JP Mangalindan was the chief tech correspondent for Yahoo Finance based in San Francisco covering the intersection of business and technology.
follows an anxious security robot assigned to protect a survey group on a planetary mission. As the mission progresses and deadly surprises emerge, Murderbot grapples with concealing its capacity for free will — an ability enabled when it hacked its governor module — and its insecurities around humans, all while navigating existential questions about its purpose in the universe.
Above all, though, Murderbot wishes it could spend its days simply viewing the 7,532 hours of video content it secretly squirreled away in its system for entertainment — a true media junkie, like most of the show's viewers.to TV took years, delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Writers Guild of America strike in 2023. But with support from Apple TV+’s head of worldwide video Jamie Erlicht, a fan of Wells’ work, Paul and Chris chipped away at the show’s scripts, sending every version to Wells for feedback. in most of the ways that count. The plot largely follows that of the novella, but also makes substantial additions. Members of the PresAux survey group which Murderbot protects, including Dr. Mensah , Gurathin , Pin-lee , Ratthi , Arada and Bharadwaj , now have more nuance and deeper backstories. The Preservation Alliance, an independent group of planets which the PresAux survey group hails from, is now eccentric, even downright bohemian. Duringseason premiere, PresAux holds hands in a meditative circle, eyes closed, deliberating over whether to rent the refurbished Murderbot for their mission. Soon after landing on the planet, they dance in the desert, their bodies heaving, arms waving to the music’s beat — little touches inspired by aspects of Chris’s two decades of experience with Burning Man. “We also wanted a sense of these people being out of their element and out of their social setting,” Chris told Engadget. “They’re in the corporation rim, which is a really brutal, extractive capitalist world, but these people are egalitarians from outside of that system. They are freaks not just to Murderbot, but to the corporation flunkies who are upselling them.”the futuristic soap opera is its own fleshed out universe – a bonafide show-within-a-show. Intended as a parody of classic sci-fi, most obviously the original Star Trek series,scenes are rife with heavily saturated sets and gaudy costumes. John Cho, as the captain of a starship, falls madly in love with a navigation systems robot ; Jack McBrayer portrays a navigation officer out of his depth. Their performances are comically over-the-top, but that’s the point. “I have a theory that people think of good acting as being very restrained, and that is the case often, but my theory is that humans are emoting maniacs all the time. They're hamming it up in front of the mirror, in their bathroom,” Paul said. “There was something great about being able to enter a David Lynch-like telenovela world and do the sci-fi version of those things.”Casting the droll but irreverent character of Murderbot took time. Part-human, it experiences a full range of emotions but struggles with deep-seated social anxiety, and detests showing its face to humans — which may help explain why the characterhad traits and experiences Paul and Chris felt were essential for effectively playing the show’s central character. As one might expect for a security robot, Paul Weisz noted Skarsgård is "physically imposing.” "You get the sense maybe he could kill somebody," said Paul. But much like the titular character Paul felt this sometimes terrifying exterior belied something much more nuanced. "Alexander also has a really quirky sense of humor. His mind is very different from his body. He’s really unique.”scenes wasn’t nearly as intensive a search; Cho and the Weitz brothers had worked on several projects together over the years“It's like a Faustian bargain when you work with us once, that we're probably going to get your home cellphone,” Paul mused. “Jack McBrayer is best friends with Alexander, so that was the route to . In terms of John, we worked with him first on, and I think we've done 12 things in different ways with him over the years. So it's a little likeFilmed in Ontario, production started in 2024, lasting six months. Shooting the show’s planetary scenes meant scouring for locations like mining quarries, slag heaps and abandoned factories. Interior shots for scenes at Port Freecommerce, a vast star base, in the season premiere were filmed on soundstages in Toronto.All along, Paul and Chris set out to present a far-flung universe seen less often on screen in recent years. Shirking the dark, grim aesthetic heavily favored in many more recent sci-fi TV and film projects, they worked with production designer Sue Chan to create a universe dominated by bright lighting, white and gray sets, light-colored fabrics and colorful patterns. “We drew on the wellspring of science fiction we read when we were kids and on science fiction paperback covers of the 1980s, which always seemed to have such great concept design and a bright, interesting world in which to lose yourself,” Paul recalled. “Specifically, it seemed like since this was a world that was dominated by corporations, there'd be a lot of logos everywhere. There'd be a cheapness to a lot of what was manufactured. Also, if you look around, there are a lot of things that seem to have been extruded by giant 3-D printers. Even theDesigning Murderbot’s armor was a collaborative process with the costume department, led by costume designer Carrie Grace and specialty costume designer Laura Jean Shannon. To start, they looked at helmets from virtually every well-known robot depicted in military and sci-fi movies from the last 50 years. Initial designs resembledstormtroopers, but Skarsgård “really pushed” for the robot’s look to be “something unique,” according to Paul. Drawing inspiration from’ Petey, who had a large black circle around one of his eyes, the team built a large, distinctive black eye piece into Murderbot’s helmet visor.Murderbot spends much of its time clad in armor, but it also has downtime when the armor comes off, revealing an impossibly smooth humanoid form resembling Mattel’s Ken dolls. To achieve that look, Skarsgård regularly waxed his entire body during filming.“Alexander actually volunteered to have his body waxed, because he thought it was what would be best for the character,” Chris recalled. “I remember discussing it with him, and I said, ‘Listen, man, I don't know if people are even going towax myself,’” Chris continued. “Then for the next five, six months, he had to do that every week until he realized eventually that his next role was to play a hairy biker [in the romance drama, Paul and Chris saw more than a quirky sci-fi novella — they saw a deeply human story wrapped in armor and deadpan humor. Their TV adaptation doesn’t just bring Wells’ world to screen with panache, it leans into the quiet radicalism of a character who resists heroism, craves isolation and struggles to navigate the messiness of human connection.more than just another sci-fi romp. It's a mirror for our most vulnerable selves, disguised as a robot who’d really rather be watching TV.
Murderbot Chris Weirtz Alexander Skarsgård TV Adaptation All Systems Red Paul Chris Survey Group
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