No, it’s not that godawful Robocop remake. This is a whole other sci-fi property, featuring a blandly handsome Swedish actor’s head slapped onto a robotic body. Also, this one looks pretty good.
How to watch Murderbot: season 1 in New Zealand
Murderbot: season 1 is streaming in New Zealand exclusively on Apple TV+ from May 16, 2025.
What is Murderbot: season 1 about?
Based on the book series The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, Murderbot follows the adventures of the titular cyborg security unit in The Corporation Rim, a hyper-capitalist space-faring society. The thing is, he’s developed self-awareness, which he needs to hide from all and sundry. The first season is adapting, naturally enough, the first book, All Systems Red, in which our metal man must protect a scientific research mission on an alien planet. There are seven books so far, so there’s plenty of material to mine if this thing clicks with audiences.
The cast of Murderbot: season 1
Alexander Skarsgård is Murderbot; David Dastmalchian is Gurathin, a scientist whose PreservationAux team is being protected by our polished metal protagonist; Noma Dumezweni is Mensah, the PreservationAux team leader; Sabrina Wu is Pin-Lee, the team’s legal counsel; Tattiawna Jones is Arada, a scientist; Akshay Khanna is Ratthi, another scientist; and Tamara Podemski is Bharadwaj, yet another scientist. There’s also a show-within-the-show titled The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon (Murderbot loves soap operas!) which features Clark Gregg, John Cho, DeWanda Wise, and Jack McBrayer. This one comes to us from sibling filmmakers Paul and Chris Weitz, who will forever and always be known as the American Pie guys.
Murderbot: season 1 trailer
Why we’re excited about Murderbot: season 1
Well, the books are smash hits in the nerd diaspora. And they’re critically acclaimed to boot, being backed with interesting philosophical ideas about personhood, the nature of consciousness, and whatnot, so this is definitely worth a fly-by. And Skarsgård is, despite our earlier crack, always watchable. We’ll be giving it a spin.
