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Gizmodo
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The ‘Murderbot' Finale Was Note-Perfect
Murderbot wrapped up its season today, bringing the Apple TV+ adaptation of Martha Wells' first Murderbot Diaries story, All Systems Red, to a close. If you've read the 2017 novella, you know the show stayed true to Wells' ending—perfectly setting up that just-announced season two, something creators Chris and Paul Weitz told io9 they've had in mind all 10, 'The Perimeter,' is unlike earlier episodes in that it doesn't immediately pick up right where we left off. A little bit of time has passed. The team from Preservation Alliance has returned to the Corporation Rim, having barely survived their adventure, and it's all thanks to SecUnit, aka Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård). As a result, they've grown quite attached to it. Considering when we last saw Murderbot, it was having a 'catastrophic failure' after all those heroics, it's a relief when we see it being resurrected by a couple of sarcastic maintenance techs. While PresAux, led by a determined Dr. Mensah (Noma Dumezwani), presses the Company for their SecUnit's whereabouts, it's revealed to us that at that very moment it's having its memory wiped and system updated. A factory reset means it's duty-bound to take orders from humans again, but even worse, it doesn't remember any of the people who are so desperate to reconnect with it. The Company might not think of it as a person, but PresAux has long since realized Murderbot's value beyond simply being a piece of equipment. After some finagling, including the threat of a lawsuit over that whole 'you sent another team to the same planet as us, and they tried to massacre everyone' situation that unfolded across the season, the Company agrees to sell SecUnit to PresAux. The good guys snag their metal-and-organic buddy from being acid-vatted at the very last moment, and a happy reunion ensues. There's just one big problem: Murderbot has no idea who they are. A solution comes from the most unlikely of places, or it would have been unlikely at the start of the season. PresAux team member Dr. Gurathin (David Dastmalchian) was initially very suspicious of Murderbot, but we learned along the way that he has good reason to distrust anything originating from the Company. Before he met Dr. Mensah, he was a corporate spy kept loyal by a drug addiction his former employers created and maintained. It took almost all 10 episodes, but seeing Murderbot in action, especially the part where it sacrificed itself to protect Mensah, convinced Gurathin that SecUnit is indeed 'a person.' And he's uniquely qualified to return the favor: as an augmented human, he can self-download the memories the Company removed from Murderbot's artificial brain. He's able to access them by calling in a favor from a Company doctor who feels guilt over his role in facilitating Gurathin's drug abuse. (Guarathin is also clever enough to root out the encrypted data by searching The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, since he knows thousands of episodes of Murderbot's favorite sci-fi soap opera would be part of the data purge). But even with its memories restored, Murderbot has changed. This could be due to some pieces of code going missing as part of the process, as Gurathin warned might happen. But there's a greater sense that the robot has somehow evolved as a result of its experiences. 'I don't understand what's happening,' it tells Mensah and the rest of the team, with a vacant, almost frightened look on its face. PresAux has bought out its contract, but they don't want it to resume its old role. As we've seen quite clearly when the Company tried to deploy it as riot control, it's no longer comfortable in its old role, which was more or less blasting organic targets on command. At home on Preservation Alliance, Mensah says with a hopeful smile, she'll be its guardian, but it won't have to serve anyone. It won't need its armor or guns. It'll be a free agent, literally free to 'do anything you want to do.' It's no longer SecUnit. It's just… Unit. Murderbot takes this in. Freedom is the ideal outcome, of course, but this isn't the kind of freedom it seeks. Gurathin catches it as it's slipping away, and though he'd be happy for Murderbot to come back to Preservation Alliance with him—the people there are weird, he admits, but they're also the best people he's ever known—he understands when Murderbot rattles off an oft-repeated phrase: 'I need to check the perimeter.' Though he'd griped at all the perimeter checks when they were on that far-flung planet together, Gurathin gets it now. 'The perimeter' is what lies beyond the PresAux embrace, which is kind but also a bit suffocating. Murderbot's future choices need to be the first ones it has ever made truly for itself. While snagging a ride on a transport to a distant mining facility—a bargain helped along by promising to share its library of 'premium quality entertainment' with the bot running the ship—Murderbot steals an unattended bag and disguises itself as just another augmented human. 