I Never Read The Murderbot Books, But I Think The Alexander Skarsgård-Led Adaptation Is Basically A Perfect TV Show

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

A TV series' greatness can often come down to the quality of its cast, and Murderbot is indeed impressive in that respect, starting with the leading actor himself, Alexander Skarsgård. The Succession and 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.

Let's run through everyone right quick:

• Alexander Skarsgård gives a hilariously non-comedic performance as the overly analytical SecUnit/Murderbot
• Noma Dumezweni's Mensah is a respect-worthy team leader whose scientific passion isn't upended by her strict practicality.
• David Dastmalchian delivers a nuanced performance as Gurathin, a human with augmented technology in his body.
• Sabrina Wu's legally minded scientist Pin-Lee, Akshay's maturity-lite wormhole expert Ratthi and Tattiawna Jones' biologist Arada are solid individually, but work on all cylinders in developing their shared relationship as a throuple.
• Tamara Podemski's geochemist Bharadwaj has arguably less story points than everyone else, but is still a genial voice of reason amidst the younger crew members.

The series does feature other co-stars that we'll get into below, with the biggest surprise appearance going to PEN15 co-creator and star Anna Konkle as the erxpertly named Leebeebee.

Murderbot's Action-Packed Story Is Perfect

Despite taking place on a different planet where a team of scientists is conducting research while aided by a security droid who's hacked his gornering module to become more like a human, Murderbot is surprisingly easy to jump into for anyone who thinks that plotline sounds horrifying. It may have science-fiction window dressing, but this is almost more of a philosophical action-comedy.

The hook of the series is SecUnit essentially learning how to become more human while fighting against his inherent instincts and command prompts. As he grasps the concepts of compassion, empathy, loyalty and friendship, SecUnit is also trying to keep the team safe from outside threats that crop up, and the bot's own past plays into the action-oriented mystery.

Perhaps the show's biggest advantage, at least in terms of all of its genre inspirations working in tandem, is the fact that nearly all of the episode runtimes are 25 minutes or shorter, so there's literally no fluff or wasted moments. Audiences go from hilarious character beats to tense gunfights, and just about every installment wraps on a banger of a cliffhanger that just begs to be followed by another episode.

Murderbot Itself Is A Weirdly Perfect Main Character

While I can't speak to whether this is a thing in the source material, Murderbot's live-action series feels a lot like a parable about being on the autism spectrum. SecUnit experiences several situations that can be likened to neurodivergence, from taking others' responses too literally to lacking an understanding of sarcasm and irony to being focused on personal desires instead of the mission at hand.

As a piece of machinery, SecUnit also doesn't have an inherently strong sense of humor, which in turn makes 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.