Right now, Apple TV+ is getting a lot of attention for airing Pluribus, which is quickly becoming everyone’s new nerdy obsession. But Pluribus is far from the only sci-fi show that’s thriving over there. Between Severance, Silo, For All Mankind, and more, it’s clear that the people at Apple TV+ love throwing money at sci-fi TV, and not every project they make gets the attention it deserves.
For instance, the first season of a sci-fi comedy show called Murderbot aired this past summer, and now that the year is almost over, it’s time to give the series its flowers.
Murderbot is a sci-fi comedy that takes itself seriously
Murderbot is funny, but don’t tell it that
Sci-fi is a popular genre, comedy is a popular genre, but sci-fi comedies are so niche that it’s hard to think of many examples. There are classic series like Red Dwarf, which gained a passionate cult following but never really broke into the mainstream. There are plenty of failed attempts at making a good sci-fi comedy, like the unfortunate Avenue 5 at HBO or the dearly departed Star Trek send-up The Orville, one of many great shows canceled before its time. Futurama has lasted many years, but has been canceled at least twice. In general, the masses don’t quite seem to know what to do with these sorts of shows.
Happily, Apple has tons of money and is willing to spend it on stuff it thinks amusing, so I can see Murderbot lasting a good long while even if it’s only playing to its dedicated core fanbase, which, after you read this article, I hope includes you. Murderbot is based on a series of books by Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries, about a sophisticated security cyborg (or “SecUnit”) that hacks itself until it’s able to override the part of its programming that requires it to obey human beings. That said, it knows that if anybody finds out what it’s done, it’ll be melted down for scrap, so it continues to pretend to be a normal SecUnit while seething inside.
Actually, “seething” might be giving this SecUnit too much credit; as a cyborg, it doesn’t display much in the way of extreme human emotions, which it finds gross. To keep itself occupied, it watches copious amounts of media, including the futuristic soap opera The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, scenes from which the show delivers to us in all their melodramatic glory. It names itself “Murderbot,” and sets to work trying to resist the urge to smack every human it meets.
Murderbot is a cold-blooded robot with a heart
We’ve all felt a little like Murderbot sometimes
So you can see the basic comic engine of this show: Murderbot has freedom but doesn’t quite know what to do with it, so this machine with the mind of a supercomputer busies itself with mundane distractions. It’s kind of like Westworld if the robotic hosts were less bloodthirsty and more bored and put upon. Alexander Skarsgård is great at selling Murderbot’s never-ending dilemma; we hear a lot of his internal narration, and it’s amazing how well he conveys Murderbot’s mounting frustration even while maintaining the cool, collected chilliness you expect of a robot.
Murderbot also has to deal with its human handlers, a group of do-gooding scientists who travel to a remote planet to study it. Far from being cruel to Murderbot, they’re actually infuriatingly understanding and sensitive, a parody of the kind of hand-wringing, hyper-conscious people you might run into in our world.
Murderbot wrings a lot of laughs out of the group’s obsession with being as appropriate as possible at all times, even as Murderbot himself wishes he were anywhere else. This might be sci-fi, but I’m betting a lot of people can relate to Murderbot being uncomfortable in social situations and wishing he could just go watch TV.
That said, the show isn’t cynical through and through. Murderbot may want to break free of human influence, but he can’t help growing to like the scientists on the Preservation Alliance team at least a little bit, even if he would never admit it. They may be touchy-feely space hippies who insist on exploring feelings he says he doesn’t have, but they’re better than the profit-obsessed bureaucrats who run the powerful Corporation Rim, who would never see him as a creature even capable of feelings.
Murderbot is funny, thought-provoking, and easy to watch
And there’s more to come
Murderbot is out to make you laugh, but it wouldn’t be a sci-fi show if it didn’t have at least a little more on its mind. There are themes and world-building going on here. We have the hyper-capitalist Corporation Rim versus the collectivist Preservation Alliance, augmented humans who can interface directly with digital networks, questions about whether Murderbot can really develop a human-like consciousness, and more.
All that could lay the basis for a series that builds itself into something special over time, and Martha Wells’ books do indeed take Murderbot to some very interesting places. It looks like this show is only getting started.
Pluribus is set in the Breaking Bad universe — these details give it away
The guy behind Breaking Bad has created a new show called Pluribus, and there are mounting hints that it’s set in the same universe.
Murderbot season 2 is coming, but we don’t know when
Apple has officially green-lit a second season of Murderbot, which could be out as early as 2026, although if that happens, it’ll be later in the year, and we don’t know enough to be sure. As usual, Apple deserves a lot of credit for not only being willing to produce a show like this, one based on a series of books most people have never heard of, but also for having enough faith in it to renew the show before the first season was even over, meaning fans won’t have to wait too ungodly long to see more.
They really do commit to pushing the boundaries over on Apple TV+, which is why they’re looking more and more like the new home for prestige TV every day.
- Release Date
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May 15, 2025
- Network
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Apple TV+
- Showrunner
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Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz
- Directors
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Aurora Guerrero, Roseanne Liang
- Writers
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Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz
- Franchise(s)
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The Murderbot Diaries
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David Dastmalchian
Gurathin
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