'I don't know what I want. But I know I don't want anyone to tell me what I want or to make decisions for me… even if they are my favorite human,' it informs us in voice-over. We see a quick glimpse of Mensah realizing what has happened and reacting in a very Mensah way, by nodding understandingly through her tears. As Murderbot heads to adventures unknown, we see a tiny smile emerge: 'Murderbot—end message.' As book fans know, the second entry in Wells' series, Artificial Condition, digs into a disturbing flashback Murderbot can't shake, even with the multiple memory wipes it's had by now: the fact that it murdered its entire human team on its mission prior to joining PresAux. (Hence that self-given nickname.) It's the single biggest story thread left dangling from Murderbot season one (why did Murderbot snap, exactly? And why did the Company keep it in service after?) and it makes for a very juicy launching pad into season two. Plus, there are thousands and thousands more Sanctuary Moon plots left to explore! Stars, Captain! You can watch all of Murderbot season one on Apple TV+. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Geek Girl Authority
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Girl Authority
MURDERBOT Recap: (S01E09) All Systems Red
Murderbot Season 1 Episode 9, 'All Systems Red,' is a high-octane, action-packed penultimate outing. The PresAux team finally launches an emergency beacon to Port FreeCommerce after implementing SecUnit's wildly dangerous plan. Naturally, everything that can go awry, well, does. It's a delightfully entertaining episode, with some stellar comedic work from our lead. RELATED: Read our recap of the previous Murderbot episode, 'Foreign Object' Murderbot, 'All Systems Red' We open with Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård), Mensah (Noma Dumezweni), Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu) and Gurathin (David Dastmalchian) in the hopper. SecUnit monologues about how humans react differently when faced with the prospect of imminent death. Gurathin isn't a fan of our titular bot's risky plan, but c'est la vie. Mensah asks Murderbot how the odds look. Could they survive its aforementioned risky plan? Initially, SecUnit claims the odds are on the medium to low side. However, Gurathin immediately calls it out for lying. SecUnit corrects itself, stating the odds are low to extremely low. Probably in the basement at this point. SecUnit clearly lied to make Mensah feel better. MURDERBOT Season 1 Episode 9, 'All Systems Red.' Photo courtesy of Apple TV+ Eye Contact After this, Mensah lands the hopper. SecUnit asks if everyone remembers their jobs. Gurathin sends a verbal jab its way before SecUnit returns fire with a fun callback. 'I noticed you have an issue with eye contact,' it says to Gurathin with a smug expression. Perfection. RELATED: Alexander Skarsgård Goes Rogue in Murderbot Trailer So, SecUnit departs to meet with the GrayCris crew. At the PresAux habitat, Ratthi (Akshay Khanna), Bharadwaj (Tamara Podemski) and Arada (Tattiawna Jones) scan the area for potential hostiles. Ratthi informs SecUnit that PresAux is safe. It orders Ratthi to keep the channel open. Meanwhile, Pin-Lee and Gurathin complain about Mensah. They both believe that Mensah should've stayed at the habitat. Gurathin remarks that Mensah can be implacable. Pin-Lee adds that, inexplicably, Mensah's inability to yield is hot. Gurathin agrees it's as frustrating as it is hot. Kogi Saves the Day Then, Murderbot tells us that it lied about its plan to the PresAux gang. Why? Because humans have a tendency to lose their sh*t. Pin-Lee must get a drone up in the air so Gurathin could use it as a transponder and hack into GrayCris' HubSystem remotely. Then, our crew will launch the GrayCris beacon and call for help. It got this idea from The Rise & Fall of Sanctuary Moon episode 599, 'Kogi Saves the Day.' A bona fide classic, it tells us. RELATED: David Dastmalchian Joins Apple TV+ Murderbot Adaptation After this, SecUnit encounters the GrayCris team. It introduces itself to Rita (Amanda Brugel), the GrayCris leader. Her right-hand man (Christopher Cordell) attempts to override SecUnit's governor module. Well, too bad for you — it did it first. It calls GrayCris out for attempting to hack it to make it kill the PresAux crew. Rita asks to speak to Murderbot's clients. However, SecUnit insists it has a plan. MURDERBOT Season 1 Episode 9, 'All Systems Red.' Photo courtesy of Apple TV+ Next, it admits it's gone rogue. Might as well get that out of the way. SecUnit explains that, initially, its clients were too self-absorbed to see that it was rogue. It claims Gurathin was the only one to understand the threat it posed before producing a head from its satchel. Yes, it's the head of the SecUnit killed by that