Murderbot: Virtual Freedom

A SecUnit or Security Unit, is a partly biological security cyborg who, due to the “Governor Module” installed within his systems, must do everything commanded of him by his owners.  One SecUnit (Alexander Skarsgård) hacked his own module and freed himself from this rule naming himself Murderbot. A scientific survey expedition is attempting to study an alien planet, but to get the appropriate licenses they are required to take a SecUnit.  The team is from an independent planet that doesn’t believe in using “bots” as they see this as a type of slavery but agree to the terms and hire the cheapest unit available, Murderbot.  Once on the planet things begin to go awry, as giant native creatures begin to attack.  Parts of the survey teams maps are incomplete and some of the creatures were not listed as part of the dangerous fauna of the planet.  The team begins to suspect Murderbot of malfunctioning when he saves one of the doctors in an unusual way.  Although initially being suspicious of Murderbot, the survey team eventually begins to trust him.  What other secrets and dangers are waiting for the team?  Watch and find out!

Murderbot is an Amercian science fiction action comedy based off of the book series, The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells who also serves as a consulting producer on the series. The show premiered on Apple TV+ on May 16, 2025.  The first two episodes were released simultaneously with new single episodes being released each Friday until July 11, giving the first season a total of 10 episodes.  The series has received mostly favorable reviews with Rotten Tomatoes reporting a 98% approval rating based on 45 critics.  The consensus on the site reads, “Alexander Skarsgård’s superbly dry wit brings a lot of heart to Murderbot, making for a refreshingly jaunty sci-fi saga about finally coming out of one’s shell.”.  Metacritic has assigned a score of 69 out of 100 indicating “generally favorable” reviews.

I am a fan of Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood) and so I was excited about this new series and was not disappointed.  The show has a dry witty comedy, and Alexander is perfect in the role of a cyborg who gains his own freedom, which comes with its own chains and who is obsessed with streaming media especially soap operas. He is conflicted and tormented by fragmented memories from a mission that went terribly wrong. Noma Dumezweni who plays Mensah, the leader of the survey team and an expert in terraforming, is also wonderful as the kind and likeable scientist.  The rest of the survey team played by David Dastmalchian, Sabrina Wu, Akshay Khanna, Tamara Podemski and Tattiawna Jones, who all do a great job.  Each episode is between 22 and 30 minutes long, which doesn’t seem to be enough time to tell the story, but it is.  The audience is expertly given enough information in a very short period to understand what is happening, without it ever feeling forced or rushed, giving the series a quick pace with a good internal rhythm.  The first two episodes are full of both action, drama and humor mainly served as sarcasm and witty internal thoughts of the Murderbot. There is also some social / political commentary happening on the evils of unfettered capitalism. Overall, this is a fun, exciting and intriguing story with a couple good mysteries and I can’t wait to see how they unfold.