2w ago

Murderbot, An Unexpected Surprise

I just finished the last episode of season one, after finding myself unexpectedly drawn to the show. I wasn't sure what to think going in and am glad I stayed. It can be gruesome at times, which is probably why my partner didn't want to continue it, but I loved the story and cinematics quite a bit. I think Alexander Skarsgård performed excellently in this role. And rotten tomatoes indicates that people agree.

With so many shows being canceled, I have no expectations when watching anything. I'm happy to learn that Murderbot will have a second season. 💜🤖

P.s. I can't wait for more Sanctuary Moon as well. Haha!

34 comments

It's no Sanctuary Moon, but still a pretty good show. :-)
- The tropes in the Sanctuary Moon episodes really do have me laughing. 😁💜
- That's premium quality television
- The show definitely needed John Cho. I have never seen him in a role quite like Chau in Off Centre though.

The first season adapted the first book pretty faithfully. I'm hoping the second season does as well for the second book. The first three books in the series are all part of a single connected story and it would be nice to have at least three seasons to conclude that first arc.

Alexander Skarsgård carried that show so hard. If it weren't for his excellent performance I would have given up for sure.
- "War on Everyone" was the first time I saw him. That movie is fuckin amazing and super underrated. And he was awesome. LET'S GO FUCK SOME SCUMBAGS

My friend tells me the books are much better, but I enjoyed the show a lot. I made the mistake of binging it though, definitely should've kept it to one episode a night.
- I think both book and show are very similar. The show is quite a good adaptation, but it is an adaptation and you might get different things from the books. It's definitely worth a try and the books are very short and quick to read. For me, one thing I hate in the books are descriptions of fights. Those work much better in the show.
  
  Solid summary! And yeah, the fight scene details are over the top. She had a great take on those with some of the details, I could really picture them, but the endless fine points, damn.
- I just finished the first book along with the show. Honestly, the book is… fine? I would hope the writing improves with growth, because the book was weirdly monotonous and expository, partly by nature of the narrator, but that doesn’t make it less dry. So much was just stated explicitly and plainly, it made potentially exciting things feel boring. In the end it felt like a pretty good story told pretty poorly.
  
  The books stay the same. I liked them. I read the first two in a single sitting on a (verry) long flight. They are popcorn books. Fun without too much substance. The action is told from his point of view which is pretty jaded, its supposed to be humorous, and yes its a very dry humor.

I never read the books but I really liked this show. Skarsgard was great but so were the others. I really liked Gura and Mensa. LeeBeeBee was funny too but I totally knew she was going to be a rat. She just had that energy. Glad Murderbot shot her.
I hope Murderbot gets up to some crazy shenanigans in season 2 now that no one knows he is a secunit.
- LeeBee was certainly something. Haha.

I was less than impressed, sorry to say. I did finish the entire thing. The story had some potential, but I never really felt that connection to the cast. They felt like a group of bland individuals to me. It was just about good enough to keep watching.
- I definitely felt the connection with Murderbot, but it wasn't until the end of the final episode that I was finally connecting with Gurathin. I think the short episodes make it a little challenging to connect after only 10.
  
  Well yeah those were the only two characters that stuck with me. I couldn't really tell you who the others were and what their part in the whole thing was.
  But I couldn't really tell you what it's about either. The story felt a bit all over the place.

I love the books and have read them through multiple times now. I just started the show and finished the first episode last night.
I'm hoping as Murderbot learns more about Preservation Aux in the show that they will be characterized less... degradingly. In the books rhey're competent, empathetic and sensible humans which comes as a shock to Murderbot, and I was disappointed to see them played as silly naive goofballs.
I also have some major issues with the intro and general way they handled Murderbot's origin so far, but there were also scenes that were straight out of the book so I will keep watching.
- I watched the show a couple of years after reading the books. Even so, the places they changed the show from the books was pretty jarring. I need more time between book and show so that I can enjoy each for what they are.

I always find the anthropomorphism of robots kinda lame and boring. Robots should be slaves. They shouldn't have any personality. I don't want to be their friends, and I don't want to care about them. I don't even like it when TTS tools sound like humans.
- You've missed the point of the novels then. Murderbot is a slave until by chance he breaks his programming. He's trying to keep up the slave facade despite being rather autistic.
  
  *it
  (Noting, because its gender is a big part of the novels)
  
  He didn't break it "by chance", he broke it intentionally. Robots do not break their programming, because they have no desire to. Nor do they watch television. Sometimes it reacts like a robot, and other times it reacts like a human. Which one is it? It can't be both.
- It's not a robot. In the books Murderbot is a construct, made of hybridized biological and artificial components. However, there is an AGI characterized as having empathy and enjoying media in the books, so I suppose the series is just not going to be your cup of tea.
  
  I don't know how you can say that. The name of the show is Murderbot. Emphasis on the "bot". It's created, not born or bred. It clearly shows at several points in the show computational processes going on in it's "brain".
  In the books Murderbot is a construct, made of hybridized biological and artificial components.
  That's a robot...?

34 comments