st century, all manner of entries into the genre have borrowed from its playbook. Even shows with sci-fi, horror, and fantasy elements like 2019’s Watchmen reboot and 2020’s Stephen King adaptation The Outsider still take direction from the legendary series, so it is almost inevitable that Prime Video’s Blade Runner 2099 will continue this trend.
Since both Blade Runner and its belated sequel Blade Runner 2049 were dark, grim noir stories, it would make sense for Blade Runner 2099 to bring back this gritty, grounded tone. This could allow the Prime Video series to share True Detective’s bleak feel while Blade Runner 2099 remains as outlandish as Netflix’s Altered Carbon in terms of its futuristic sci-fi storytelling.
