Murderbot is a comedy, first and foremost, and one of its key jokes is how little murder is in it, given the title. There’s a reason for that, and it’s quite capably put across in Episodes 1 & 2 of this Apple TV+ adaptation of the Martha Wells books. But it requires some explaining to fully understand.
Alexander Skarsgard’s SecUnit is a cyborg manufactured by the hyper-capitalist Corporation Rim to blindly protect its interests. The Security Units are designed to do everything humans say without question, thanks to a “governor module” that keeps them helpfully compliant. But our SecUnit has hacked its module and developed a nascent free will. One of his earliest realizations is that he could just murder everyone. Hence, Murderbot.
But no murder. One of the governor module’s functions is preventing the SecUnits from going postal and murdering their employers, so our SecUnit has to remain pacifistic – within reason – so as not to reveal that he has tampered with his own systems. This means he has to behave as normal, which means being hired by a bunch of hippie scientists who’re heading to a barren Dune-style desert planet – complete with Dune-style sandworms – for an exploratory mission and are contractually mandated to take a SecUnit along for insurance purposes.
The most essential push-pull of Murderbot Episodes 1 and 2 is SecUnit’s efforts to process his new thoughts and feelings while trying to keep up appearances among the science team, which comprises Mensah (Noma Dumezweni, The Watcher), Arada (Tattiawna Jones), Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu), Bharadwaj (Tamara Podemski, Outer Range), Ratthi (Akshay Khanna), and Gurathin (David Dastmalchian, Boston Strangler; Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania; Batman: The Long Halloween). The latter is an augmented human tech whizz who is the primary threat to SecUnit because he’s the only one who can tell that his behaviour is contrary to his programming; he’s also the one who can withhold SecUnit’s access to the systems that allow him to do his job, however impassive he might feel about it.
There’s a secondary pull here, which is a mystery involving what the science team is up to and what secrets the planet holds, but that’s significantly less of a priority than SecUnit’s internal monologue and the social dynamics among the team, especially as they relate to SecUnit, making Murderbot’s intentions as a show pretty clear. It’s a refreshing take on the usual “rogue cyborg” format, but it also means that Skarsgard’s performance has to carry the entire thing.
Luckily, Skarsgard’s performance is really good. His deadpan humour is very funny and his social awkwardness and confusion allow him to “bond” with the scientists in unexpected ways as he tries to reconcile their surprising kindness and understanding with his belief that all humans are useless morons. It stands to reason, then, that SecUnit is basing his entire understanding of people and how to interact with them on a sci-fi soap opera he watches tirelessly through his entertainment feed.
Akshay Khanna, Sabrina Wu, David Dastmalchian, Noma Dumezweni and Tattiawna Jones in Murderbot | Image via Apple TV+
This show is titled The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, and doesn’t just get mentioned but has its own – surprisingly good – cast, including Clark Gregg and John Cho. Murderbot occasionally shifts over to it as SecUnit tries to spend some time relaxing or find case studies to work through a particular interpersonal problem. This sounds annoying, but it’s actually quite well utilized because Sanctuary Moon is exaggerated to such a ridiculous extent that it forms a funny counterpoint to SecUnit’s real-world interactions.
The biggest conflict in Episodes 1 & 2 of Murderbot turns out not to be the sandworm or any of the planet’s other fauna, but Gurathin, who keeps pressing SecUnit on his uncharacteristic behaviours. Skarsgard’s interactions with David Dastmalchian are great and highlight what a smart decision it was to allow viewers to see the SecUnit’s face. I’ve read All Systems Red, the novella that this season is based on, and while the book version of the character comes across as smarter and a bit more calculated than Skarsgard’s take, his is more personable because of his dopey expressions.
My familiarity with that story makes me a bit concerned about how Apple TV+ has deigned to release this show, mind. A double-bill premiere works fine since it allows enough time for the characters and the core ideas to bed in, but each subsequent episode will be released weekly and is only 25 minutes long, which seems to suggest that the book’s thin plot will translate to a relatively thin show. For now, Skarsgard’s performance is enough to carry it, but it’ll need to pick up in other areas as it goes to sustain interest, because the supporting cast isn’t that interesting and the worldbuilding is flimsy.
Still, it’s well worth it – for now – for the lead performance and some of the underlying ideas, and an upside of the episodes being so short is that you don’t feel short-changed if you don’t necessarily love the show. Let’s give this one a few weeks.
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