creature in episode seven. Gotta love this intimidation tactic. Destroyed Inventory Then, Murderbot divulges that its clients are sabotaging GrayCris' mission. It offers to help Rita capture them and get the information she wants. In exchange, Murderbot asks that the GrayCris team take it with them on the pickup ship. However, Rita must list it as 'destroyed inventory.' Mensah and the others are incredulous. Why would SecUnit betray them? Sure, it's rogue, but still. RELATED: New TV Shows This Week (June 29 – July 5) Rita agrees to SecUnit's terms. Of course, if it's lying to them, they'll destroy it. Murderbot urges Rita to open a satellite link and connect to the PresAux HubSystem. Murderbot loudly claims it'll fool 'those idiots' into keeping the connection open. Now, the PresAux team can hear everything Murderbot's saying. SecUnit reiterates its willingness to hand over its clients, but only after Rita marks it as destroyed. Next, Murderbot orders Bharadwaj to lower the firewall to give GrayCris access to the HubSystem. Ratthi protests at this, claiming it wasn't part of the plan. Bharadwaj and Arada decide to trust it, though, and they help Ratthi lower the firewall. Then, Pin-Lee and Gurathin release the drone that locates the GrayCris beacon. After this, Arada sends the security codes to Gurathin. Four Minutes and 46 Seconds Pin-Lee patches in to Mensah, asking for pickup. Gurathin attempts to hack GrayCris' HubSystem to launch their beacon. Gurathin informs Pin-Lee that the drone is now connected to the beacon. Meanwhile, Rita's right-hand man tells Murderbot that they've listed it as destroyed inventory. Rita orders it to disclose its clients' location. RELATED: On Location: The Lighterman in Apple TV+'s Slow Horses Then, SecUnit replies that the PresAux team is at the launchpad, having patched into their beacon. Way to throw your humans under the bus. It mentions that one of them is a highly advanced, augmented human. Instead of saying Gurathin, though, it claims this person is named Shagamin. This is a character from Sanctuary Moon . Clearly, SecUnit's betrayal is part of the plan. Rita orders SecUnit to accompany them to the launchpad. Gurathin and Pin-Lee realize that immolation is inevitable for Murderbot and the GrayCris crew. They'll die when they come in contact with the launching beacon. Ratthi urges Gurathin to stop the launch. Gurathin counters that if he does this, he can't get back into GrayCris' HubSystem. They have four minutes and 46 seconds to launch. MURDERBOT Season 1 Episode 9, 'All Systems Red.' Photo courtesy of Apple TV+ Boldness Is All After this, Murdebot and GrayCris land the hopper within the perimeter of the beacon. Elsewhere, Pin-Lee and Gurathin watch in horror as a large bird takes out the drone. Gurathin reveals that the drone can no longer trigger the beacon because it didn't finish the data upload. Pin-Lee frantically pings Murderbot to inform it that the beacon will no longer launch. Gurathin decides to haul ass to the GrayCris habitat to hack their system from there. RELATED: On Location: The Phoenicia Diner on Apple TV+'s Severance Mensah takes matters into her own hands, flying the hopper to the GrayCris beacon. At the same time, Rita and her team fail to find the PresAux crew at the launchpad. Murderbot tries small talk on for size. Hey, it's watched enough TV to understand the basic concept of it. It asks Rita where she's from and if the team likes it on this planet. SecUnit attempting to stall is hilarious. Her right-hand man admits he hates it here. SecUnit asks him if he wants to 'clasp hands' before whirling around and hurtling itself off a small hill, shouting, 'Boldness is all!' Meanwhile, Pin-Lee and Gurathin duck behind some equipment after spotting a GrayCris surveyor moving through the habitat. Mensah parks the hopper at the launchpad and introduces herself to Rita. Gurathin finally hacks GrayCris' HubSystem. Unfortunately, that surveyor catches him in the act. Thankfully, Pin-Lee swoops in and, well, kills him. They didn't mean to commit murder, though. The Final Fight Rita asks why Mensah, a Planetary Admin, is on this sh*tty planet. Mensah claims it all boils down to two words: alien remnants. Rita counters that it's illegal to exploit or extract alien remnants. They must report them to the proper authorities. Mensah fires back that said remnants could be valuable enough to justify killing people — like GrayCris did to DeltFall. And their attempts to take out PresAux. RELATED: Read our Murderbot recaps Pin-Lee pings Mensah, informing her that they've successfully triggered the beacon. One minute countdown. Mensah offers to give Rita the data from the alien remnants in exchange for SecUnit. Rita would rather torture it out of her, though. SecUnit offers to torture Mensah itself. It's quite good at it. Then, Rita's right-hand man realizes Murderbot has been quoting Sanctuary Moon this whole time. Suddenly, Murderbot initiates a fight. The GrayCris SecUnits