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Is the title character of the new Apple TV+ series Murderbot the most relatable person, machine, or other in science fiction history? Yes, the security unit (played by Alexander Skarsgård) has no genitals and various deadly weapons built into its artificial body. But its desires are simple:“All I really wanted was to be left alone to watch my shows.”
You see, in the first episode of the show — adapted by Paul and Chris Weitz from the beloved series of novels by Martha Wells —Murderbot (as it has privately dubbed itself) figures out how to disable the module that forces it to obey any orders from humans. And its first order of business is to download thousands of hours of serialized dramas and watch them while its human clients jabber away about their own problems. It is especially fond of one called The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, of which we get frequent glimpses, with John Cho, Jack McBrayer, Clark Gregg, and DeWanda Wise starring in the space opera-within-the-space opera —which seems incredibly cheesy, but don’t try telling that to Murderbot.
The books are told entirely through the eyes of Murderbot, who inadvertently grows to understand human behavior and emotions through Sanctuary Moon and shows like it, and is often disappointed that real people don’t behave like their scripted counterparts. The novels have a dry sense of humor, but are more straight sci-fi with jokes. The Weitz brothers (American Pie, About a Boy) allow us to hear Murderbot’s inner monologue, but there’s also a lot of material shown from the perspective of his latest clients, a touchy-feely group of scientists from a socialist collective who are disgusted by the vast corporation that controls so much of this part of the galaxy (and rented this robot to them). The show is more of a comedy with periodic moments of action, suspense, and pathos. (Episodes usually clock in around a half-hour, if not shorter.)
For the most part, the shift in tone and genre works because of Skarsgård. In some ways, he’s a more straightforward choice for the role than the asexual, agender character described in the books would suggest. But from his first American role, as a Marine aptly nicknamed “Iceman” in the HBO miniseries Generation Kill, through his recent stint as an aloof tech bro on Succession, he usually comes across as emotionally off-kilter or inhuman in some way, as if he were built in a factory himself. His delivery of the voiceover narration is both funny and surprisingly sweet at times, leaning into the idea of Murderbot behaving as if it’s somewhere on the autism spectrum. Eye contact is incredibly stressful for it, social cues frequently elude it, and when a human gets physically affectionate, and even flirty, it’s horrified and thinks, “Melt me down, now!”
The human clients are more of a mixed bag. Noma Dumezweni is very good as Mensah, the group leader who suffers from panic attacks, and who seems the most eager to understand and help their artificial new colleague. David Dastmalchian does some effectively understated work as Gurathin, an artificially enhanced human whose machine implants make him inherently more suspicious of this unusual security unit. And Pen15‘s Anna Konkle has fun for a few episodes as a member of another group who winds up hanging out with Mensah’s crew for a while. But there’s a subplot where lovers Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu) and Arada (Tattiawna Jones) decide to attempt a throuple with Ratthi (Akshay Khanna) that is way too broad and sitcom-y for everything else(*).
(*) Your mileage may vary about what we see of Sanctuary Moon, especially if you know and love the books. A friend who adores them felt it was much sillier and lamer than the version they had in their head. I always interpreted Wells’ references to the show as a way to suggest that Murderbot has bad taste — or, at least, that it is so new to learning about emotion that it’s gravitated towards the most obvious, cliché-ridden material available.
But when a threat appears from which Murderbot has to save his idiot clients, the danger feels real, and the action is staged well, in a way that’s both exciting and also lightly comedic, since Murderbot is a nearly obsolete model that’s often overmatched by its robot or alien opponents. And when the show leans into real emotions, whether or not Murderbot itself feels them, the audience will.
Murderbot isn’t an exact recreation of the books —and it’s too irreverent to be the kind of thing Murderbot would enjoy — but it’s very fun and satisfying as its own thing. Though it might be even more satisfying if it went by the longer title that the security unit proposes at one point when fed up with the crew: Murderbot and Its Selfish Ungrateful Hippie Clients.
The first two episodes of Murderbot begin streaming May 16 on Apple TV+, with additional episodes releasing weekly. I’ve seen the whole 10-episode season.
