This end of the year is bringing us very good news to the audiovisual sector. Movies and series are being announced freely after the end of the writers and actors strikes. Now it’s Apple TV+’s turn.
If you like science fiction, Apple TV+ has some very good series in its catalog, and is about to receive what appears to be another adaptation of a book series about a cyborg.
Based on the award-winning and dystopian book The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells, the series will follow a self-aware and self-hackable bodyguard robot who is horrified by humans, but also feels drawn to them.
A series that will arrive with a very familiar face as the protagonist
The protagonist will be Alexander Skarsgård. It is also Apple’s second collaboration with executive producer David S. Goyer, who is the director and executive producer of Foundation, which is currently airing its second season, very well received, and has been renewed for a third season.
I have high hopes for it. As Apple demonstrated with the brilliant Silo, which was an adaptation of the Wool trilogy, the service is quite good at turning beloved science fiction series into equally beloved science fiction shows.
What is Murderbot about?
In Wells’ novels, the cyborg Murderbot is a Security Unit -SecUnit for short- whose job is to protect human scientists in a distant world.
Murderbot doesn’t really like humans, although it has a very human hobby of watching TV shows and being grumpy and sarcastic about almost everything. And when it becomes evident that there is a killer on the loose, Murderbot has to keep the survivors alive.
Throughout the novels, it becomes more than just a science fiction adventure. Although the story of each book is self-contained – making it ideal for future seasons – there is a broader arc that explores artificial intelligence and what it means to be human.
