Get with the program

We take a look at the best TV of 2025 so far, starting with Murderbot, a US sci-fi show involving two prominent Kiwi directors.

- BY RUSSELL BAILLIE

As the name suggests, the show Murderbot is about a killing machine - a cyborg security unit programmed to protect humans in a distant future in a galaxy far away.

It - because that is how “it” identifies - is played by Alexander Skarsgård, an actor who's done a fair few cold and heartless characters before now. But while there is action, violence and many visits to the medical bay due to giant alien centipedes and, yes, killer robots, Murderbot is also smart, funny and the sort of sci-fi you don't have to like sci-fi to enjoy.

It's refreshingly dystopia-free, and one which tackles AI from the AI's perspective. It's also a workplace comedy, a corporate satire and a show that, like the books it is based on, has an undercurrent of neurodiversity.

It is possibly not, however, family viewing - though the young daughter of the show's co-executive producer, Toa Fraser, doesn't agree. "My 8-year-old loves it, which is kind of scary," says Fraser. "She got hooked with the opening sequence with the music. She's always dancing to it."

Fraser, who also directed two of the first season's 10 half-hour episodes, isn't the only Kiwi on the American series for streamer Apple TV+, which was mostly filmed in northern Ontario - where the occasional bear would wander through the location. Recruited for her action chops, Roseanne Liang directed two instalments. The show also gave something to Liang, the action blockbuster nerd who makes a point of watching Terminator 2 every year: her first killer robot. "Oh, my god yeah. As soon as someone told me what the premise was, I was like, 'Well, this is tailor made for me.'