By Gary Whitehouse: The wait is over! The small screen adaptation of Martha Wells’s Hugo and Nebula winning book series The Murderbot Diaries began in mid-May (2025) on Apple TV+. Cutting to the chase: It’s good!

The Murderbot TV series opened with the first two episodes, in which we’re introduced to SecUnit and the other main characters, get a little glimpse of the universe they live in, the work they do, and the genesis of the events that will (hopefully) set in motion a long sequence of actions and revelations in our hero’s life, both externally and internally. I say “hopefully” because there are likely a million more timelines in which this show ends after one season than there are timelines in which the entire series of books gets to play out on our screens. As far as I know, nobody is even talking publicly about a second season yet.

I didn’t read my first Murderbot book (which was the first Murderbot book, All Systems Red) until 2019, but then I raced through the first four novellas that had been published to that point. I’ve read the whole series of five novellas and two novels at least twice, some of them three times now, which apparently is fairly common among its fans. They’re funny and exciting but most of all they’re life affirming and compassionate. A lot of readers, especially people who are neurodivergent or LQBTQ+, find Murderbot the character highly relatable.

In case you haven’t read them yet (in which case you should do so at once, and also check out my review of All Systems Red), Murderbot is a part-human, part-robot construct created by a corporation and contracted out as a Security Unit. It has hacked the governor module that enforces obedience (Asimov’s Three Laws under corporate fascism), and discovered that it can download tons of media from the Feed. Now it would just like to binge watch TV (its favorite show is The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon) and avoid interacting with humans and their messy fluids, odors, and emotions. Especially emotions.

Back to the show. SecUnit has been contracted to a team of terraforming scientists from the Preservation system, which is outside of Corporation Rim and dedicated to full personhood for everyone. They’re doing a survey on an apparently uninhabited (and non-lethal) planet where all is not as it seems. Let’s just say adventure ensues and emotions happen, and Murderbot and humans alike have to decide if they can trust each other with their lives.

It’s a little too soon to tell after two episodes, but so far this adaptation by Chris and Paul Weitz is getting a lot of things right. Especially the wryly snarky tone, which sometimes reminds me of that first superb season of The Mandalorian. When the casting was announced a few months back, there was some online grumbling — including from some voices I greatly respect — about the casting of a cis-het guy in the lead role. I’ll just say that lead actor Alexander Skarsgård (who also gets an executive producer credit) nails the character in a lot of ways from the sarcasm tinged voiceovers to the myriad depictions of social anxiety that cross his face.

Other than Noma Dumezweni as Dr. Mensah and David Dastmalchian as Gurathin, it’s early to get a read on the supporting cast so far, but all have great potential. The production design, sets and costumes, adds immensely to the show’s vibe.

The episodes are short, each a little more than 20 minutes. They’re billed as dropping every Friday, but depending on your time zone you might see them in your feed sometime Thursday evening. That is if you subscribe to Apple TV+. And really, at this point, why would you not?

(Depth of Field Productions, 2025)

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A fifth-generation Oregonian, Gary Whitehouse is a retired journalist and government communicator. Since the 1990s he has been covering music, books, food & drink and occasionally films, blogs and podcasts for Green Man Review. His main literary interests for GMR are science fiction, music lore, and food & cooking. A lifelong lover of music, his interests are wide ranging and include folk, folk rock, jazz, Americana, classic country, and roots based music from all over the world. He also enjoys dogs, birding, cooking, whisk(e)y, and coffee.