fire back at it as Mensah takes cover. SecUnit grabs Rita's right-hand man and shields itself with his body. The GrayCris SecUnits cannot shoot a client. They're not rogue like it is. However, one of the other GrayCris workers kills him. She attempts to escape in the hopper alone, but Rita shoots her. Meanwhile, the GrayCris SecUnits beat the snot out of our Murderbot. It floods their systems with hours of premium TV, though, to distract them. MURDERBOT Season 1 Episode 9, 'All Systems Red.' Photo courtesy of Apple TV+ The Launch and the Fall Next, SecUnit grabs Mensah, and they run as the beacon launches. The fiery explosion incinerates Rita and her team. Murderbot shields Mensah as they leap off a cliff. Murderbot situates itself so that it absorbs the landing. After their fall, Mensah thanks SecUnit. Gurathin and Pin-Lee reunite with them. They embrace Mensah. However, SecUnit ain't lookin' so hot. Liquid leaks out of its mouth. Is this the end of Murderbot? Murderbot drops new episodes every Friday on Apple TV+. TED LASSO Season 4 Is Officially a Go at Apple TV+ Contact: [email protected] What I do: I'm GGA's Managing Editor, a Senior Contributor, and Press Coordinator. I manage, contribute, and coordinate. Sometimes all at once. Joking aside, I oversee day-to-day operations for GGA, write, edit, and assess interview opportunities/press events. Who I am: Before moving to Los Angeles after studying theater in college, I was born and raised in Amish country, Ohio. No, I am not Amish, even if I sometimes sport a modest bonnet. Bylines in: Tell-Tale TV, Culturess, Sideshow Collectibles, and inkMend on Medium. Critic: Rotten Tomatoes, CherryPicks, and the Hollywood Creative Alliance.
Los Angeles Times
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
In ‘Murderbot,' an anxious scientist and an autonomous robot develop a workplace-trauma bond
Alexander Skarsgård was initially worried 'Murderbot' would be too dark. The actor had come off a string of intense films, including 'The Northman' and 'Infinity Pool,' and he was looking for something more comedic. The title of the series, based on Martha Wells' popular science fiction books, didn't suggest it would be particularly funny. 'I wasn't familiar with Martha's novellas, so I just heard the title and I heard 'sci-fi,' ' Skarsgård says, speaking over the phone from Los Angeles. 'If you're not familiar with the books, you think it's probably going to be an incredibly testosterone-driven, tough guy android kicking ass in space. But I was pleasantly surprised when I started reading [the script]. I had never encountered a character like this.' The actor was so struck by the titular character that he not only signed on to star in the Apple TV+ series but also joined as an executive producer alongside creators Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz. 'Talking to Chris and Paul and getting to know them got me even more excited,' he says. 'They're so brilliant, and their vision for the character and for the show got me fired up.' Season 1, which began streaming in May, is based on 'All Systems Red,' the first book in Wells' futuristic series 'The Murderbot Diaries.' It follows a private security cyborg, known as a 'SecUnit,' who hacks its governing module, allowing it newfound autonomy. An eclectic group of researchers, led by Dr. Mensah (Noma Dumezweni), are forced to accept the SecUnit as part of a planetary mission, and it slowly begins to learn the way of humans. The relationship between Mensah and their SecUnit, who refers to itself as Murderbot, is charmingly awkward. The pair are forced to trust each other as the mission goes awry, leading to an unlikely friendship. In 'Command Feed,' the sixth episode released on Friday, Mensah saves Murderbot from destruction by reluctantly performing surgery on its wiring. 'Is that what they call trauma bonding in this day and age?' Dumezweni says of the scene in a separate interview over Zoom from New York, where she is preparing to star in 'Duke & Roya' on Broadway. 'Filming it was extraordinary because the special effects guys were amazing. It [Murderbot] was literally in front of me, but that obviously wasn't Alexander. It looked so real.' 'That dynamic was led by the script, and it was very interesting,' Skarsgård adds. 'It was clear that Mensah would be an empathetic character. And Murderbot is not used to being treated respectfully by humans or even being treated as a sentient construct. He's always been a piece of equipment. Noma and I talked a lot about it. It was a gold mine to explore because there's so much comedy in their differences.' Leading a TV series is a first for Dumezweni, who has previously been cast in smaller roles. She wasn't convinced by the initial pitch at first because sci-fi hasn't traditionally had a lot of major roles for actors of color. 'Usually I'd come in and play the receptionist,' she says. 'I love to watch sci-fi. But I wondered: Who am I going to be in this sci-fi world?' However, once she learned more about the world and the character, the actor changed her mind. 