How Murderbot’s Chris and Paul Weitz tailored All Programs Pink for TV

For Paul and Chris Weirtz, Murderbot — the upcoming TV adaptation of Martha Wells’ sci-fi novella All Programs Pink — was an experiment: Can you may have a hero who tries to do nothing?

The ten-episode sci-fi collection, which debuts Could 16 on Apple TV+, follows an anxious safety robotic (Alexander Skarsgård) assigned to guard a survey group on a planetary mission. Because the mission progresses and lethal surprises emerge, Murderbot grapples with concealing its capability without cost will — a capability enabled when it hacked its governor module — and its insecurities round people, all whereas navigating existential questions on its objective within the universe. Above all, although, Murderbot needs it may spend its days merely viewing the 7,532 hours of video content material it secretly squirreled away in its system for leisure — a real media junkie, like many of the present’s viewers.

Bringing All Programs Pink to TV took years, delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Writers Guild of America strike in 2023. However with assist from Apple TV+’s head of worldwide video Jamie Erlicht, a fan of Wells’ work, Paul and Chris chipped away on the present’s scripts, sending each model to Wells for suggestions. (Wells, as a consulting producer, in the end weighed in on different facets of the challenge, together with design and casting.)

The collection stays trustworthy to All Programs Pink — the primary of a number of books and brief tales comprising The Murderbot Diaries — in many of the ways in which rely. The plot largely follows that of the novella, but in addition makes substantial additions. Members of the PresAux survey group which Murderbot protects, together with Dr. Mensah (Noma Dumezweni), Gurathin (David Dastmalchian), Pin-lee (Sabrina Wu), Ratthi (Akshay Khanna), Arada (Tattiawna Jones) and Bharadwaj (Tamara Pdoemski), now have extra nuance and deeper backstories.

The Preservation Alliance, an unbiased group of planets which the PresAux survey group hails from, is now eccentric, even downright bohemian. Throughout Murderbot’s season premiere, PresAux holds arms in a meditative circle, eyes closed, deliberating over whether or not to hire the refurbished Murderbot for his or her mission. Quickly after touchdown on the planet, they dance within the desert, their our bodies heaving, arms waving to the music’s beat — little touches impressed by facets of Chris’s twenty years of expertise with Burning Man. (A number of members of the mission additionally discover themselves navigating the actual dramas of polyamory.)

“We additionally wished a way of those folks being out of their component and out of their social setting,” Chris instructed Engadget. “They’re within the company rim, which is a very brutal, extractive capitalist world, however these individuals are egalitarians from exterior of that system. They’re [seen as] freaks not simply to Murderbot, however to the company flunkies who’re upselling them.”

Whereas Murderbot’s favourite TV collection, The Rise & Fall of Sanctuary Moon, is referenced in Wells’ novel, in Murderbot, the futuristic cleaning soap opera is its personal fleshed out universe – a bonafide show-within-a-show. Supposed as a parody of basic sci-fi, most clearly the unique Star Trek collection, Sanctuary Moon’s scenes are rife with closely saturated units and gaudy costumes. John Cho, because the captain of a starship, falls head over heels in love with a navigation programs robotic (DeWanda Smart); Jack McBrayer portrays a navigation officer out of his depth. Their performances are comically over-the-top, however that’s the purpose.

“I’ve a idea that individuals consider good performing as being very restrained, and that’s the case usually, however my idea is that people are emoting maniacs on a regular basis. They’re hamming it up in entrance of the mirror, of their rest room,” Paul mentioned. “There was one thing nice about having the ability to enter a David Lynch-like telenovela world and do the sci-fi model of these issues.”

Casting the droll however irreverent character of Murderbot took time. Half-human, it experiences a full vary of feelings however struggles with deep-seated social anxiousness, and detests displaying its face to people — which can assist clarify why the character has become popular with members of the neurodivergent neighborhood. Skarsgård, whose numerous performing resume features a Viking prince in The Northman, a ruthless tech CEO in Succession, the titular character in The Legend of Tarzan and a bodily abusive husband on Large Little Lies, had traits and experiences Paul and Chris felt had been important for successfully taking part in the present’s central character.

