Murderbot (2025) - A Guest Review by Adrian Brain

Don’t be fooled by the title - there isn’t too much murdering in this comedy, futuristic Sci-Fi series. Murderbot is a self-named security robot who hacks his own 'governor module', essentially giving him free will. However, if the authorities discover this he will be melted down, so has to continue on his assignments, hiding his free will, until he can figure out a way to escape the system and lead a fulfilled life.

He is assigned to accompany and protect a crew on a mission to an alien plant. SecUnit, as the crew name him, despises humans for being stupid and irrational. Unfortunately, the crew he has to protect are hippy-dippy, polyamorous tree huggers, with little awareness of the dangers they soon find themselves in. It isn’t going to be an easy ride for SecUnit, not least because one of the crew suspects something is 'off' with him.

Alexander Skarsgård (the blonde, good looking Skarsgård; True Blood, Succession etc.) is perfect as the wisecracking titular robot (though my missus howled in disappointment on finding he has no genitalia) - and David Dastmalchian is brilliantly cast as the human with cybernetic enhancements who is very suspicious of SecUnit’s motives. The remainder of the crew all leave an impression too. As you, and SecUnit, get to know them and their backgrounds, they all feel like well-rounded characters whose value systems might just keep them all alive.

The production values aren’t exceptional, but the effort has gone in where it counts - with the characters and the script rather than extensive CGI. All in all this is good fun. I found myself smiling throughout and there are even a few belly laughs. It is short and breezy, each episode (after the opener) only about 15 minutes long (by the time you take out the credits). What’s more, there is a show-within-a-show, 'Sanctuary Moon', which I wanted to see more of, but I’ll leave that for you to discover as you watch this. I’m glad to see that AppleTV is giving it a Season 2.