The Reason Murderbot's Tone Feels Off

A confession: This dispatch will not be coming to you from one of the long-devout Martha Wells faithful. I'm a convert, a curious reader who turned to Wells' The Murderbot Diaries series after reading my colleague Meghan Herbst's fantastic 2024 profile of the author, which left me questioning who would be challenged with taking on the series' title character in Apple TV's adaptation and why it was Alexander Skarsgård. Put differently, I wanted to know if the actor known for playing blood-sucker Eric Northman in True Blood and a berserker prince in The Northman would be the right fit to play a security robot, or SecUnit, struggling with social awkwardness after hacking his own "governor module" to give himself the freedom to not obey human orders. If the weird affection he forms for the scientists he's charged with protecting, and the stunted way he goes about showing it, would translate to Murderbot. After watching the first episodes of the show, which debuts Friday on Apple TV, I got my answers--and found myself asking a lot more questions.