Apple’s Murderbot series is goofy sci-fi with a side of existential crisis
I did not expect a TV show called Murderbot to be quite so relatable. On the surface, the Apple TV Plus sci-fi comedy is a somewhat generic futuristic story about a group of humans exploring a dangerous planet with the help of a security bot that's designed to protect them. The key is the perspective: […]
I did not expect a TV show called Murderbot to be quite so relatable. On the surface, the Apple TV Plus sci-fi comedy is a somewhat generic futuristic story about a group of humans exploring a dangerous planet with the help of a security bot that's designed to protect them. The key is the perspective: the story is told from the bot's point of view, and that bot is really going through it. It's experiencing free will for the first time and struggling with the ramifications of that, making it anxious, awkward, anf addicted to streaming television. It may be built to kill - but it's just like me.
The show opens on Muderbot's (Alexander Skarsgård) awakening. While seemingly idle and working security at a mining facility, internally it's actually hacking away at the chip that governs its free will. These bots, called sec units (which is short for security unit) are hybrids, powered by AI and with bodies that are a mix of machine and organic material. But they also have to do whatever they're told thanks to something called the governor module. Somehow Murderbot manages to disable this and then - well, he's free, but only kind of. It's illegal to have a sec unit without a working modul …
