Source : the age
Murderbot ★★★½
Pulpy and irreverent, Murderbot is a mash-up of science-fiction philosophy, creature feature action, and existential anxiety. Guided by the dry, not-quite-human tone of its protagonist – a rogue cyborg played by Alexander Skarsgard that has acquired free will and unironically renamed itself Murderbot – this sly and sometimes subversive series feels like a mix of Robocop and an old adventure serial, complete with cliffhangers and 25-minute episodes. If you had to label its goofy, satiric style I’d opt for Philip K. Dick-head.
Alexander Skarsgard plays a cyborg in the futuristic action-comedy Murderbot.
The show is set in a galaxy-spanning future, where Murderbot is hired out as a SecUnit (security unit) on mining stations and exploratory expeditions.
Hacking his programming should have been a triumph, but Murderbot can’t do anything to draw attention to their freedom lest its owners immediately recycle their mix of machine parts and human flesh. The best it can do is covertly watch downloaded space soaps such as The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon (which we briefly see) and try to avoid eye contact with nearby humans.
Adapted from the first novel in Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries series, this show never sprawls. Once Murderbot arrives on an unsettled alien planet with a group of “hippie scientists”, each episode presents a new challenge in keeping the naive clients alive and its lack of safety constraints hidden.
Clockwise from bottom left: Akshay Khanna, Tattiawna Jones, Sabrina Wu, David Dastmalchian, Noma Dumezweni and Tamara Podemski in Murderbot.
But the longer they spend together, the closer some of the scientists grow to Murderbot. Leader Mensah (Noma Dumezweni) is thoughtful, but Ratthi (Akshay Khanna) just wants to flex about being friends with a SecUnit.
The show’s creators, filmmaker siblings Paul and Chris Weitz, have various credits that span the original American Pie to The Twilight Saga: New Moon and Rogue One. Their versatility has kept them busy but never flourishing, yet the mordant momentum appears to suit them. Skarsgard is definitely right at home. The actor has always tried to dodge his leading-man looks by playing sociopaths or goofballs, so a self-deprecating killing machine with an unmoving face feels like a natural progression.
Some of the humans, such as the perpetually uncomfortable Gurathin (the wonderful David Dastmalchian) worry about Murderbot’s allegiances, but others believe their communal ideology should include their bodyguard.
You can read Murderbot’s disdain for their studied empathy as a critique of therapy culture, but even as the body count starts to grow, the show never forgets its lead doesn’t aspire to be human, or even be adopted by them. “Their operating system,” Murderbot laments, “is just a random shuffling of DNA.”
Murderbot streams on Apple TV+ from May 16.
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