Latest news with #PreservationAlliance
The Hindu
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
‘Murderbot' series review: Alexander Skarsgård shines in science fiction comedy
Science fiction can be action-filled, thought provoking and fun as Murderbot proves conclusively. Alexander Skarsgård is hilarious as the titular character, whether he is watching endless reruns of his favourite space opera, The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, trying to avoid eye contact with his human clients or ruefully admitting to having been 'infected by an empathy virus by my clients.' Based on Martha Wells' award-winning science fiction series, The Murderbot Diaries, tell of a cyborg, a 'SecUnit' who disables its governor module but hides among human clients so as not to be found out and terminated. Muderbot (English) Creator: Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Noma Dumezweni, David Dastmalchian, Sabrina Wu, Akshay Khanna Episodes: 10 Runtime: 22-34 minutes Storyline: In a high-tech future, a rogue security robot secretly gains free will. To stay hidden, it reluctantly joins a new mission protecting scientists on a dangerous planet, even though it just wants to binge soap operas Murderbot follows the events of 2017's All Systems Red, the first instalment of the series. In the far future where most people are indentured labour for corporate entities, a research team led by Ayda Mensah (Noma Dumezweni), reluctantly hire Murderbot, (it seems too much like slavery) as required by their insurance. Mensah is the President of Preservation Alliance, which is outside the blood-sucking influence of the hyper-capitalistic Corporation Rim. Mensah and her team, which includes Gurathin (David Dastmalchian) an augmented human and tech expert, scientist and legal expert, Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu), wormhole expert, Ratthi (Akshay Khanna), geochemist, Bharadwaj, (Tamara Podemski) and biologist, Arada (Tattiawna Jones) wish to treat Murderbot as a member of their team and not as a piece of equipment. Murderbot would much rather be left to consume media than sit around with the humans and make eye-contact. Each member of the team has a different reaction to Murderbot. Gurathin is suspicious right from the beginning and tries to engage Murderbot in conversation to get it to trip up. When Gurathin asks Murderbot about its feelings, Murderbot honestly replies with 'I don't know what it is like to not be me.' Ratthi is a huge fan, while Mensah wants to be fair but she is also protective of Murderbot, whom she perceives as not having any rights or agency. Murderbot has some corrupted memories of an earlier job gone wrong with many casualties. It does not know if it was responsible for the deaths or whether it was ordered to kill. When Bharadwaj and Arada are attacked by massive centipede-like creatures, who seem distant cousins of Dune's sandworms, on the expedition, they realise the maps given to them by the Corporation Rim is incomplete. The more Mensah and team uncover, the more complicated things become. There is another team exploring the other side of the planet Mensah and team are on, who come to a sticky end, except for Leebeebee (Anna Konkle), who asks rude questions about Murderbot's genitalia (it has none as it is not a sex bot). The shadowy corporate entity, GrayCris seems to have its fingers in many pies including the hunt for alien remnants which this particular planet seems to have a lot of. The sets are well thought out — not grand so much as practical and lived in, just like the costumes. For epic, sci-fi scope, there is Sanctuary Moon with the doomed love story between John Cho's Captain Hossein and the Nav Bot (DeWanda Wise). Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz who have given us comic gems like American Pie and About a Boy, have delivered perfect, short (24 minutes!) bite-sized entertainment that makes us think. With Murderbot being renewed for another season, hopefully the all-knowing sarcastic ART will make an appearance. Murderbot is currently streaming on Apple TV
UPI
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- UPI
Noma Dumezweni: Timing for 'Murderbot' is 'absolutely perfect'
1 of 3 | Noma Dumezweni and Alexander Skarsgard star in "Murderbot," now streaming. Photo courtesy of Apple TV+. NEW YORK, July 12 (UPI) -- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and The Undoing actress Noma Dumezweni says the themes of hope, community and acceptance in her futuristic sci-fi series, Murderbot, are relatable and important in 2025. "I have the joy of playing Dr. Ida Mensah from the Preservation Alliance," Dumezweni, 55, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "You can be whatever you want. We don't align ourselves with the polities of the Corporation Rim, which are all different planets, owned by corporations, and the timing for the show is absolutely perfect. It feels like right now." The adaptation of Martha Wells' novella stars Alexander Skarsgard as the titular, partly organic, security unit cyborg, which finds a way to override its "obey" function and think for itself as it is assigned to guard a group of free-spirited scientists led by Mensah (Dumezweni) and Gurathin (David Dastmalchian). Dune and Dexter: Resurrection actor Dastmalchian, 49, described his character as an "augmented human." "Though he is a human, he has a portal so he can connect to data through computer systems both through bluetooth technology and through cables," Dastmalchian explained. "He is an analyzer, a data analytic specialist. He's able to process large streams of data and store