Murderbot

What’s it about?

Murderbot is a rogue AI security unit tasked with protecting humans while wrestling with autonomy and its dislike of social interaction.

Starring

Alexander Skarsgard, Noma Dumezweni, David Dastmalchian, Sabrina Wu, Akshay Khanna, Tamara Podemski, Tattiawna Jones

An Introduction to Murderbot

In the opening moments of Murderbot, we meet our eponymous character (played by True Blood‘s Alexander Skarsgard), a security cyborg who has hacked its ‘governor module’ to gain free will. Now self-aware, it names itself and aims to keep a low profile. Murderbot is subsequently assigned to protect a group of scientists on a remote planet which it finds rather inconvenient.

Despite its newfound autonomy and new vocation, Murderbot prefers to binge-watch its favorite streaming soap opera, “The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon”, rather than engage with humans. However, when the team faces a deadly threat, Murderbot is forced to confront its responsibilities and protect those it was assigned to guard. This reluctant hero’s journey sets the tone for the series, blending sci-fi action with dark humor and existential musings.

Summary

Murderbot is a sci-fi action-comedy series based on Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries. The show explores themes of autonomy, identity, and the complexities of human emotions through the lens of a reluctant robotic protagonist.

We follow our misanthropic hero grumpily navigating its new predicament on a potentially hostile planet, having to interact with a group of quirky and often annoying humans, all the while pretending to be an obliging automaton. If they find out our protagonist has free will, it will almost certainly be sent back to the factory as ‘faulty’ and re-programmed or retired.

Murderbot is undemandingly entertaining fun, and Skarsgard has a blast playing the character’s mixture of naivete and cynicism with a sprinkling of misanthropy, chiming especially with viewers who feel exhausted by modern-day demands and little downtime. How appropriate then, to take time out to binge-watch a show about a cyborg who would rather be binge-watching. Shweet!

Check out the Season 1 Trailer here: