I liked this one. It had a good throughline, starting with Murderbot’s origin at the Threshold Pass Fabrication Center, and ending when... it took control of the untenable situation by shooting itself. (Since Murderbot is the central and titular character, I’m assuming it won’t be permanently dead.)
There was a successful level of tension that built for most of the episode as I kept waiting for Murderbot to lose control and attack Mensah. Of course, it never did. Mensah told herself that "SecUnit" was just a machine and Pin-Lee said it out loud, while Murderbot constantly expresses contempt for human beings. It's like two sides of the same coin, since the humans kept rescuing Murderbot and Murderbot kept protecting them.
Mensah was afraid, and said so. But she had to take charge and she did it like an action hero. Okay, no, she was whimpering and throwing up, but she attacked the evil bot with a mining drill and saved the day.
After much effort, Murderbot was able to remove and crush the combat override module, but too late. Why did Murderbot shoot itself? Because it couldn’t bear to lose control, or to save the scientists? It seems logical that the seven seconds of carnage Murderbot remembers could have been while it was controlled by another combat override module.
This time, the scientists were so heroic and endearing, and it wasn't just Mensah. I loved the whole bit with Ratthi not knowing how to use the gun because he skipped weapons training, but he took one and ran into danger to save Mensah, anyway. And Arada figured out how to use the hopper as a weapon. The scene where she and Pin-Lee used the hopper to stomp on the evil bot was genuinely funny, and a bit like a cartoon. It reminded me of the scene in Supernatural with the guy splattered under the anvil.
Murderbot did a number of clever things. My favorite was singing the theme song from Sanctuary Moon to distract the evil bot while it couldn’t move or fight back. Murderbot also wondered what death would be like, poor thing, if it would just be more powerless misery and torture.
The flashback to Murderbot's creation at the Threshold Pass Fabrication Center felt like it was supposed to be humorous, but it was genuinely depressing. SecUnits are created by miserable indentured technicians and there are practically no quality control standards. The workers punching out body parts from rolls of skin was just so creepy. The one worker asked why the SecUnits had faces at all, and the other said it was because when they went rogue, they were easier to track down. Murderbot should hate humans with a passion. Why doesn't it?
We got a lot of the absolutely terrible Sanctuary Moon's puerile theme song over the cliched credits, while Murderbot glitched as it was being dragged through the DeltFall facility. Later, Murderbot appeared thrilled when it was hallucinating that it was actually a character on the show, with Mensah as captain. Honestly, I don’t know how they could have worse hairstyles.
Bits:
— Mensah has a sweetness to her, a goodness, like the head of a nonprofit charity that truly believes in what she's doing. Good work by Noma Dumezweni. She and Alexander Skarsgård are lovely together.
— When Arada and Pin-Lee were talking about something happening to Ratthi, Pin-Lee hid a grin. Pin-Lee is so not into this threesome thing.
Quotes:
Boss: "Take some pride in your work."
Murderbot: "Yeah, take some pride in your work. You wouldn't want to fuck up and produce a chronically anxious, depressed Murderbot."
Worker 1: "How often do they go rogue?"
Worker 2: "Oh, all the time. Don't you watch the newsfeeds? Sometimes it comes back and kills the trainee who helped make it."
Pin-Lee: "You know, it's actually a stupid rule that everyone has to volunteer on missions."
Arada: "You don't mean that. It's a very cool rule."
Murderbot: (hallucinating) "Dr. Mensah might be an intrepid galactic explorer."
Mensah: "Okay. I don't know where you'd get that idea."
I enjoyed this one. Except for how it ended. Or maybe because of how it ended. Three out of four exceptionally bad wigs,
Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.
I kind of loved this episode, the stuff with the bickering thruple was just fun and the hopper crushing the other secbot was hilarious. But I kept wincing as Murderbot kept getting hurt and that progress bar kept ticking up, what a clever use of tension. Now yes, I doubt Murderbot is dead, but what a sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteThis episode felt like they'd finally figured out how to balance a comic tone with real emotions.
ReplyDeleteI was dissatisfied with the first season of Murderbot, so went back and re-read the first two books to see if I could work out why.
ReplyDeleteFirst reason is that so much of the books is the internal life of Murderbot, the thought processes and reasoning. And these are very often in conflict with how Murderbot portrays itself to others, simultaneously saying that a plan might be good while thinking that it is awful. It is possible to rewrite a book for TV in such a way that internal thoughts become visible through dialogue or voiceover, but it doesn't really work in this case because having Murderbot say or otherwise visibly express what it's thinking would ruin the character. The writers try their best, but voice overs are not good in a visual medium.
Second is that Murderbot spends a lot of time networked in real time. For plot reasons Murderbot is constantly hacking security systems, controlling drones, reviewing video and audio. This ability to multitask with an awareness that humans can't match is another big part of the character that just doesn't work in a visual medium and is largely missing from the show.
Not going to say that Murderbot is unfilmable, but I do think the approach taken by the writers doesn't work :-(
Hugh, very good points. I went back and re-read the books, too, and I do wonder if you're right, that these books *are* just unfilmable and all we will get is an interpretation, a shadow of what was written.
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