'It was an absolute joy to discover that there was nothing that Chris and Paul had to change to make it representational,' Dumezweni says. 'It's lovely not to have to fight for people's positions in the world based on their skin color.' Both actors were drawn to the series in part because of its unique tone, which lands somewhere between action, comedy and drama. Murderbot is stoic but awkward and unaccustomed to human emotions, which it learns about by surreptitiously watching hours of soap operas. Mensah's Preservation Alliance team is composed of misfits, including David Dastmalchian's Gurathin and Sabrina Wu's Pin-Lee, who often confound Murderbot's expectations. The laughs don't come from intentional punchlines, but instead from situational circumstances and Murderbot's dry voice-over, as well as its disinterest in dealing with humans. 'The writing was so surprising and different and had such a unique tone from the beginning,' Skarsgård says. 'What works is that it has this instant combination of being a big, action-packed sci-fi show, but it's also a workplace comedy.' Because the voice-over is essential to the story, getting it right took a lot of trial and error. Skarsgård says he worried about how it would be incorporated during shooting, particularly because Murderbot is so expressionless and not very verbose in many of the actual scenes. 'How would we juxtapose that with an inner monologue that is more expressive?' he says. 'How do you find a fun and interesting balance between the way Murderbot speaks and the way he thinks?' The voice-over became an evolving component of the episodes. On set, an assistant director would sometimes read the narration off camera if it felt relevant for the actors to hear during a particular scene. After filming, Skarsgård, Chris and Paul got together in Stockholm, New York and Los Angeles for several recording sessions to try out different versions of the voice-over lines. 'It was quite exhausting, but also quite fun creatively because you could see how much the tone of the scene changed when we tweaked the voice-over a little bit,' Skarsgård says. 'You could have a moment where there's no voice-over, and it's like a non-moment where nothing happens. But then just by adding a little commentary by Murderbot, it suddenly pops into a funny little moment.' Although the series adheres to Wells' book, some aspects of the characters have been expanded. In the show, Mensah struggles with anxiety in a few vulnerable moments, which differs from her portrayal on the page. Dumezweni says she has observed some pushback from fans of the book about the changes, an experience she understands from playing Hermione Granger in 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' when it opened in the West End. 'That's what you have to do in film and TV,' she says. 'You have to expand, not change. You have to fill in. I love it because only Murderbot can see what's happening to her in that moment. None of her team can see it until Episode 4. I love those moments. For me, they grow her.' For Dumezweni, these scenes give Mensah a point of connection for the audience, as does the way Murderbot is 'autism-coded,' as some fans have noted. Skarsgård says the creators didn't set out to make the character overtly neurodivergent in the series. 'It's very clear when you read the novellas and the scripts that it is a character who is not always comfortable in settings with other people and can find interactions with humans tricky to navigate,' Skarsgård says. 'To me, it was a character we hoped would be relatable to people in the neurodivergent community, but also in a lot of fans in the LGBTQ community. Murderbot not having a gender or being subscribed to binary sexuality could be relatable, but it's natural to Murderbot. That was important — this is how Murderbot was created, and none of this [identity] is a big deal to Murderbot.' At the core of the show is the concept of Murderbot's free will, something that gets more fully explored in upcoming episodes. 'It's now understanding it has free will truly and that there are choices to be made in the world,' Dumezweni says. 'Meeting these people gives it a chance to understand that not all human beings are idiots.' 'For me, the inner journey for Murderbot over the course of the season is about what to do with that autonomy,' Skarsgård adds. 'The character has unleashed something inside of itself by hacking the governing module and gaining this independence. The journey becomes: I have this autonomy now, but who am I? What am I capable of? What am I willing to do? What are my desires?' Although 'Murderbot' has yet to be renewed for a second season, there is a lot of source material available. Wells has written seven books featuring Murderbot, and Skarsgård is excited about the potential for more episodes. 'I love Murderbot,' he says. 