Well hello there, my sexually fluid space-time travelers! I hope everyone is doing well on this fine daily unit. Has everyone taken their meal pill? Gotten all their vaccination shots in order to travel through the Sigma Quadrant? Good, then we can confidently continue.
Did that sound like a bunch of spacey, sci-fi babble? Good. I wanted it to! I’ve loved sci-fi ever since I was a little girl. No, literally — when I was four, my father (a lifelong Trekker) sat me down on my little tushy to watch the world premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’ll never forget that moment. From then on, I’ve been hooked. I love letting my imagination fly up to the stars to explore all the possibilities that lie out there in its dark firmament. Because out in those celestial skies, as a storyteller, anything is possible.
So when I heard about the new series Murderbot from my best friend, I had to check it out. Sentient space robots that look like Alexander Skarsgård? Action and comedy, and deeper questions about free will and what makes one sentient? Ooh, and an abundance of queerness?! Beam me up, baby.
But before I get into the nebulous nitty-gritty, let’s go over a few disclaimers. First and foremost, there will be SPOILERS for Season 1of this series. Also, regarding content warnings, I should give a heads-up about the following: some explicit violence, torture, and mentions of drug abuse and addiction. Finally, if this is your first time here and you would like to learn more about the Unicorn metric (or just want a refresher), you can do so here. You can also read our Bi Media entry about this show.
Good to go? Great. Now let’s go check the perimeter.
Murderbot is a 2025 sci-fi action-comedy series on AppleTV+ starring Skarsgård as the titular character — a security cyborg in a distant galaxy who hacked its own system and disabled its own “government module”, giving it full control of itself. Concerned it will be found out and destroyed, it keeps this secret to itself, preferring instead to watch galactic soap operas like Sanctuary Moon in its downtime and figuring out its next steps. Trouble is, Murderbot has been assigned to a team of utopian scientists to protect them on a mission on a dangerous planet. It finds itself both disgusted by and reluctantly more connected to these humans. But will its self-operating secret be safe with them, even as the mission starts to go awry?
Murderbot is based on the bestselling series The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Season 1 is based on the first novel of the series — All Systems Red.
What I Liked:
OK. There’s so, so, SO much to love here. Let’s break it down.
In this community — the planet the scientists are from, the Preservation Alliance —a few things are clearly widely accepted, normalized, and even codified. First, bisexuality is clearly a valid sexuality within the community. There is also recognition that gender is a spectrum, as we have men, women, and nonbinary folks on this away team. Finally — and this one may be the most surprising thing — polyamory is not only cool, but very much the norm; there are even contracts people sign once they enter a new relationship dynamic. I’ll go into this a bit more with the absolute slew of bi characters on display in this series.
First, we have one of the major B storylines, a triad made up of scientist and legal counsel Pin-Lee (they/them, played by Sabrina Wu, who is nonbinary); wormhole expert Ratthi (Akshay Khanna); and Arada (Tattiawna Jones), a biologist. At the beginning of the season, we see that Arada and Pin-Lee are in a committed relationship but have realized that Ratthi is interested in Arada. (Murderbot, who measures their biometrics as part of his security protocol, confirms this attraction.) When the couple discusses bringing Ratthi into their dynamic, it’s clear this isn’t the first time they’ve added a third to their relationship. So Ratthi signs an agreement. But as things progress, we see that Ratthi is also falling for Pin-Lee. And Pin-Lee is more than just putting up with Ratthi for the sake of Arada — they are becoming closer to him as well. I don’t want to spoil how things go, but I do want to point out how cool it is to have this in a show when it’s not absolutely necessary; besides, being bi and poly aren’t the defining characteristics of anyone in the trio.
Then we have Mensah (Noma Dumezweni), a terraforming specialist and leader of the science team. Her defining traits are more about leading the team while she actively tries to solve major problems and piece together what is going on with Murderbot — all while fighting off panic attacks. Her bisexuality is much more casual, with a passing mention that two of her partners didn’t want her to go on this mission, as well as a mention of her children. She is a fully fleshed-out and relatably flawed lead, and it’s a joy to watch her develop.
Even a minor villain, Leebeebee (Anna Konkle), shows her queerness by being interested in both Murderbot and another female scientist on the team. Sure, she’s a villain, but she’s not a villain because she is bi, and there is more to her than just being dastardly. Leebeebee’s queerness also illustrates something interesting about this universe, not so much that she has a superior moral code (she has reprehensible mores when it comes to ownership of ComfortUnits), but that the sexual fluidity we see is not just seen and accepted on the planet of the Preservation Alliance. Leebeebee comes from a totally different star system, proving that queerness is well accepted in multiple realms in this corner of the universe.
What I Didn’t Like:
Honestly? The whole series was pretty much aces for me. Did they use the term “bi?” Unfortunately, they didn’t. But they showed bisexuality in different ways, which to me is often more important. The only negative thing I can think of is that it doesn’t seem to be abundantly clear that the remaining members of the science team from this hippie planet were also queer, or I just wish they were.
Still a perfectly good reason for a rewatch.
The Rating:
Murderbot does so many things right when it comes to bi representation; it is hard to list them all. We have multiple bi characters, diverse sexualities are accepted amongst the crew and their society, the dynamics are talked about, we’ve got plenty of bi characters of color, bisexuality is not the reason for the characters’ existence or the center of their personality, we get different relationship structures, and on and on! Honestly, it’s hard for me to think of bi representation I’ve been this excited about since Gael Martinez in Good Trouble. And this feels like Gael times five.
That may seem bold, but then again, as the lead in Sanctuary Moon says: Boldness is all.
