Murderbot Review: It’s Here To Pass The Time

Murderbot is a socially anxious cyborg who sarcastically narrates its adventures and tells us about all the things it’d rather be doing right now.

Despite the name, Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård, of Infinity Pool) is not particularly threatening. It’s an outdated model that can’t keep up with newer ones, and it’s too lazy to do any more than the bare minimum anyway. More than that, it’s socially anxious and completely overwhelmed by human interaction. It avoids eye contact as much as possible and talks in quotes from its favorite show, Sanctuary Moon. Much of the comedy comes from its relatable awkwardness. In one scene Murderbot is ordered to give a speech after a successful mission and it has to make a tough decision: should it disobey the order and reveal it’s malfunctioning, which would mean it’d be thrown into acid and disposed of, or maybe worse, should it try to give a speech?

While Murderbot hates talking to other people, it loves talking to us. There’s constant voiceover from Murderbot in a distant, sarcastic tone. It’s telling us about all the things it’d rather be doing than dealing with these pesky humans. I can see a version of this show where Murderbot doesn’t make for a particularly compelling protagonist, but that would be a version of the show without Alexander Skarsgård. He’s channeling his inner Robert Pattinson with a quirky voice and the silliest I’ve seen him go so far in his career. With it comes an awkward charm that can carry the never-ending sarcastic remarks. 

For as great as Alexander Skarsgård is in the role, I’m still disappointed it took the series not even a whole 15 minutes before permanently removing his cyborg mask and having him walk around like just another guy. But that’s Hollywood for you, I guess. It speaks to a larger issue the show has of a rather uninteresting sci-fi aesthetic. It reminded me of classic Star Trek, where the crew would explore alien planets that are nothing more than a random desert, forest, or mountain. Murderbot does the same, and without the constant sci-fi jargon thrown around, you could miss that it’s even part of the genre. Ironically, the cheap show Murderbot keeps watching, Sanctuary Moon, has a much more interesting visual style.

That makes sense to some degree. Murderbot is first and foremost a comedy, with the sci-fi setting there as set dressing. At the beginning, the group of clients Murderbot has to protect is established, and from there the comedic friction that arises between them takes care of the rest. There’s Mensah (Noma Dumezweni, of Presumed Innocent), leader of the group, who naively believes in the best of people at all times. Gurathin (David Dastmalchian, of The Life of Chuck), the overly cynical augmented human who’s too smart for his own good. Bharadwaj (Tamara Podemski), who’s dealing with the fact that she almost died. And the non-binary Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu) who’s in a polyamorous relationship with Ratthi (Akshay Khanna) and Arada (Tattiawna Jones), but who are not all aligned on their feelings. 

Murderbot shines with a diverse ensemble that features different ethnicities, sexualities, and alternative lifestyles, such as polyamory. It’s a bit unfortunate that writers Chris and Paul Weitz feel the need to throw the occasional joke at their expense into the show; there are a handful of jabs at the character’s open and left-leaning views. It’s nothing too bad; most of them can be hand-waved away as slight miscalculations with good intentions, but it’s still a bit frustrating that we can’t seem to move past jokes about characters respecting someone’s chosen name, even if that name is Murderbot. Nevertheless, it’s refreshing how progressive the show largely feels with its ensemble, and the representation is much better than I would’ve expected from it.

Like Sanctuary Moon, Murderbot presents a season of perfectly average streaming content. If you’re looking for the next show to passively consume while you’re doing your laundry, then Murderbot is made for that. The stakes are low, the plot meanders and is easy to follow, while the focus is on the ensemble of characters and their hijinks. I don’t have many negative things to say about the show; at the same time, I’m pretty sure I will have forgotten that I watched it in a month.

The season premiere of Murderbot will be available to stream on Apple TV+ on May 16, 2025. The remaining episodes will be released weekly, with the season finale out on July 11, 2025.

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