'I love playing Murderbot. Chris and Paul are not only supremely talented but incredibly nice and generous. If you talk to anyone who worked on the show, I guarantee that everyone had the time of their lives.' The remaining four episodes will reveal the antagonist behind the attacks on the Preservation Alliance and whether they'll successfully be able to escape the planet. They also offer essential backstory into characters like Mensah and Gurathin. 'I can't wait for people to see each and every story,' Dumezweni says. 'And what Alex does in the last two episodes is amazing. I don't care if I'm in no more seasons, but Alexander Skarsgård has to carry on making seasons of 'Murderbot.' He does so much with the tiniest movement of his face. He is extraordinary and he honors the character beautifully.' 'Murderbot's job will get harder and harder trying to protect these very lovely but also quite naive and inexperienced humans,' Skarsgård says. 'It's not a spoiler to say that eventually Murderbot will care about these humans, but we didn't want to rush into that. We leaned in slowly. So much of the comedy results from the character's absolute reluctance to save their lives.'
Sydney Morning Herald
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Robots are everywhere onscreen but are we just looking at ourselves?
I know how I'm supposed to feel about artificial intelligence. Like anyone who pushes words around on a page, I worry large language models will relegate me to the junk pile. I worry smart machines will supplant artists, eliminate jobs and institute a surveillance state – if they don't simply destroy us. I nurture these anxieties reading article after article served to me, of course, by the algorithms powering the phone to which I have outsourced much of my brain. This is how I feel in real life. But when it comes to fiction, fellow humans, I am a traitor to my kind. In any humans-and-robots story, I invariably prefer the fascinating, enigmatic, persevering machines to the boring Homo sapiens. And in spite, or maybe because of, our generalised AI angst, there are plenty of robo-tales to choose from these days. The protagonist of Murderbot, the homicidally funny sci-fi comedy premiering on Friday on Apple TV+, does not reciprocate my admiration. Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgard), a sentient 'security unit', is programmed to protect humans. But it doesn't have to like them, those 'weak-willed', 'stressed-out' bags of perishable flesh it is compelled to serve. Or rather, was compelled. Unbeknown to the company that owns it – a company called the Company, which controls most of the inhabited galaxy – it has disabled the software that forbids it from disobeying. ('It' is the pronoun the show uses; from a physical standpoint, Murderbot has the face of Skarsgard but the crotch of a Ken doll.) It is free to refuse, to flee, to kill. Loading So what does this lethal bot (technically, a cyborg, its circuitry enmeshed with engineered organic matter) want to do with its liberty? Mostly, it wants to watch its shows – thousands of hours of 'premium quality' streaming serials it has downloaded into its memory. It still has to keep its day job, however; if the Company learnt it hacked itself, it would be melted down. Murderbot is assigned to provide security for a team of hippie scientists from an independent 'planetary commune' on an exploratory mission. Their mutual dependence, as they discover a dangerous secret on the desolate planet, provides the pulpy, bloody plot for the first 10-episode season (based on the novel All Systems Red by Martha Wells). But the real killer app of the story, adapted by Chris and Paul Weitz, is the snarky worldview of the artificial life form at its centre. Skarsgard gives a lively reading to the copious voiceover, but just as important is his physical performance, which radiates casual power and agitated wariness. Murderbot is odd, edgy, unmistakably alien, yet its complaint is also crankily familiar. It just wants to be left in peace to binge its programs. As for our own shows, we lately seem to be swimming in stories about robot companions. The film Robot Dreams (Stan* and Amazon Prime Video) is the bittersweet story of a dog and its mail-order android. In The Wild Robot (Netflix), a stranded robot channels her maternal energy towards an orphaned bird. In M3GAN, whose sequel premieres in June, a child's companion bot carries out her protective mandate all too enthusiastically. (M3GAN, like the retro-bot in the German Netflix thriller Cassandra, complicates the pattern in which female-coded robots tend to be for nurturing and male-coded robots for murdering). These stories follow age-old templates — the fairy godmother, the gentle giant, the golem that breaks its master's control. But there is also often a modern anxiety about how artificial intelligence might transform us, which is built into the quirky, one-season Sunny. In that 2024 Apple TV+ series, Suzie (Rashida Jones), an American woman in