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In Sue Chan's podcast interview, Sue said Paul and Chris Weitz had been talking about combining multiple books in the next season, so I think it's likely we'll get the next two or three books in S2. I also suspect that if they don't manage to fit Exit Strategy in, we'll still get scenes of PresAux doing their own thing elsewhere. With all the work put into fleshing out the PresAux characters in S1, I think the writers will want to maintain emotional continuity for the audience (especially those who hadn't read the books before the show) and reassure them that PresAux will come back into Murderbot's orbit. They have an advantage of knowing how the rest of the books go, which Martha Wells didn't know at the time she was writing them (or at least I get that impression from how she talks about her writing process for them). So S2 can set up some foreshadowing at the very least, and let us see things that Murderbot didn't see in the books since those were limited to its perspective and knowledge.

I was thinking about how the adaptation for the next Murderbot season might go.

I think that it's possible to get all three of the other novellas into one season without it feeling too rushed, if they decide to bring it full circle that early. After all, they had to add a *lot* to the first novella to get it out to 10 episodes, and that's with extremely short episodes! They basically only had 4-5 episodes worth of material in All Systems Red, max, if not less.

So I think it's not that much of a stretch that they could do it all in one season if they didn't want to have Murderbot apart from PresAux for more than a season. (Alternatively they could obviously do an anthology-type series with Murderbot traveling around having standalone adventures, Doctor Who style, but I'm not sure if they would do that.) Rogue Protocol in particular - the third book, the one with Miki - would probably work fine as a single episode, if they get full-length episodes; it's a fairly tight plot that takes place in a compressed time frame (aside from things like MB on the transport with Gerth and Wilken, but I don't think it's necessary to show that). Artificial Condition should probably be spread over a couple of episodes because there's a lot of important character and long-arc stuff that happens in it (ART and MB getting to know each other, MB finding out what happened in Ganaka Pit) and it shouldn't be rushed. But you could still do that in 2-3 episodes if they get full-length ones this time.

Even if the episodes are still short, I don't see that it would really need to compress or leave out too much to do 3-4 episodes for AC, maybe 2 episodes for Rogue Protocol, and that leaves plenty of time for a big wrap-up with Mensah's kidnapping and the whole cast. (Which we could still cut back to now and then - there was clearly a lot going on with her that MB didn't see, so now we'd get to see that, and everyone mounting the big rescue effort.)

Obviously they don't have to do it like that - I saw someone suggest on Tumblr that they might do the ART book with Murderbot and the Miki book with PresAux, more or less at the same time; which also might work pretty well. And they also could make Artificial Condition a lot more of a thing in the way they did with the first book in the show. I really don't think there's a whole season in Rogue Protocol, but AC has room to expand if they wanted to lean into MB's new humans in that book, and the search for answers at Ganaka Pit, and MB's general weirdness about Comfort Unit and make a whole season out of it. Or throw in some new adventures with MB meeting more people - I would admittedly miss PresAux and hope to see them at least SOME, but that could work too. Anyway, though, there are a lot of ways it could go and I'm excited to find out what they decide to try!

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More on tragically hilarious murderbot things

"The good thing about being a construct is you cant reproduce and create and children to argue with you"

Oh murderbot i have bad news about what you will do later in this book.

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If you’re a person than you can be emotionally hurt, no trauma if you’re an object.

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Murderbot for today

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This podcast interview with Production Designer Sue Chan gives a really cool behind-the-scenes look at the thought and work that went into designing the Murderbot TV show, from the habitats to the Corporation Rim to Sanctuary Moon! (I also didn't realize Sue Chan had worked on Shang Chi: The Legend of the Ten Rings!)

The podcast is called Below The Line and it's about the film and TV industry from the crew perspective. Here's their summary of the podcast episode from the webpage:

Designing a future where human life feels disposable — and deeply familiar — takes creative nerve, dark humor, and a fearless approach to world-building.

