Apple TV+ has done more experimentation with 30-minute dramas, particularly genre pieces, than any other streamer I can think of. To cite two examples, last year’s Sugar, starring Colin Farrell as an unusual private detective, worked, because the mystery format lends itself to being broken up into discreet chunks whenver there’s a twist or breakthrough in the case. Before, a supernatural thriller starring Billy Crystal and Judith Light, did not work, because effective horror depends on building tension and dread, which you can’t do if you’ve got to end on a big cliffhanger every 26 minutes or so. 

Murderbot can go in the “works” category. It’s not asking a ton of you as a viewer, at least not yet; its main question seems to be “Do you like watching Alexander Skarsgård play a neurodivergent Terminator?”, and that’s a question you can easily answer, in the affirmative, in 30-minute chunks. I want to see what trouble this big goofy killing machine gets up to. I want to find out what trouble it’s gotten up to in the past. And I want to see how it gets its reluctant human friends out of their own trouble — or, who knows, maybe abandons them to it in a shocking way and becomes a real antihero, instead of a wisecracking sidekick who suddenly got a story of its own. Either way, I’ll be watching. 

I reviewed the second episode of Murderbot for Decider.

There’s a world out there, a world not so very different from our own, a world in which Apple TV+ rebrands as sci-fi specialty streaming service — a la Shudder for horror or Crunchyroll for anime — and makes a very strong go of it. Severance, Silo, Foundation, For All Mankind, Invasion, at least one other show I could name but won’t because it would spoil a pretty big surprise: Apple’s genre efforts are stylistically and thematically diverse, they provide a platform for a phalanx of terrific actors, and they look expensive as hell. It’s clear that this science fiction is treated with care and concern by the streamer. Apple TV+ wouldn’t have canceled Raised by Wolves, that’s for damn sure. (I’m still salty about that. Damn you, Zaslav!)

Judging from its premiere (both episodes one and two drop today), Murderbot fits neatly into this existing pattern of platforming bold and often beautiful science fiction visions. This one comes from author Martha Wells — her novel All Systems Red, the first in her Murderbot Diaries series, provides the basis for the show — and co-creators Chris and Paul Weitz, who also co-write the first two episodes and split the honors directing. Running at sitcom length, it has a mostly breezy and comedic vibe, between moments of sudden inhuman violence and cutaways to a psychedelic sci-fi show-within-the-show. The mix works.

I reviewed the series premiere of Murderbot for Decider.