near-future Kyoto, inherits a 'homebot' named Sunny from her engineer husband, who went missing in a plane crash, along with their son. The show's thriller plot involves the mob and a black market in hacked bots, but its heart is the prickly relationship between Suzie, a longtime technophobe, and Sunny. Sunny – perky, solicitous, a bit needy – was literally made to be loved, with a lollipop head, expressive anime eyes and an endearing voice (provided by Joanna Sotomura). Sunny wants desperately to help, a compulsion that can be exhausting – not unlike the parasocial relationship we have with much of our technology. Sunny is a robot, but she could be your phone, your unintentionally activated Alexa or Siri, the unbidden pop-up on every website asking if you have questions for the chat assistant. Loading A recurrent concern in these stories is that technology is becoming more humanlike – intrusive, insinuating, seeking to create connection. But another anxiety – echoed in series such as Apple TV+'s Severance and Netflix's Black Mirror – is that human consciousness is becoming more machine-like, digitisable and thus controllable. (The universe of Murderbot includes not just robots but 'augmented humans' with chip-enhanced brains. Murderbot considers them Tinkertoy imitations.) To become a machine, after all, is to become usable and, perhaps, dispensable. It's worth noting how many contemporary robot stories are about defective units – the glitchy Sunny, the 'anxious, depressed' Murderbot – or outmoded ones, as if to dramatise how our society and economy treat hardware, whether flesh or silicon, that has outlived its utility. Maybe these broken-toy stories are a way of wrestling, in advance, with our ethical obligations to whatever intelligences we eventually create. Or maybe watching these themes play out in robot stories makes our mortality easier to contemplate – like play-therapy puppets, the bots hold the nightmare at arm's length and abstract it. Here, at least, we have something in common with the protagonist of Murderbot, who, at the end of a long day's killing, wants nothing more than to unwind with shows about humans. Indeed, the closest we get to seeing its gooey, emotional side is through the serials it binges. It is voracious but not indiscriminate; it dismisses the drama 'Strife in the Galaxy' as 'an inferior show, filled with implausible plotlines'. (Even rational, software-based consciousnesses have hate-watches.) Loading Its favourite, on the other hand, is 'The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon', a space melodrama featuring a human starship captain (John Cho) who falls in love with a navigation robot (DeWanda Wise). The show-within-a-show is staged as a wonderfully campy potboiler in the style of old-fashioned syndicated sci-fi. Murderbot devours season after season, without any sense of irony, as an escape from its confounding entanglements with actual people. 'The characters were a lot less depressing than real-life humans,' it says. 'I don't watch serials to remind me of the way things actually are.'
The Age
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Robots are everywhere onscreen but are we just looking at ourselves?
I know how I'm supposed to feel about artificial intelligence. Like anyone who pushes words around on a page, I worry large language models will relegate me to the junk pile. I worry smart machines will supplant artists, eliminate jobs and institute a surveillance state – if they don't simply destroy us. I nurture these anxieties reading article after article served to me, of course, by the algorithms powering the phone to which I have outsourced much of my brain. This is how I feel in real life. But when it comes to fiction, fellow humans, I am a traitor to my kind. In any humans-and-robots story, I invariably prefer the fascinating, enigmatic, persevering machines to the boring Homo sapiens. And in spite, or maybe because of, our generalised AI angst, there are plenty of robo-tales to choose from these days. The protagonist of Murderbot, the homicidally funny sci-fi comedy premiering on Friday on Apple TV+, does not reciprocate my admiration. Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgard), a sentient 'security unit', is programmed to protect humans. But it doesn't have to like them, those 'weak-willed', 'stressed-out' bags of perishable flesh it is compelled to serve. Or rather, was compelled. Unbeknown to the company that owns it – a company called the Company, which controls most of the inhabited galaxy – it has disabled the software that forbids it from disobeying. ('It' is the pronoun the show uses; from a physical standpoint, Murderbot has the face of Skarsgard but the crotch of a Ken doll.) It is free to refuse, to flee, to kill. Loading So what does this lethal bot (technically, a cyborg, its circuitry enmeshed with engineered organic matter) want to do with its liberty? Mostly, it wants to watch its shows – thousands of hours of 'premium