Cursed Earworms

 I just finished watching Altered Carbon on Netflix, and the first thing to say is - watch it. And Netflix, make another series, please. It's graphic and sometimes brutal, but also brilliant. It reminds me a bit of the Blade Runner films, and there's no higher praise.

 The key, as always, is the writing. There were surprises all along, in every episode. In this future world consciousness can be kept in a Stack, an electronic box at the back of the neck, and it's from this that all else flows. The whole society is shaped by what that one idea leads to. I don't want to throw out spoilers, so I'll limit myself to saying that life is cheap for most while the wealthy have achieved immortality. All very topical, eh?

 Isaac Asimov once said that when he read a particularly good book he'd get frustrated, and throw it across the room because he hadn't thought of it himself. (He said the same about a bad book, which he threw in disgust. Writers are a funny bunch.) I feel like that about Altered Carbon. It's the best SF series I've ever seen on TV, and there has to be another run. But then, I thought that about Defying Gravity, and that was never renewed. So don't let me down again, and as Homer Simpson said, let me bask in television's warm glowing warming glow.

 Speaking of good writing, Netflix has also done a show called The Good Place. I watched both series of that and they were fabulous, funny and creative all along. As different from Altered Carbon as you can imagine, but very nearly as good. Watch that too, if you can. I don't often watch TV as a habit, though these days I seem to see an awful lot of kids shows, and find myself humming the Mister Tumble songs, which are the most cursed earworms ever. But I do watch Netflix some of the time. Some of their shows are original, clever, and well written. By comparison the shows on the BBC or ITV seem pretty tired.

 I keep seeing adverts on Facebook urging me to submit writing to Netflix, Amazon et al. They're making a lot of new programming and they need scripts. Could I convert one of my novels to a TV show? It's a tempting thought. I've never written a script before, but as I always say, God hates a coward.

 Pip pip.