# Apple TV turning Martha Wells Murderbot book series into an episodic TV series
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, apple
**Created:** [December 20, 2023, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883 "2023-12-20T14:26:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2024, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/21 "2024-01-17T00:48:34Z")
> [@digs](#):
>
> in times of stress
I don’t believe SecUnit has times of stress. It just prefers watching serials over dealing with security issues (i.e. keeping its humans alive).
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2024, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/22 "2024-01-17T05:26:34Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#):
>
> I don’t believe SecUnit has times of stress.
It absolutely does, though! Stress even causes its performance efficiency estimate to drop by two or three percentage points.
One thing about Murderbot, it is not much of a talker. How to translate the stories to the screen without resorting to a lot of voice-over?
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2024, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/23 "2024-01-17T05:28:03Z")
I think they’ll need the voice over. It works on _Resident Alien_, about an alien pretending to be a human.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2024, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/24 "2024-01-17T14:25:58Z")
Yeah, the stories consist mostly of its inner monologue. Tough to do that any way other than voiceover.
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2024, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/25 "2024-01-17T15:08:44Z")
> [@digs](#):
>
> It’s not a he or a she. _It_ really needs to be played by an actor who’s transitioning.
I disagree. Those in transition carry a lot of gender baggage, both cultural and personal. I’ve had a few dozen such people as patients in the past. SecUnit would lack all that baggage. I think whoever plays SecUnit just needs a very gender-neutral voice and tone.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2024, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/26 "2024-01-17T22:05:18Z")
Or my suggestion of computer-generating the character. Though now that I think of it, that’d probably be awkward, with the recently-ended strikes about AI…
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2024, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/27 "2024-01-17T22:08:31Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#):
>
> I don’t believe SecUnit has times of stress.
Funny, I feel like the series may as well be subtitled, “Tales of A Very Stressed Robot.”
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2024, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/28 "2024-01-17T22:28:16Z")
Stress doesn’t seem like a dominant character trait to me. Anxiety-ridden, though, yes. That can result in stress, but more often seems to result in disconnection (i.e. watching TV instead of dealing with the problem).
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2025, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/29 "2025-05-16T16:57:18Z")
The show is out now. 2 episodes so far. I really enjoyed it. Half hour episodes and a very light tone, at least compared to many other sci-fi shows.
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2025, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/30 "2025-05-16T17:36:30Z")
Good to hear. I’m such a fan of the books that I’ve been hesitant to turn it on.
But the “light tone” comment makes me encouraged that it’s got the feel of the books.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2025, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/31 "2025-05-18T01:56:45Z")
I never read the source material but just watched the two first episodes. Really like it!
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### Author:  [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2025, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/32 "2025-05-18T11:06:57Z")
I too liked the first two episodes. Good cast and not too serious and dark, unlike most of Apple tv+ other sf shows.
Haven’t read the source material, I wonder if they made the Murderbot more antropomorph than in the books. It seems weird that wozzname the corporation that built it bothered to give it an expressive human head, but also a helmet that encloses this head most of the time.
Also in the future mankind apparently forget how to make backpacks.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2025, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/33 "2025-05-18T11:20:06Z")
In the books (if I remember right) Murderbot is a cyborg, kind of like the Terminator, with human DNA and tissue as well as metal robot parts (and weapons).
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### Author:  [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2025, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/34 "2025-05-18T12:02:16Z")
Yeah, murderbot is a cyborg in the show too. We are told organic parts are reprinted after it gets a huge hole in the abdomen. Thing is, during the reprinting the organic part looks very superficial, but the damage was much more extensive.
Also when he images being recycled, we see a huge hunk of twisted metal coming up from some acidy looking tub.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2025, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/35 "2025-05-18T12:12:24Z")
The books never make it entirely clear just what parts are organic, or why (beyond part of its thinky bits). I mean, the “why” probably boils down to “it’s cheaper to make them that way”, since the Corporation’s bottom line is always their bottom line, but why is it cheaper to make those parts organic?
It does have a face, with facial expressions, though (though usually it carefully keeps its facial expressions professionally blank).
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### Author:  [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2025, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/36 "2025-05-19T06:43:54Z")
I remembered I had a free ebook with All Systems Red and two other short novels, and read the first two chapters, and can better compare book and show.
So in the book murderbot also has both a human looking face, and a helmet that covers it most of the time. Murderbot is special in that it needs to hide that it has overridden the governor module, and so avoids eye contact. And so it is more prone to keep helmet up all the time than ordinary secunits, I guess is the rationale.
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2025, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/37 "2025-05-20T01:13:10Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#):
>
> Its favorite show was [The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon](https://murderbot.fandom.com/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Sanctuary_Moon), which I guess is just called a serial, but has all of the wacky elements of soap operas you’d expect…
This is near and dear to my heart: I took a book with me on a train trip this winter, but it had an embarrassingly stupid cover. So I photoshopped a Sanctuary Moon cover for it (“A Non-Digital Version, direct from a transcription of the director’s shooting script”).
So I felt like Murderbot every time I cracked open the book and retreated from the world into a “soap opera set on a space station”…
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2025, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/38 "2025-05-20T01:25:06Z")
I think I’d worry that it would get even _more_ questions from other passengers. Then again, you might meet a fellow Murderbot fan.
I haven’t seen the show yet but from the trailer, clearly they’re going for the soap opera angle:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEioDeOiqEs&t=49)
Over-the-top dialogue, workplace romance, dramatic music, etc.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2025, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/39 "2025-05-20T05:45:57Z")
That could just as well describe ST:TNG…
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2025, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apple-tv-turning-martha-wells-murderbot-book-series-into-an-episodic-tv-series/994883/40 "2025-05-20T08:09:05Z")
You aren’t wrong. Data was programmed in multiple techniques, after all.
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