Entertainment
Apple TV’s Sci-Fi Hit Is Making Its Biggest Formula Change Yet for Season 2
Season 1 of Apple TV’s sleeper hit Murderbot is a tiny show with a giant heart — no matter how much the misanthropic titular character (Alexander Skarsgård) tries to deny its growing affection for the annoying humans it’s contracted to protect. For all intents and purposes, the events of Season 1 closely follow the first installment in Martha Wells‘ The Murderbot Diaries book series, which begins with a contained setting and a cast to match: one soap opera-obsessed Security Unit, one primary planet, a team of six humans, and a handful of enemies. Artificial Condition, Wells’ sequel novella, introduces a different location and multiple new characters.
In that light, it’s not necessarily surprising that Murderbot has significantly expanded the size of Season 2’s ensemble cast. The scale and the celebrity star power behind the adjusted ensemble is the somewhat mind-boggling part. Earlier this week, Apple TV confirmed the return of Season 1’s 11 primary actors and welcomed a slew of fresh faces to the Murderbot universe. The video listed 25 additional cast members in undisclosed roles, including the (frankly, genius) likes of Steve Buscemi, Patton Oswalt, Michael Sheen, Tramell Tillman, Wanda Sykes, Katy O’Brian, Kali Reis, and Martha Plimpton. But what might shifting Murderbot‘s initial formula mean for everyone’s favorite introverted android?
Who Could ‘Murderbot’s New Cast Members Be Playing in Season 2?
Without going into deep spoiler territory, Artificial Condition resumes where Murderbot Season 1 leaves off. Rather than stay with the kindly humans who essentially adopted it, Murderbot ventures into the wider galaxy on a journey of independence and self-discovery. Specifically, it returns to RaviHyral, the mining site where it had lived up to its self-given name by unintentionally killing its clients. Murderbot seeks answers about its inexplicable violence and the erased memories accompanying that haunting incident. After becoming frenemies with a cargo ship’s hilariously abrasive AI, Murderbot once again finds itself dragged into defending another batch of scientists from a deadly conspiracy.
Aside from those three new humans and the snarky pilot bot, Artificial Condition features the augmented human leader of the Tlacey Excavations company, other SecUnits (most of them obedient to their clients’ whims), and multiple ComfortUnits (one, in particular, undergoes a prominent arc). By that metric, Murderbot Season 2 contains more actors than the novella has existing roles. There are several potential areas where showrunners Chris and Paul Weitz could organically incorporate an increased cast: more SecUnits, executives, and employees tied to Tlacey, longer flashbacks with the 57 individuals Murderbot killed, and snippets from Murderbot’s favorite television show, The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.
Although we can only speculate as to whom the 25 performers are playing, it’s worth noting that Season 2‘s announcement video groups Reis, Underwood, and Griffin Newman in roughly the same area as Season 1’s Sanctuary Moon players (John Cho, DeWanda Wise, Clark Gregg, and Jack McBrayer). Since Murderbot‘s delightfully campy show-within-a-show is already filled with prominent film and TV names, it’s easy to imagine their industry peers feeling just as game to wear extravagant costumes and recite melodramatic dialogue.
‘Murderbot’ Season 2 Has Legitimate Reasons to Increase Its Cast
As for Skarsgård’s fellow main cast members, Artificial Condition‘s first-person point of view leaves Murderbot’s newfound pals off-page for the book’s entirety (fear not: they return to the series sooner than later). It would be a waste for the upcoming second season not to utilize Mensah (Noma Dumezweni), Gurathin (David Dastmalchian), Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu), Arada (Tattiawna Jones), Bharadwaj (Tamara Podemski), and Ratthi (Akshay Khanna). After all, the only humans who deserve Murderbot’s affection are quite the endearing, quirky, sincere, wise, and broken bunch. Dumezweni and Dastmalchian, in particular, each contribute gut-wrenching emotional arcs.
Inventing original content for a television adaptation is a tricky needle to thread. That said, not only would it be abrupt to temporarily abandon the Preservation Alliance crew, it’s worthwhile — even necessary – to explore their next steps from a story standpoint. The aftermath of their SecUnit friend slinking away in the night offers a range of potential responses: acceptance, compassion, grief, confusion, hurt, indifference, etc.
Juggling a wider ensemble might easily become too unruly on the heels of a more reserved focus. Likewise, pacing and focus problems can compromise the strengths a simpler story offers. Since Murderbot Season 1 is a home run, however, the likely case is that more than doubling the cast’s size is a thoughtful move. Suffice to say, Murderbot‘s sophomore season, now officially in production, is doing something its protagonist despises — stepping out of its comfort zone. Unfortunately for said protagonist (and all the neurodivergent audience members who understand its distress), that’s a potential risk worth taking.
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