Apple TV+’s Murderbot Is A Killer Cyborg Show With A Surprising Twist
The upcoming series is based on popular — and hilarious — sci-fi novellas.
What would happen if a robot gained sentience but then tried to hide the fact that it had deeper feelings? Back in 2017, with her provocative novella, All Systems Red, author Martha Wells launched the phenomenon of The Murderbot Diaries and never looked back. As of 2023, The Murderbot Diaries spans seven books and three short stories. And now, that killer book series is joining the Apple TV+ science fiction empire as a new TV series, debuting on May 16.
As revealed by Apple TV+ in an official press release, the series adapting The Murderbot Diaries will just be called Murderbot and will star Alexander Skarsgård as the eponymous robot who gains feelings that it wants to hide.
Here’s the official press release info straight from Apple:
Based on Martha Wells' best-selling, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning book series “The Murderbot Diaries,” Murderbot is a sci-fi thriller/comedy about a self-hacking security construct who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable clients. Played by Skarsgård, Murderbot must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe.
The humor element is super-relevant to this series because although it's called Murderbot, that name is something the cyborg gives to itself, almost as a kind of sarcastic joke. In the backstory of the first book, All Systems Red, Murderbot went on an accidental killing spree which resulted in the death of 57 people. In the present tense of the story, however, Murderbot isn’t some kind of serial killer — far from it.
Alexander Skarsgård in Murderbot.
Because Murderbot is technically a cyborg and not a robot, it’s possible to think of the series as a kind of spiritual successor to RoboCop, albeit with more overt humor. In addition to a photo showing how Murderbot will appear on the show, Apple also revealed one of Skarsgård in the suit. This perhaps indicates that the character’s cyborg nature will be explored in depth in the series.
It should also be noted that the world of Murderbot is fully sci-fi, including spaceships, wormholes, alien infections, and humanoids known as “Grey Raiders.” While there’s a certain groundedness to Murderbot because of the humor, the books themselves are full of a great space-opera feel that feels right at home with Doctor Who or Star Trek narratives.
So, relative to other big Apple TV+ sci-fi shows, Murderbot will probably feel the most “geeky,” at least in contrast with shows like Dark Matter or For All Mankind. Although there’s a ton of sci-fi on Apple at the moment, most of the shows, outside of Foundation, don’t involve future-tense space travel as the norm.
Hopefully, with its blend of classic sci-fi tropes, and unique humor, Murderbot will turn out to be unlike any sci-fi show currently on TV. Neither overly gritty nor too silly, here’s hoping that this sci-fi series strikes a perfect balance and honors what makes the books so great.
