One of the greatest new characters in TV science fiction is Alexander Skarsgård’s titular Murderbot, an android-ish cyborg character designated as a Security Unit, or “SecUnit.” In many sci-fi narratives this would be a supporting character, someone around for comic relief, or to teach the human character a lesson about being nicer, better people. But with Murderbot, the conceit is all about taking those Datas or C-3POs of the sci-fi world and making that kind of character — with a lot more snark and firepower — our primary narrator.
Perfectly embodying this character is the powerhouse actor Alexander Skarsgård, son of Stellan, star of such disparate films like Melancholia, The Northman, and Godzilla vs. Kong. He was also the eponymous lead of 2016’s The Legend of Tarzan, written by one of the godfathers of science fiction, Edgar Rice Burroughs. But now, Skarsgård is starring as a very different muscular sci-fi lead; this time from a contemporary book series, The Murderbot Diaries, a series of novellas, novels, and short stories from Martha Wells that took the world by storm in 2017.