This week on Below the Line, Skid is joined by Production Designer Sue Chan to talk about her work on Murderbot, the new Apple TV+ series based on Martha Wells’ bestselling novellas. Sue breaks down how she and her team designed a future full of corporate dread, practical machinery, and sly visual comedy — all while making the world feel tactile rather than CG-slick.

We discuss:

Developing the look of a far-future society built around exploitation, automation, and control

How inflatable tech, 3D-printed architecture, and lightweight materials shaped the show’s practical builds

Establishing a visual language that’s grounded in reality but laced with satire

Designing Sanctuary Moon, the soap-opera-within-the-show, as a technicolor contrast to Murderbot’s grey, corporate environments

Using shapes, signage, and spatial hierarchy to reinforce themes of capitalism and class division

The creative and political process behind Murderbot’s helmet: the mask design that divided the studio and delighted Skarsgård

Working with VFX and costumes to build a unified visual tone across departments

Embracing “conscious contrasts” between the emotional tone of a scene and its visual environment

Sue also reflects on the challenge of building a world that feels both foreign and uncomfortably familiar — and why the best production design does more than just look good.

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Murderbot: 😩

Mensah: live musical theatre?

Murderbot: 👀

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Murderbot in All Systems Red going "I wonder if Gurathin told Mensah not to buy me ://" while tv show Gurathin was literally the one to suggest it...... this is making me feel even more things about this series man, what the hell

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now that we have a year (?) to wonder about Murderbot S2, I’m curious how the show runners will handle some of MB’s more ridiculous pretending-to-be-human scenes

specifically, they could squeeze a lot of comedy out of it pretending to use the bathroom

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Murderbot ticks so many boxes for me

- fighting against programming

- fangirl (gn)

- gets WHUMPED by the narrative on the regular. Like. So much. Lmao my fave levels of whump but with a smidgen of hurt/comfort as a treat

- people who treats it like people and asserts that personhood regularly

- MY humans

- Avoids feelings until can’t

- extreme and unrelenting loyalty but pretends not to care at all actually

- just wants to watch its shows and Cease To Exist (relatable seeing as I currently as of this moment just want to read these books and Cease To Exist)

- on the surface complains and is anxious about its job but is also incredibly and heroically competent

- very annoyed at being emailed by multiple people at once. Same.

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ART can never let you get a word into an argument if it can help it

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LINK: tinyurl.com/oldgaySF

I'd like to share with y'all a project I've poured my heart and soul into over the last couple of years: a database cataloguing every single older queer science fiction book I've managed to track down, consisting of just over 200 titles with LGBT characters/themes & by LGBT authors, spanning over a century (1880-2000) 🚀

The database can be filtered by representation, subgenre, whether the book is currently in print, and more; additionally, it includes my own ratings & brief thoughts on the ones i have read, if anyone needs a suggestion on places to start! (or feel free to shoot me an ask for a more personalized recommendation)

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agonizing over all the time you wasted or lost is useless. it’s gone now. you survived in the only way you knew how. doesn’t your survival deserve some recognition too?

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Murderbot has to play episodes of Sanctuary Moon in order to work right.

they used to make smackable technology. you used to be able to hit your tv when it didn't work good.

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Thiago finally gets back from his awful no-good spaceship roadtrip and happens to be within earshot of Gurathin when he says: "I think I'm SecUnit's least-favourite human :("

To which Gurathin goes: "unacceptable, I am SecUnit's least-favourite human >:( I must go annoy it immediately"

And that's how Gurathin becomes the token PresAux tag-along human for Platform Decay.

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Its my blog and I'll post self-indulgent Murderbot,ART, and 2.0 iPad doodles if I want to.

I was drawing 2.0 as a horrible little gremlin for laughs and then I was like, "It lived and they put it in a normal body...but it fried that body getting into killware shenanigans. So ART stuck it in that little body as punishment and now it is baby. " 😅

These are older and I drew them when I was so sick. My take on how it went in Network Effect. 2.0 is an iPad kid who lives in 1.0's head.

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sibling dance 💃 sibling dance 🕺