Netflixing

I started watching Altered Carbon a while back and ended up taking a break partway through because... hmm... perhaps because the episodes are an "hour" long plus general seriousness. But I came back and finished it, and I don't mean any of that as a knock against the series. It's set much more in the future than what I typically think of as "cyberpunk" but it very much holds true to the themes of the genre - AI, gentrification, questioning humanity. There's a mystery for the main character is hired to unravel that turns into much more along the way. It does all that well and looks good. The characters are generally solid. There are some truly great moments of acting when certain characters are dealing with their consciousness being loaded into very different bodies.
I think the series leans a bit heavily into unveiling new things to open up more questions every episode or two. Whether that's a good or bad thing may be up for interpretation, but I could have used just a touch less of it. And, sort of connected to that, the finale pulls together a whole lot of threads arguably too neatly. Still, it's pretty good for ten episodes of solid science fiction.

I also got into watching Bojack Horseman. It's gone through five seasons and I'm sure I was aware of it earlier. I'm not sure the anthropomorphic animals living alongside humans aspect adds much, other than the occasional joke and some variety of appearance, but that's certainly not the main point. No, rather it's a tale of a wealthy, jaded actor with a self-destructive streak and the people around him. That doesn't sound like much, but I have found it to be incredibly well balanced. Even the more silly characters develop to have a great deal of depth and I found it captivating in how it examines them and their flaws. Hopes and failures. It should probably be harder to connect with a character who is so wealthy and entitles, but the ways in which he is broken makes that easy. One of the huge themes of the show is how all these people are largely trapped in their own cycles of behavior.
And that is why, as much as I might sing the praises of the show and want it to be an experience I could share wither others, I can't wholeheartedly recommend it.
It's easy for me to look at these characters and see reflected pieces of my own behavior. The specifics may be very different, but watching a character not only acknowledge, but also deride himself for, acting in some way he doesn't like, yet still be unable (or unwilling) to shake it rings oh-so-very true. And if I'm any measure, that can be pretty depressing to think about.