Murderbot Pulls Off The One Thing Dexter And Hannibal Failed To Do

This article contains spoilers for "Murderbot" season 1, episodes 1 & 2.

Some of the best moments in television history involve seeing antiheroes getting away with it — oddball characters living secret lives, clever enough to evade capture, punishment, and family members distancing themselves after learning about the dark deeds they've been performing behind the scenes. Well, at least for the first few seasons. In the case of shows like "Dexter" and "Hannibal," perhaps the most frustrating element was that it took so long for supporting characters to pick up on the odd vibe emanating from the titular terrors, who are, at first glance, quite clearly absolute nutballs.

How a blood spatter analyst who loved his job so much that he had sprays of red dotted around his house as art didn't set off alarm bells for everyone who spoke to him bordered on farce and was as ludicrous as the show's ending. The same goes for Mads Mikkelsen's cold, calculated psychologist, who, while caught early in the short-lived show, should still have raised more suspicion than he did when working alongside the FBI. It's keeping the act going that ultimately leads to eye-rolling evasion, making you question how people are oblivious to it all. Now, one show is daring to replicate that dynamic and has everything ironed out to ensure that the shifty character at its center is getting away with things in the right way. Whereas the likes of "Dexter" and "Hannibal" featured dead-eyed murderers at the center of their stories, Apple TV+'s "Murderbot" pulls off this all-too-familiar schtick because of one straightforward detail —it isn't human at all.

After two episodes of Apple TV+'s new sci-fi series, it's clear that Alexander Skarsgård is having a ball of a time as the self-titled Murderbot, a security bot, who, after careful workarounds, has managed to alter its own programming without anyone detecting the activity. Now its aim isn't to slip into the cracks of humanity unnoticed or start a revolution, but simply to be left alone while it binge-watches its favorite shows (are we sure Murderbot is not human?). To keep up the act, Murderbot continues to play dumb, still posing as being confined to its original programming while protecting a team of planetary scientists, which in turn so brilliantly opens up a multitude of get out routes for Murderbot to take to ensure no one catches on to what's really going on underneath.

It's here where "Murderbot" plays on this classic formula and does so in a hugely entertaining fashion. Thanks to the space-aged setting, the slightly off individual that's hiding in plain sight is doing so easily because it is a robot in an environment where the fantastical is standard fare. In instances like the first episode, it saves two scientists from alien insects — albeit after losing a chunk of its torso — and remains completely functional, establishing what's normal in this universe. It's because of these far-out elements that Murderbot's mission of self-preservation is all the more believable, as are its methods to evade detection, and the surrounding characters who are not clever enough to realize it.

As it stands, the body count that Murderbot has been assigned to protect has dwindled, not out of its own actions, but the dangers of space travel. As far as Murderbot sees it, keeping the crew alive is what can provide it with a quiet existence, and currently, whenever that's been at risk, Murderbot has been smart enough to manipulate both the technology available to it from within the ship and its own model to avoid it. It's this advancement in its character that the previously shifty ones don't have, and makes the show wonderfully unique. Unlike Dexter or Hannibal, Murderbot can literally monitor those around it in a variety of ways to ensure they aren't doing the same to it.

If it needs to keep tabs on the crew's whereabouts, it can tap into the ship's security cameras while speaking to someone else right in front of them. It even uses cameras as an alternative viewpoint when speaking directly to someone to ensure that his mannerisms as an untethered machine aren't noticed through a tense bit of eye contact. It can even monitor the crew's health and heart levels if he thinks someone is on to him, therefore avoiding suspicion entirely. These nifty tricks provide a hefty dose of logic to a tried and tested plotline that's venturing into new territories and puts the duplicitous deviants of old to shame. Murderbot really is the future, and we can't wait to see more of what's to come.

"Murderbot" is now available to stream on Apple TV+ with new episodes arriving on Fridays.