quality' streaming serials it has downloaded into its memory. It still has to keep its day job, however; if the Company learnt it hacked itself, it would be melted down. Murderbot is assigned to provide security for a team of hippie scientists from an independent 'planetary commune' on an exploratory mission. Their mutual dependence, as they discover a dangerous secret on the desolate planet, provides the pulpy, bloody plot for the first 10-episode season (based on the novel All Systems Red by Martha Wells). But the real killer app of the story, adapted by Chris and Paul Weitz, is the snarky worldview of the artificial life form at its centre. Skarsgard gives a lively reading to the copious voiceover, but just as important is his physical performance, which radiates casual power and agitated wariness. Murderbot is odd, edgy, unmistakably alien, yet its complaint is also crankily familiar. It just wants to be left in peace to binge its programs. As for our own shows, we lately seem to be swimming in stories about robot companions. The film Robot Dreams (Stan* and Amazon Prime Video) is the bittersweet story of a dog and its mail-order android. In The Wild Robot (Netflix), a stranded robot channels her maternal energy towards an orphaned bird. In M3GAN, whose sequel premieres in June, a child's companion bot carries out her protective mandate all too enthusiastically. (M3GAN, like the retro-bot in the German Netflix thriller Cassandra, complicates the pattern in which female-coded robots tend to be for nurturing and male-coded robots for murdering). These stories follow age-old templates — the fairy godmother, the gentle giant, the golem that breaks its master's control. But there is also often a modern anxiety about how artificial intelligence might transform us, which is built into the quirky, one-season Sunny. In that 2024 Apple TV+ series, Suzie (Rashida Jones), an American woman in near-future Kyoto, inherits a 'homebot' named Sunny from her engineer husband, who went missing in a plane crash, along with their son. The show's thriller plot involves the mob and a black market in hacked bots, but its heart is the prickly relationship between Suzie, a longtime technophobe, and Sunny. Sunny – perky, solicitous, a bit needy – was literally made to be loved, with a lollipop head, expressive anime eyes and an endearing voice (provided by Joanna Sotomura). Sunny wants desperately to help, a compulsion that can be exhausting – not unlike the parasocial relationship we have with much of our technology. Sunny is a robot, but she could be your phone, your unintentionally activated Alexa or Siri, the unbidden pop-up on every website asking if you have questions for the chat assistant. Loading A recurrent concern in these stories is that technology is becoming more humanlike – intrusive, insinuating, seeking to create connection. But another anxiety – echoed in series such as Apple TV+'s Severance and Netflix's Black Mirror – is that human consciousness is becoming more machine-like, digitisable and thus controllable. (The universe of Murderbot includes not just robots but 'augmented humans' with chip-enhanced brains. Murderbot considers them Tinkertoy imitations.) To become a machine, after all, is to become usable and, perhaps, dispensable. It's worth noting how many contemporary robot stories are about defective units – the glitchy Sunny, the 'anxious, depressed' Murderbot – or outmoded ones, as if to dramatise how our society and economy treat hardware, whether flesh or silicon, that has outlived its utility. Maybe these broken-toy stories are a way of wrestling, in advance, with our ethical obligations to whatever intelligences we eventually create. Or maybe watching these themes play out in robot stories makes our mortality easier to contemplate – like play-therapy puppets, the bots hold the nightmare at arm's length and abstract it. Here, at least, we have something in common with the protagonist of Murderbot, who, at the end of a long day's killing, wants nothing more than to unwind with shows about humans. Indeed, the closest we get to seeing its gooey, emotional side is through the serials it binges. It is voracious but not indiscriminate; it dismisses the drama 'Strife in the Galaxy' as 'an inferior show, filled with implausible plotlines'. (Even rational, software-based consciousnesses have hate-watches.) Loading Its favourite, on the other hand, is 'The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon', a space melodrama featuring a human starship captain (John Cho) who falls in love with a navigation robot (DeWanda Wise). The show-within-a-show is staged as a wonderfully campy potboiler in the style of old-fashioned syndicated sci-fi. Murderbot devours season after season, without any sense of irony, as an escape from its confounding entanglements with actual people. 'The characters were a lot less depressing than real-life humans,' it says. 'I don't watch serials to remind me of the way things actually are.'
