ANDROID WITH ATTITUDE

Was Murderbot smiling in the finale? Only the creators know for sure

- ELISABETH VINCENTELLI

On the surface, Chris and Paul Weitz were in unfamiliar territory when they set about creating Murderbot, the darkly comic Apple TV+ series, which just wrapped its first season last week. After all, they hadn’t adapted a science-fiction story together before.

But as the Weitz brothers noted in a joint video call last month, the cynical, soap-opera-obsessed cyborg at that show's centre (Alexander Skarsgard) isn’t entirely dissimilar from the carefree, selfish cad played by Hugh Grant in their 2002 film About A Boy, which they directed and co-wrote (with Peter Hedges).

Like that man, the cyborg of Murderbot is inconvenienced by some of the messier aspects of human existence — particularly emotions. And like him, it must learn to resemble a responsible, loving human being.

“Hugh Grant's character was essentially self-medicating with television and didn’t really want to deal with people, and was kind of forced to by a hippie mom and her son,” Chris said.

The title character — Murderbot is a name the cyborg privately gives itself — finds itself in a similar dynamic after it is hired to protect a motley group of scientists on an expedition to survey a distant planet.

“I think there’s a theme in both our work of people who aren’t actually equipped to provide emotional support for other people but who nonetheless figure out a way to do so,” Paul said — even if, strictly speaking, the cyborg’s pronouns are it/its.

Over the past couple of decades, the Weitzes have followed mostly separate career paths, each in rotating capacities as writers, directors and producers. Chris, 55, ventured often into genre (Rogue One, The Golden Compass) while Paul, 59, focused more on smaller-scale comedies and dramas, including the wonderful Grandma (2015).