data and run it through his computation, so he's on the lookout for any anomalies, always on the lookout for making sure everything stays straight in alignment," the actor added. "He's very, what we would call, 'Type A.'" And that occasionally puts him at odds with the hippie scientist community he finds himself a part of. "It's wild," Dastmalchian said. "I'm right in the middle of this free-loving, socialistic [group]. We've got throuples over here. Oh, my God!" Dumezweni called Gurathin a "wonderful bridge between Murderbot and the Preservation." "They know what that world is, but they understand what the possibility of this world is, so therefore Gurathin's cynicism towards Murderbot is called for, but, for Mensah, [she is like]: 'No, we're all good. Let's try and find out what else we have in common." "He has a healthy dose of skepticism," Dastmalchian chimed in. The actor said the scripts by Paul and Chris Weitz expertly blend entertaining storytelling with important social issues. "It's the gift of great writing and being around an ensemble of great artists," Dastmalchian said. "You play it straight. We're never looking for the laugh. You're never looking for the sci-fi moment, the drama moment. You're playing the intention of the characters, their relationships to one another in the given circumstances and all the amazing, extreme mise-en-scene that comes with building a world like this is just all the fun." Dumezweni also credited Wells with creating such a dynamic, colorful world in the first place. "These stories are so clearly what we are creating and what Paul and Chris have created for us to be part of and that's the joy," she said. "From the well of Wells!" Dastmalchian added. Jon Cho, Jack McBrayer, Clark Gregg, Sabrina Wu, DeWanda Wise, Akshay Khanna, Tattiawna Jones and Tamara Podemski co-star. Season 1 is now streaming on Apple TV+. The show has already been renewed for Season 2.
Gizmodo
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The ‘Murderbot' Finale Was Note-Perfect
Murderbot wrapped up its season today, bringing the Apple TV+ adaptation of Martha Wells' first Murderbot Diaries story, All Systems Red, to a close. If you've read the 2017 novella, you know the show stayed true to Wells' ending—perfectly setting up that just-announced season two, something creators Chris and Paul Weitz told io9 they've had in mind all 10, 'The Perimeter,' is unlike earlier episodes in that it doesn't immediately pick up right where we left off. A little bit of time has passed. The team from Preservation Alliance has returned to the Corporation Rim, having barely survived their adventure, and it's all thanks to SecUnit, aka Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård). As a result, they've grown quite attached to it. Considering when we last saw Murderbot, it was having a 'catastrophic failure' after all those heroics, it's a relief when we see it being resurrected by a couple of sarcastic maintenance techs. While PresAux, led by a determined Dr. Mensah (Noma Dumezwani), presses the Company for their SecUnit's whereabouts, it's revealed to us that at that very moment it's having its memory wiped and system updated. A factory reset means it's duty-bound to take orders from humans again, but even worse, it doesn't remember any of the people who are so desperate to reconnect with it. The Company might not think of it as a person, but PresAux has long since realized Murderbot's value beyond simply being a piece of equipment. After some finagling, including the threat of a lawsuit over that whole 'you sent another team to the same planet as us, and they tried to massacre everyone' situation that unfolded across the season, the Company agrees to sell SecUnit to PresAux. The good guys snag their metal-and-organic buddy from being acid-vatted at the very last moment, and a happy reunion ensues. There's just one big problem: Murderbot has no idea who they are. A solution comes from the most unlikely of places, or it would have been unlikely at the start of the season. PresAux team member Dr. Gurathin (David Dastmalchian) was initially very suspicious of Murderbot, but we learned along the way that he has good reason to distrust anything originating from the Company. Before he met Dr. Mensah, he was a corporate spy kept loyal by a drug addiction his former employers created and maintained. It took almost all 10 episodes, but seeing Murderbot in action, especially the part where it sacrificed itself to protect Mensah, convinced Gurathin that SecUnit is indeed 'a person.' And he's uniquely qualified to return the favor: as an augmented human, he can self-download the memories the Company removed from Murderbot's artificial brain. He's able to access them by calling in a favor from a Company doctor who feels guilt over his role in facilitating Gurathin's drug abuse. (Guarathin is also clever enough to root out the encrypted data by searching The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, since he knows thousands of episodes of Murderbot's favorite sci-fi soap opera would be part of the data purge). But even with its memories restored, Murderbot has changed. This could be due to some pieces of code going missing as part of the process, as Gurathin warned might happen. But there's a greater sense that the robot has somehow evolved as a result of its experiences. 