Now here is where things get very good. There’s a sense of humour in Escape Velocity Protocol which we haven’t seen before, just as we haven’t seen violence this serious in Murderbot before. But the main issue here is the dichotomy between the world as Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård) understands it and how things really are. This is done through some of the most ‘meta’ work ever seen on a television show (except maybe Community) about how our memories of our favourite art end up helping us cope in the real world. Even as the show’s concept – a Pinocchio of a robot learning how to integrate with humanity – is deeply problematic, in these capable hands Murderbot is aiming for something wonderful.
The black-armoured SecUnit which Murderbot discovered at the end of the last episode has soundly captured him, and despite being “completely hypnotized by my beautiful voice” – a genuine laugh-out-loud moment – a ‘combat override’ module ends up implanted in Murderbot’s neck. Within ten or so minutes its programming will be under someone else’s control, its “useless clients” will be completely defenseless – and then what happens unrolls more or less in real time, doing more than anything ever could to make this cyborg into a delightfully likeable creature.
Because while he is injured, and then while it is struggling under the influence of the combat override module, what ends up flashing before Murderbot’s eyes are the opening credits of “The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon,” its favourite TV show. The catchy theme song and the ridiculous actors, here personified by Jack McBrayer in a wig that must have been a hoot to design, give Murderbot something to hang on to as Mensah (a fantastic Noma Dumezweni) stages a reasonably competent rescue mission. A mining drill might be involved. The work Mr. Skarsgård does here is extremely funny and also unusually nuanced, a real masterclass in body language conveying double or even triple meaning with microexpressions and subtle changes of tone. Elsewhere Ratthi (Akshay Khanna)’s keenness to help is only enthusiasm; he can’t actually hold a weapon without accidentally threatening Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu) and Arada (Tattiawna Jones), which is somehow endearing instead of frustrating. It’s also Ratthi who gets upset when he learns Mensah ordered Pin-Lee back to the hopper – a ‘not cool’ demonstration of authority that goes against their entire ethos – and it’s Ratthi whose intervention enables Murderbot to realise just what is really going on.
Both Weitz brothers wrote the script, and their beginning does wonderful work at making obvious how inhuman Murderbot really is. The factory in which Murderbot and other SecUnits were made, which Murderbot pictures as a beautifully hygienic temple a cut above any human hospital, was really a corner-cutting misery filled with depressed indentured workers doing the absolute minimum while sneezing into their protective gear. At least those workers also got to enjoy “The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.”
This episode is 22 minutes including the credit sequences and some of the tightest television that’s been made in a very long time. And that includes the ending, which doesn’t punk out. What Murderbot does is kind of thing you would not expect a cyborg to be able to do, whether it secretly has free will or not. That ending pushes Murderbot past its sci-fi premise and into a very potent metaphor for the current moment. Who could have guessed from its initial premise that Murderbot would go so hard?
Murderbot is now streaming on Apple TV+. New episodes air on Fridays.
Learn more about the show, including how to watch, at the Apple TV+ site for the title.
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