Over a year after being cast in this long-awaited Apple TV+ series, we’re finally getting a glimpse of the leading man, Alexander Skarsgård. In December 2023, it was announced that Skarsgård will produce and star in Murderbot, the sci-fi thriller based on Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries. Since then, not many details have been revealed, but now a series of first-look images have come to light courtesy of Vanity Fair, showing the Succession star in character as the “extremely reluctant” hero of the story.

From Chris and Paul Weitz, the greatly admired directors of About a Boy, Murderbot is expected to debut on May 16 and will feature ten humorous episodes. In addition to directing, the Weitz duo are writing and producing the series, with Wells involved as a consulting producer. Looking at the images below, Skarsgård’s character protects a real-life crew of scientists led by Dr. Mensah (Noma Dumezweni). Other stars also added to the photos are David Dastmalchian, who joined the cast in February 2024, and Sabrina Wu, Tattiawna Jones, Akshay Khanna, and Tamara Podemski.

As described by VF, Murderbot is more like a workplace comedy about hating what you’re good at, which perfectly describes the title character. The security android played by Skarsgård identifies as a thing and apparently prefers the neutral pronoun because it is proud to be an object rather than a person. It is also horrified by human emotion but is drawn to its vulnerable clients, and when given a dangerous assignment, it must hide its free will and carry it out, even though all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe.

‘Murderbot’ Is Almost Like A Coming-of-age Story —But for A Bot!

Directors Chris and Paul, who are well known for American Pie and About a Boy, couldn’t help but combine elements from these classics in Murderbot, particularly the “humor and self-loathing” in the android. Paul mentioned this to the outlet, adding, “[Murderbot] is not quite certain that he’s capable of having meaningful, emotional interactions with people.” Chris, who described the series as “a bit of a coming-of-age story,” also compared the bot to a teenager as it considers doing big things but instead spends its time binge-streaming the corniest imaginable sci-fi TV shows while half-heartedly fulfilling its security duties. It’s almost like “just wanting to look at your phone and not deal with people.” Joining the discussion about the character, Skarsgård opined:

“[Murderbot] just doesn’t get humans at all. It’s not a deep hatred, it’s just zero amount of curiosity. It’s confused by humans and wants to get away from them.”

Expect this thrilling Apple TV+ comedy in May.

via Collider