Not A Review Of “Murderbot”

So recently, having finished up with all available seasons of The Serpent Queen*, we found ourselves in need of a new show to watch, possibly one that would blend drama and black comedy like TSQ did. Or maybe one that would blend science fiction and black comedy. Enter Murderbot.

For those who are not familiar with it, the Murderbot series on Apple TV+ is based on “The Murderbot Diaries”, a series of novellas by Martha Wells, of which I have (so far) read and enjoyed the first couple. So before we started I had to alleviate my wife’s concerns about at least one thing.

Me: “Even though she calls herself ‘Murderbot’, she doesn’t actually go around murdering people. Usually.”

Still, my wife had questions.

Wife: “What is that thing, exactly? A robot?”
Me: “Yes, it’s a robot. Well, a cyborg.”
Wife: “So it’s a robot with human parts?”
Me: “Yes, exactly. She’s going to hack her governor module so that she doesn’t have to do what humans tell her to, but then she’s going to keep doing her job anyway.”
Wife: “Why?”
Me: “Because she doesn’t want to get caught and destroyed. She mostly just wants to watch videos.”**

Now, as Murderbot continued to introduce herself in that opening scene, my wife noticed a bit of a dichotomy between how I was referring to her and what her voice sounded like.

Wife: “You keep saying ‘her’ but that doesn’t sound like a female voice.”
Me: “Yes, well, from the books, I read Murderbot as female, so I’m not entirely thrilled with the casting***. But technically the SecUnits are genderless and I like the actor, so I’m willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt.”

I guess at this point I’ll just start referring to Murderbot as “them”, because I can’t think of them as an “it”, even though they’re explicitly referred to as “it” both in the show and in the books, and I also can’t think of them as a “him” because that goes against my headcanon, but it’s going to be weird to keep referring to a character played by Alexander Skarsgård as “her” even though for once, when Alexander Skarsgård goes to show us his junk, his junk isn’t there.

Wife: “If he’s really supposed to be genderless, then he shouldn’t have nipples.”
Me: “What?”
Wife: “Male nipples. They’re a secondary sex characteristic. He doesn’t need them.”

And, really, does anyone need male nipples?

Me: “I don’t think Murderbot actually has nipples. I think he just has pecs.”
Wife: “Well he shouldn’t have those either.”

That may be true, but if you hire Alexander Skarsgård, you know what you’re getting.

All right, now that we’ve gone all the way down that rabbit hole, let’s move on to the thing my wife found most interesting about the show, which is not, in fact, Alexander Skarsgård’s pecs and abs****, but rather, the opening credits:

Wife: “Oh, wow. This would look really cool in 3D.”
Me: “You’re right, it would.”
Wife: “I bet it would even look cool in the simulated 3D. Our TV can do simulated 3D, right?”
Me: “Yeah, it can, but that mostly just makes things at the bottom of the screen look like they’re in front of things at the top of the screen.”
Wife: “But I bet it would still look cool.”
Me: “I suppose.”
Wife: “Are the 3D glasses easy to get to?”
Me: “Yeah, they’re in the nook.”
Wife: “Are they charged up?”
Me: “Yes, I keep them plugged in.”
Wife: “Is it hard to turn on the simulated 3D on the TV?”
Me: “No, I just have to press a button on the TV remote … Wait, are you saying you want to watch the title sequence in simulated 3D?”
Wife: “Uh-huh.”*****

So we did that, and she was right, the opening sequence did look pretty cool in the simulated 3D. We watched the show itself in simulated 3D for a while, too, and that also looked pretty good, especially the hysterically cheesy rendition of Murderbot’s favorite streaming show, Sanctuary Moon, which reminded me of kind of a lower-budget version of the old show Quark with Richard Benjamin. But eventually we took off the glasses and went back to the 2D view, because simulated 3D is not real 3D no matter how clever your TV is.

Anyway, we did finally get to the actual plot, which involves … Oh, wait, hang on a second. For those who have neither read nor seen Murderbot, going forward, there may be a few:

Now where was I? Oh right. So the actual plot involves Murderbot’s being rented out to provide security for a group of scientists who are off doing some investigatory work on an alien planet. Not long after they arrive, Murderbot finds themself out at a dig with a couple of the scientists who are looking for samples or something; the scientists are down in a crater, and Murderbot is up on the rim watching over them. Or watching something, anyway.

Wife: “Is he watching videos while on the job?”
Me: “Yep.”

Fortunately, Murderbot has got cycles to spare, and can both watch Sanctuary Moon and sort of keep an eye on the scientists, and is therefore able to detect when they are about to get attacked by a giant earwig worm thing. A pitched battle ensues betwen Murderbot and said earwig worm thing, which Murderbot wins, but not without suffering some damage in the process. After carrying one of the injured scientists back to the base, Murderbot is hailed as a hero, which inadvertently results in the most serious challenge they’ve yet faced:

All The Scientists: (applauding for Murderbot)
Murderbot: (looks horrified at all the attention)
This One Scientist (to Murderbot): “Speech! Speech!”
Murderbot (thinking): “That’s a direct order. Shit. If I don’t obey, they’ll know I hacked my governor module and I’ll get melted down in an acid bath.”
Scientists: “Speech! Speech!”
Murderbot (thinking): “Which is worse, speech, or acid bath? Speech, or acid bath?”
Wife (to me): “Okay is this show about you?”

Murderbot does end up giving a speech, which goes about as well as you might expect. Murderbot is mortified.

All The Scientists: (applauding for Murderbot’s incoherent speech in a somewhat confused fashion)
Murderbot (thinking): “Should’ve gone for the acid bath.

One thing leads to another and eventually, just as Murderbot is about to escape back to their security module, one of the scientists says something that’s even more horrifying than requesting a speech. Fortunately, this time it’s phrased as a question.

Scientist: “SecUnit, you know you can stay in the crew area with us. Would you like that?”
Murderbot:

Wife: “That’s exactly how you would look if someone asked if you wanted to hang out in a room full of people you didn’t know.”

Murderbot scurries off to perform a lot check, or a perimeter check, or something, but later on, that same scientist goes to visit Murderbot in the security module, where they are undergoing repairs to finish patching them up after their fight with the giant earwig worm thing. This results in a one-on-one interaction between Murderbot and a human, which is arguably even worse than the group interaction was.

Murderbot (thinking): “Oh no! Eye contact!”
Wife (to me): “Still you.”

The first episode of Murderbot did not put my wife to sleep, and in fact held her attention throughout its 30-minute runtime. Possibly this is because she was having so much fun comparing Murderbot’s behavior to mine, but the important thing is, she was entertained.

Me (after episode is over): “So, will you watch more of this?”
Wife: “Uh-huh.”

Murderbot: Come for the humor, stay for the pecs and abs. But not the nipples.

* Which we highly recommend, BTW, even if it did get canceled with at least one season’s worth of material left to go.
** Yes, Murderbot is addicted to streaming media. Just like the rest of us.
*** This is the subject of much argument amongst Murderbot fans on the Internet. Shocker.
**** Maybe.
***** Murderbot is not the only one around here who has trouble taking a hint.