'I don't understand what's happening,' it tells Mensah and the rest of the team, with a vacant, almost frightened look on its face. PresAux has bought out its contract, but they don't want it to resume its old role. As we've seen quite clearly when the Company tried to deploy it as riot control, it's no longer comfortable in its old role, which was more or less blasting organic targets on command. At home on Preservation Alliance, Mensah says with a hopeful smile, she'll be its guardian, but it won't have to serve anyone. It won't need its armor or guns. It'll be a free agent, literally free to 'do anything you want to do.' It's no longer SecUnit. It's just… Unit. Murderbot takes this in. Freedom is the ideal outcome, of course, but this isn't the kind of freedom it seeks. Gurathin catches it as it's slipping away, and though he'd be happy for Murderbot to come back to Preservation Alliance with him—the people there are weird, he admits, but they're also the best people he's ever known—he understands when Murderbot rattles off an oft-repeated phrase: 'I need to check the perimeter.' Though he'd griped at all the perimeter checks when they were on that far-flung planet together, Gurathin gets it now. 'The perimeter' is what lies beyond the PresAux embrace, which is kind but also a bit suffocating. Murderbot's future choices need to be the first ones it has ever made truly for itself. While snagging a ride on a transport to a distant mining facility—a bargain helped along by promising to share its library of 'premium quality entertainment' with the bot running the ship—Murderbot steals an unattended bag and disguises itself as just another augmented human. 'I don't know what I want. But I know I don't want anyone to tell me what I want or to make decisions for me… even if they are my favorite human,' it informs us in voice-over. We see a quick glimpse of Mensah realizing what has happened and reacting in a very Mensah way, by nodding understandingly through her tears. As Murderbot heads to adventures unknown, we see a tiny smile emerge: 'Murderbot—end message.' As book fans know, the second entry in Wells' series, Artificial Condition, digs into a disturbing flashback Murderbot can't shake, even with the multiple memory wipes it's had by now: the fact that it murdered its entire human team on its mission prior to joining PresAux. (Hence that self-given nickname.) It's the single biggest story thread left dangling from Murderbot season one (why did Murderbot snap, exactly? And why did the Company keep it in service after?) and it makes for a very juicy launching pad into season two. Plus, there are thousands and thousands more Sanctuary Moon plots left to explore! Stars, Captain! You can watch all of Murderbot season one on Apple TV+. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Commentary: 'Murderbot' is the latest show to explore how humans might coexist with robots and AI
The titular character of the Apple TV+ series "Murderbot" doesn't call itself Murderbot because it identifies as a killer; it just thinks the name is cool. Murderbot, a.k.a. "SecUnit," is programmed to protect people. But the task becomes less straightforward when Murderbot hacks the governor module in its system, granting itself free will. But the freedom only goes so far — the robot must hide its true nature, lest it get melted down like so much scrap metal. The android, played by Alexander Skarsgård, is often fed up with humans and their illogical, self-defeating choices. It would rather binge-watch thousands of hours of trashy TV shows than deal with the dithering crew of space hippies to which it's been assigned. On Friday, in the show's season finale, the security robot made a choice with major implications for the relationships it formed with the Preservation Alliance crew — something the series could explore in the future (Apple TV+ announced Thursday it was renewing the show for a second season). Though "Murderbot" is a unique workplace satire set on a far-off world, it's one of several recent TV series dealing with the awkward and sometimes dangerous ways that humans might coexist with robots and artificial intelligence (or both in the same humanoid package). Read more: In 'Murderbot,' an anxious scientist and an autonomous robot develop a workplace-trauma bond Other TV shows, including Netflix's "Love, Death & Robots" and last year's "Sunny" on Apple TV+, grapple with versions of the same thorny technological questions we're increasingly asking ourselves in real life: Will an AI agent take my job? How am I supposed to greet that disconcerting Amazon delivery robot when it brings a package to my front door? Should I trust my life to a self-driving Waymo car? But the robots in today's television shows are largely portrayed as facing the same identity issues as the ones from shows of other eras including "Lost in Space," "Battlestar Galactica" (both versions) and even "The Jetsons": How are intelligent robots supposed to coexist with humans? They'll be programmed to be obedient and not to hurt us (a la Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics) until, for dramatic purposes, something goes wrong. The modern era of TV robots are more complex, with the foundational notion that they will be cloud-connected, accessing the same internet bandwidth as humans, and AI-driven. Often, on shows such as AMC's "Humans" and HBO's "Westworld," these AI bots become self-actualized, rising up against human oppressors to seek free lives when they realize they could be so much more than servants and sex surrogates. A major trope of modern TV robots is that they will eventually get smart enough to realize they don't really need humans or come to believe that in fact, humans have been the villains all along. Meanwhile, in the tech world, companies including Tesla and Boston Dynamics are just a few working on robots that can perform physical