Anyone boasting an Apple TV+ subscription can speak to the streaming service’s seemingly endless supply of sci-fi offerings like Severance and Dark Matter, with the majority being extremely smart and well-crafted. So it’s perhaps no surprise that Alexander Skarsgård’s new series Murderbot quickly became on of the best Apple TV+ original series and is an absolute must-watch, even if you’re like me and have next to zero knowledge of the source material.
Based on Martha Wells’ seemingly easy-to-digest book series The Murderbot Diaries, the genre-mashing show hails from co-creator siblings Chris and Paul Weitz, who are perhaps best known both together and separately for varied projects such as American Pie, About a Boy and The Twilight Saga: New Moon. The brothers have proven themselves capable of jumping from comedy to drama to science fiction with ease, and Murderbot may be their magnum opus as a slice of perfect television, no matter what SecUnit is mumbling under his breath.
Murderbot’s Cast Is A Perfect Blen
Big Little Lies vet delivers a splendid performance as an advanced (but not too advanced) security droid that hacks its system in a way that makes it more perceptible to human emotions and behavior. The role is relatively subdued role and skews more analytical than charismatic, but that’s precisely why it works so well.
Alexander Skarsgård’s inner monologues so damned funny, with so many of the character’s early reactions being snippy, judgmental and dismissive. The actor has never taken on a role quite like this, and I honestly wouldn’t have expected it to be such a worthwhile match. Happy to be misguided there.
Like too few shorter-form TV series these days, Murderbot actually puts its titular character through narrative growth and evolution in a way where the SecUnit present in the finale is completely different from the bot we meet in the premiere. And not in a way where any of SecUnit’s neurodivergent tendencies were removed or wiped out, but in a way where he’s become more acclimated to his human crew, even if the plot itself threatens to destroy everything.
The Show-Within-A-Show Sanctuary Moon? Yep, Perfect
Even though Murderbot‘s in-universe spacey soap opera The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon only gets around 10 minutes of on-screen footage throughout the entire season (and that might be overstating it), these heightened and objectively ridiculous sequences are a huge stepping stone for SecUnit’s understand human emotions and behaviors, which is kinda like only using the cover of Cosmo as dating advice. But man oh man, it’s amazing.
Star Trek vet John Cho, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s Clark Gregg, 30 Rock‘s Jack McBrayer and Jurassic World Dominion‘s DeWanda Wise are all pushing their performances to a 10, making Sanctuary Moon one of the hammiest things on the 2025 TV schedule. If only the show actually existed as a real thing people could watch, even if I probably don’t have time to check out ALL 397 episodes.
I am so extremely hopeful that enough people are watching Murderbot that Apple TV+ orders another 3 seasons right out the gate. If the only shows I watch in 2026 are Murderbot Seaosn 2 and Severance Season 3, I’ll still be a happy viewer.