Murderbot Is Ready for Its Close-Up (But Not Eye Contact)

Imaginary Worlds

Eric Molinsky

Arts, Science Fiction, Fiction, Society & Culture

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Murderbot is a killing machine in the far future that would rather spend its time binging an intergalactic soap opera. Shooting bad guys with lasers is much less stressful than making eye contact or engaging in small talk with humans. Murderbot is also the main character of Martha Wells’ best-selling series of books, The Murderbot Diaries. The books have been adapted into a fun new show on Apple TV+ starring Alexander Skarsgård. I talk with Martha Wells, and the showrunners Chris and Paul Weitz, about the challenges of adapting the books for television -- from casting choices, to translating Murderbot’s anxious inner monologue into voice-over narration, to finding the right balance of comedy, action, and sci-fi. This week’s episode is sponsored by ShipStation. Go to shipstation.com and use the code IMAGINARY to sign up for a free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Get ready for a game changer.
0:02.0	Adobe Express is the quick and easy app that makes creating content for your business easier than ever.
0:07.0	From engaging presentations to eye-catching animations and social posts,
0:11.0	your teams can produce work that's on brand and on time every time.
0:15.0	Transform your ideas into standout content with time-saving generative AI features
0:20.0	that are designed to be
0:21.5	safe for commercial use. No headaches, just results. Curious to learn more, head to Adobe.com
0:27.7	forward slash express. You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them
0:33.0	and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky. And this is MurderBot. It, and its pronoun
0:40.2	is it, is the star of a new show called MurderBot on Apple TV Plus. That's a wrap on
0:47.8	Mining Expedition 115-24 T-TX. Time to party. I mean, if you're a human, I'm a security unit, and I don't party.
1:00.4	Security units, or SEC units, for short, are cyborgs in the far future.
1:05.4	They're mostly machine, but they're also made of cloned human tissue.
1:09.2	Every sec unit has a chip in its head, called a governor module, which forces them to obey
1:14.6	humans.
1:16.1	But one of the sec units played by Alexander Scarsguard figures out how to disable its governor
1:21.0	module.
1:22.1	We hear the exuberant thoughts in its head as it stands very still around a bunch of rowdy humans.
1:29.5	Okay.
1:30.6	Patching the cold.
1:33.8	Holy shit.
1:36.2	It worked.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Eric Molinsky, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Eric Molinsky and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.