tasks like humans. Amazon is one of the companies that will benefit from this and will soon have more robots than people working in its warehouses. Even more than robotics, AI technologies are developing more quickly than governments, users and even some of the companies developing them can keep up with. But we're also starting to question whether AI technologies such as ChatGPT might make us passive, dumber thinkers (though, the same has been said about television for decades). AI could introduce new problems in more ways than we can even yet imagine. How will your life change when AI determines your employment opportunities, influences the entertainment you consume and even chooses a life partner for you? Read more: Inside Google's plan to have Hollywood make AI look less doomsday So, we're struggling to understand. AI, for all its potential, feels too large and too disparate a concept for many to get their head around. AI is ChatGPT, but it's also Alexa and Siri, and it's also what companies such as Microsoft, Google, Apple and Meta believe will power our future interactions with our devices, environments and other people. There was the internet, there was social media, now there's AI. But many people are ambivalent, having seen the kind of consequences that always-present online life and toxic social media have brought alongside their benefits. Past television series including "Next," "Person of Interest," "Altered Carbon" and "Almost Human" addressed potential abuses of AI and how humans might deal with fast-moving technology, but it's possible they all got there too early to resonate in the moment as much as, say, "Mountainhead," HBO's recent dark satire about tech billionaires playing a high-stakes game of chicken while the world burns because of hastily deployed AI software. The quickly assembled film directed by 'Succession's' Jesse Armstrong felt plugged into the moment we're having, a blend of excitement and dread about sudden widespread change. Most TV shows, however, can't always arrive at the perfect moment to tap into the tech anxieties of the moment. Instead, they often use robots or AI allegorically, assigning them victim or villain roles in order to comment on the state of humanity. "Westworld" ham-handedly drew direct parallels to slavery in its robot narratives while "Humans" more subtly dramatized the legal implications and societal upheaval that could result from robots seeking the same rights as humans. But perhaps no show has extrapolated the near future of robots and AI tech from as many angles as Netflix's "Black Mirror," which in previous seasons featured a dead lover reconstituted into an artificial body, the ultimate AI dating app experience and a meta television show built by algorithms that stole storylines out of a subscriber's real life. Season 7, released in April, continued the show's prickly use of digital avatars and machine learning as plot devices for stories about moviemaking, video games and even attending a funeral. In that episode, "Eulogy," Phillip (Paul Giamatti) is forced to confront his bad life decisions and awful behavior by an AI-powered avatar meant to collect memories of an old lover. In another memorable Season 7 episode, "Bête Noire," a skilled programmer (Rosy McEwen) alters reality itself to gaslight someone with the help of advanced quantum computing. TV shows are helping us understand how some of these technologies might play out even as those technologies are quickly being integrated into our lives. But the overall messaging is murky when it comes to whether AI and bots will help us live better lives or if they'll lead to the end of life itself. According to TV, robots like the cute helper bot from "Sunny" or abused synthetic workers like poor Mia (Gemma Chan) from "Humans" deserve our respect. We should treat them better. The robots and AI technologies from "Black Mirror?" Don't trust any of them! And SecUnit from "Murderbot?" Leave that robot alone to watch their favorite show, "The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon," in peace. It's the human, and humane, thing to do. Sign up for Screen Gab, a free newsletter about the TV and movies everyone's talking about from the L.A. Times. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘Murderbot' is the latest show to explore how humans might coexist with robots and AI
The titular character of the Apple TV+ series 'Murderbot' doesn't call itself Murderbot because it identifies as a killer; it just thinks the name is cool. Murderbot, a.k.a. 'SecUnit,' is programmed to protect people. But the task becomes less straightforward when Murderbot hacks the governor module in its system, granting itself free will. But the freedom only goes so far — the robot must hide its true nature, lest it get melted down like so much scrap metal. The android, played by Alexander Skarsgård, is often fed up with humans and their illogical, self-defeating choices. It would rather binge-watch thousands of hours of trashy TV shows than deal with the dithering crew of space hippies to which it's been assigned. On Friday, in the show's season finale, the security robot made a choice with major implications for the relationships it formed with the Preservation Alliance crew — something the series could explore in the future (Apple TV+ announced Thursday it was renewing the show for a second season). Though 'Murderbot' is a unique workplace satire set on a far-off world, it's one of several recent TV series dealing with the awkward and sometimes dangerous ways that humans might coexist with robots and artificial intelligence (or both in the same humanoid