As one would possibly count on for a safety robotic, Paul Weisz famous Skarsgård is “bodily imposing.” “You get the sense perhaps he may kill any person,” mentioned Paul. However very like the titular character Paul felt this generally terrifying exterior belied one thing far more nuanced. “Alexander additionally has a very quirky humorousness. His thoughts could be very totally different from his physique. He’s actually distinctive.”

Bringing in Cho and McBrayer for his or her roles within the Sanctuary Moon scenes wasn’t almost as intensive a search; Cho and the Weitz brothers had labored on a number of initiatives collectively over time.

“It is like a Faustian discount whenever you work with us as soon as, that we’re in all probability going to get your own home cellphone,” Paul mused. “Jack McBrayer is greatest buddies with Alexander, in order that was the path to [him]. By way of John, we labored with him first on American Pie, and I feel we have carried out 12 issues in several methods with him over time. So it is a bit like The Godfather the place it is like, sometime, I will ask you for a favor.”

Filmed in Ontario, manufacturing began in 2024, lasting six months. Taking pictures the present’s planetary scenes meant scouring for areas like mining quarries, slag heaps and deserted factories. Inside photographs for scenes at Port Freecommerce, an enormous star base, within the season premiere had been filmed on soundstages in Toronto.

All alongside, Paul and Chris got down to current a far-flung universe seen much less usually on display screen in recent times. Shirking the darkish, grim aesthetic closely favored in lots of newer sci-fi TV and movie initiatives, they labored with manufacturing designer Sue Chan to create a universe dominated by vivid lighting, white and grey units, light-colored materials and colourful patterns.

“We drew on the wellspring of science fiction we learn after we had been children and on science fiction paperback covers of the Nineteen Eighties, which all the time appeared to have such nice idea design and a vivid, attention-grabbing world during which to lose your self,” Paul recalled. “Particularly, it appeared like since this was a world that was dominated by firms, there’d be quite a lot of logos all over the place. There’d be a cheapness to quite a lot of what was manufactured. Additionally, in case you go searching, there are quite a lot of issues that appear to have been extruded by big 3-D printers. Even the meals is extruded by 3-D printers.”

Designing Murderbot’s armor was a collaborative course of with the costume division, led by costume designer Carrie Grace and specialty costume designer Laura Jean Shannon. To start out, they checked out helmets from just about each well-known robotic depicted in navy and sci-fi films from the final 50 years. Preliminary designs resembled Star Wars stormtroopers, however Skarsgård “actually pushed” for the robotic’s look to be “one thing distinctive,” in response to Paul. Drawing inspiration from The Little Rascals’ Petey, who had a big black circle round certainly one of his eyes, the workforce constructed a big, distinctive black eye piece into Murderbot’s helmet visor.

Murderbot spends a lot of its time clad in armor, but it surely additionally has downtime when the armor comes off, revealing an impossibly clean humanoid type resembling Mattel’s Ken dolls. To realize that look, Skarsgård repeatedly waxed his whole physique throughout filming.

“Alexander really volunteered to have his physique waxed, as a result of he thought it was what can be greatest for the character,” Chris recalled. “I keep in mind discussing it with him, and I mentioned, ‘Hear, man, I do not know if individuals are even going to discover, but it surely would possibly make only a tiny little bit of distinction when it comes to the believability of the character.’”

“[Alexander’s] like, ‘Yeah, I ought to wax myself,’” Chris continued. “Then for the following 5, six months, he had to do this each week till he realized finally that his subsequent function was to play a bushy biker [in the romance drama Pillion].”

In Murderbot, Paul and Chris noticed greater than a unusual sci-fi novella — they noticed a deeply human story wrapped in armor and deadpan humor. Their TV adaptation doesn’t simply deliver Wells’ world to display screen with panache, it leans into the quiet radicalism of a personality who resists heroism, craves isolation and struggles to navigate the messiness of human connection.

That emotional core — surprising, considerate, and completely honest — is what makes Murderbot extra than simply one other sci-fi romp. It is a mirror for our most weak selves, disguised as a robotic who’d actually quite be watching TV.