The TV show (I’ve seen all 10 episodes of the first season), adapted by Laeta Kalogridis ( Terminator: Genisys), feels a lot like one of the Meths: audacious and ever-changing - at various points, it’s a hard-boiled detective story, a dystopian sci-fi epic that spans galaxies, a wire-fu action saga, and a drama about the emotional cost of being able to jump from body to body as the decades pass - but also sticking around well past a point that’s probably healthy for anyone. Morgan, the first of several stories featuring Kovacs and all the talk of stacks and sleeves. The concept, and the plot of this first season, come from the cyberpunk novel by Richard K. With “true death” no longer an equalizer for humanity, the Meths have grown increasingly decadent, cruel, and oblivious to their own failings. The super-rich become known as “Meths,” for Methusaleh, since they can live for centuries, either in clones of their original bodies, sleeves purchased from others, or even specially-grown synthetic bodies that can transform into whatever the wearer desires. Get shot, get sick, or just get bored with your face - or skin color, or gender - and you can be resleeved as many times as you like.

Kovacs isn’t speaking figuratively: the series is set hundreds of years in the future, when technology allows human consciousness to be digitized and placed on discs (called “stacks”) that can be transferred from one body (now called “sleeves”) to another, rendering those with the right amount of cash effectively immortal.

“You lived too long,” Takeshi Kovacs tells a rival in Altered Carbon, the new Netflix sci-fi drama debuting Friday.

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