‘Murderbot’ Review: One Relatable Death Machine

Imagine, if you will, that you’re a worker spending the bulk of your days hard at work, wishing like hell you could just stay at home and never see anyone aside from the people on your favorite tv shows from one of your many streaming channels. Now take this, ahem, far-fetched scenario another step further: you’re an android, equipped with the means to dispatch humans with less effort than it would take to do a reboot. Oh, and you no longer have the mechanism that requires you to follow orders.

This is the premise of Murderbot, Apple TV’s new show, adapted from The Murderbot Diaries book series by Martha Wells. I’m unfamiliar with the source material (a book fan’s take will be forthcoming) so I can only judge the show for itself. Based on the first two episodes, here’s where I stand: Murderbot is pretty delightful.

With the episodes averaging a half hour, the premiere takes no time to get proceedings in gear. In less than half that time, we see the titular Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård)—widely referred to by its assigned name, “Sec Unit,” shorthand for Security Unit, “Murderbot” is the name it settled on right after disabling its mandatory obey process, just because it sounds awesome (it’s not wrong); for the sake of awesomeness and clarity, I will continue to refer to it by its chosen name—come to be, as well as meet the main cast.

Even though Murderbot now possesses free will, one big deterrence keeps it from being able to fully exercise said will: should the Company (one of many who compose the huge galaxy-wide region known simply as the Corporation Rim) discover that one of their units managed the unprecedented move of hacking its own software, Murderbot would be immediately melted for the Company to “recycle the rest of me for spare parts,” as Murderbot puts it in one of its many, many narrative moments that’s a feature of the show. I spent several minutes worried that this would become a grating quirk but quickly grew to love it not just as a convenient device to get viewers on board with the ins and outs of this futuristic world, but because Murderbot really, really dislikes people.

It’s not a feeling as powerful as “hatred” either. It’s far worse. Humans irk him. It chalks up most humans as mere “assholes” (valid), and everything, from our emotions to our “filthy human bodies,” annoy it beyond belief. So when Murderbot is unexpectedly rented out to an expedition crew from outside the Corporation Rim who are big proponents of music, justice for all, and handmade clothes, or “hippies,” to quote the hilariously judgmental Murderbot, the bot is suddenly forced to pretend to be at the unquestioning service of a team who frequently engage in behavior it finds most uncomfortable (“All that human stuff. Feelings and exchanges of words and fluids”).

What helps make this extended gag work is that much of the humor is bone dry thanks to the fact that Murderbot itself never plays its disdain of humans for laughs. It doesn’t need to, because Skarsgård does some truly phenomenal work with his face—the appearance of which is brought on after a crewmember is attacked and her shocked colleague, Dr. Arada (Tattiawna Jones), has to be calmed; the face, in this scenario, provides the necessary mask to cope with the crew—via the countless microexpressions the Murderbot makes each time it has to maintain its obedient subterfuge, no matter how distasteful it finds the action. To save Dr. Arada (along with the indignity of dealing with people, Murderbot is obliged to keep them alive, too, if it hopes to save its own proverbial butt), Murderbot not only sports an objectively handsome appearance, but delivers an authoritative, “Stay calm. It’ll be okay. You have my word,” with the gravity of a high school freshman drama student.

When Murderbot’s being questioned by the only crew member who suspects something’s off about their robot security guard, Dr. Gurathin (David Dastmalchian), brings up the subject of Comfort Units, robots designed for sexual use. When Dr. Gurathin’s interrogation forces Murderbot to merely say the word, “sex,” its abject disgust is barely held at bay, denoted only by the slight widening of the eyes, flare of the nostrils, and an Adam’s Apple that bobs just enough to suggest that if Murderbot could vomit, it gladly would. The supporting cast is great but Skarsgård and Dastmalchian are two weird little guys in a pod together, and if the next eight episodes are nothing but those two making one another uncomfortable, I’d be just fine with that (for anyone wondering about Skarsgård’s IRL fellow weird little guy, Jack McBrayer, no worries, he makes an appearance as a character in Murderbot’s favorite series, The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon).

The humor is front and center, though with a name like Murderbot, there’s bound to be some killing on the way. What I hope lies ahead are some thought-provoking questions on artificial intelligence and free will, of the human and nonhuman variety; seeds of this already exist, such as when Dr. Gurathin derides the fact that their community regards AIs as people. In reality, I’m inclined to feel the same, but in the world of Murderbot, well, it’s hard not to relate to this murderous, if oddly adorable, death machine.

Murderbot streams every Friday on Apple TV+.

Kaleena Rivera is the TV Editor for Pajiba. She can be found on Bluesky here.