It's Critter Time!

Have you ever loved a show buried on one of the worst streaming services imaginable?

Murderbot is a recent release on AppleTV+, which I can't in good conscience recommend subscribing to, but the show almost justifies it.

It's a sci-fi show about a security android that just recently hacked their own body for free will, and how they interact with a world of humans.

Don't let the name fool you, the titular Murderbot isn't killing humans willy-nilly. They just wants to watch their favorite serials.

I'm not gonna spoil much, but it really is a wonderful show about how someone who is completely detached from the concept of humanity deals with interacting with an extremely human element.

The show has great makeup work, and does a good job at selling all its characters.

It's based on a series of novellas by Martha Wells known as The Murderbot Diaries. The show covers the first novella, called All Systems Red. If you can't give the show a watch, at the very least give the novellas a read. I can't recommend either of these enough.

It's good, I enjoyed it. Seen many folks say it's a great example of a leading character that's autistic and aro-ace, too.

(And personally I think Apple TV+ is pretty good! Ted Lasso, Severance, Wolfwalkers, Central Park, Mythic Quest, For All Mankind, Strange Planet… it probably has more original programming that I actually want to watch than most other streaming platforms.)

That's fair. I'm mostly complaining about their poor app implementation, if anything.

It seems like I can't get the service to work without rebooting my streaming device half the time (unless it's my laptop doing the streaming haha)

Not only SecUnit aroace and autistic, its nonbinary! Its one of the few nb characters I can remember that got to major acclaim in the mainstream that didn't fit the "usual" look for a nb character (that being they wrote and designed a cis woman, and maybe did they/them if they remembered. This isn't to say some nb people aren't exceedingly fem, but the near exclusion of it in character design does contribute to the "woman-lite" image of nonbinary people. SecUnit being masc and still nonbinary is extremely important to me)

Apple services suck though and I only watch it at my mother's house. I'm not fighting with that.

Oh yeah, Murderbot seemingly being on board with it/its pronouns gives me life.

beeps wrote: Mon Jul 14, 2025 5:46 pm Oh yeah, Murderbot seemingly being on board with it/its pronouns gives me life.

It's clearer in the books, but it was one of the things I was utterly terrified about when the announcement for an adaptation came through. I thought they might make it a cis dude and call it a day

SO happy they didn't

Just finished watching this last night! Felt like a great adaptation of the book. One critique is that the scientist crew's politics were played for laughs more than in the books. Like, the on-screen poly relationship was mostly a humorous side plot. But on the other paw I still liked all the characters! I haven't finished all the novellas so this makes me want to pick them back up.