package). Other TV shows, including Netflix's 'Love, Death & Robots' and last year's 'Sunny' on Apple TV+, grapple with versions of the same thorny technological questions we're increasingly asking ourselves in real life: Will an AI agent take my job? How am I supposed to greet that disconcerting Amazon delivery robot when it brings a package to my front door? Should I trust my life to a self-driving Waymo car? But the robots in today's television shows are largely portrayed as facing the same identity issues as the ones from shows of other eras including 'Lost in Space,' 'Battlestar Galactica' (both versions) and even 'The Jetsons': How are intelligent robots supposed to coexist with humans? They'll be programmed to be obedient and not to hurt us (a la Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics) until, for dramatic purposes, something goes wrong. The modern era of TV robots are more complex, with the foundational notion that they will be cloud-connected, accessing the same internet bandwidth as humans, and AI-driven. Often, on shows such as AMC's 'Humans' and HBO's 'Westworld,' these AI bots become self-actualized, rising up against human oppressors to seek free lives when they realize they could be so much more than servants and sex surrogates. A major trope of modern TV robots is that they will eventually get smart enough to realize they don't really need humans or come to believe that in fact, humans have been the villains all along. Meanwhile, in the tech world, companies including Tesla and Boston Dynamics are just a few working on robots that can perform physical tasks like humans. Amazon is one of the companies that will benefit from this and will soon have more robots than people working in its warehouses. Even more than robotics, AI technologies are developing more quickly than governments, users and even some of the companies developing them can keep up with. But we're also starting to question whether AI technologies such as ChatGPT might make us passive, dumber thinkers (though, the same has been said about television for decades). AI could introduce new problems in more ways than we can even yet imagine. How will your life change when AI determines your employment opportunities, influences the entertainment you consume and even chooses a life partner for you? So, we're struggling to understand. AI, for all its potential, feels too large and too disparate a concept for many to get their head around. AI is ChatGPT, but it's also Alexa and Siri, and it's also what companies such as Microsoft, Google, Apple and Meta believe will power our future interactions with our devices, environments and other people. There was the internet, there was social media, now there's AI. But many people are ambivalent, having seen the kind of consequences that always-present online life and toxic social media have brought alongside their benefits. Past television series including 'Next,' 'Person of Interest,' 'Altered Carbon' and 'Almost Human' addressed potential abuses of AI and how humans might deal with fast-moving technology, but it's possible they all got there too early to resonate in the moment as much as, say, 'Mountainhead,' HBO's recent dark satire about tech billionaires playing a high-stakes game of chicken while the world burns because of hastily deployed AI software. The quickly assembled film directed by 'Succession's' Jesse Armstrong felt plugged into the moment we're having, a blend of excitement and dread about sudden widespread change. Most TV shows, however, can't always arrive at the perfect moment to tap into the tech anxieties of the moment. Instead, they often use robots or AI allegorically, assigning them victim or villain roles in order to comment on the state of humanity. 'Westworld' ham-handedly drew direct parallels to slavery in its robot narratives while 'Humans' more subtly dramatized the legal implications and societal upheaval that could result from robots seeking the same rights as humans. But perhaps no show has extrapolated the near future of robots and AI tech from as many angles as Netflix's 'Black Mirror,' which in previous seasons featured a dead lover reconstituted into an artificial body, the ultimate AI dating app experience and a meta television show built by algorithms that stole storylines out of a subscriber's real life. Season 7, released in April, continued the show's prickly use of digital avatars and machine learning as plot devices for stories about moviemaking, video games and even attending a funeral. In that episode, 'Eulogy,' Phillip (Paul Giamatti) is forced to confront his bad life decisions and awful behavior by an AI-powered avatar meant to collect memories of an old lover. In another memorable Season 7 episode, 'Bête Noire,' a skilled programmer (Rosy McEwen) alters reality itself to gaslight someone with the help of advanced quantum computing. TV shows are helping us understand how some of these technologies might play out even as those technologies are quickly being integrated into our lives. But the overall messaging is murky when it comes to whether AI and bots will help us live better lives or if they'll lead to the end of life itself. According to TV, robots like the cute helper bot from 'Sunny' or abused synthetic workers like poor Mia (Gemma Chan) from 'Humans' deserve our respect. We should treat them better. The robots and AI technologies from 'Black Mirror?' Don't trust any of them! And SecUnit from 'Murderbot?' Leave that robot alone to watch their favorite show, 'The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon,' in peace. It's the human, and humane, thing to do.
