Murderbot: Season 1 – TV Review

TL;DR – While this was a ridiculous romp of a show, beneath that exterior lies a fascinating character piece about identity, free will, and community.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the AppleTV+ service that viewed this show.

Murderbot standing outside of the habitat.

Murderbot Review

Well, we have come to the end of what was an exciting, if odd series. I love my Sci-fi in almost every flavour, and sometimes you want a lighter, silly flair to it. Today’s series that we are exploring has that, indeed, it has that in spades. However, what it also has is an honest heart, which was the bigger surprise, and one that I deeply love to discover.

So, to set the scene, we open on the Mining Station Aratake in the Corporation Rim. Here, all the miners are celebrating the end of the mining expedition 115-24TTX. The one person not celebrating is the Security Unit, which has to follow human orders and tries to keep them safe. But as he is sitting there, he is able to hack the Governor Module in his head, thus Security Unit 238776431 did not have the right ring to it, so it became Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård). He was a free bot, but given the corporation would kill him the moment they discovered he was rogue, which is how he ended up on Mining Survey 0Q17Z4Y, with more humans, ones who just might care about him, because they were weird. Now, from here, we will be looking at the series as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Murderbot: FreeCommerce – TV Review

TL;DR – A fascinatingly weird start that kept me wondering from beginning to end.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the AppleTV+ service that viewed this show.

The Murderbot.

Murderbot Review

There is a lot of sameness out there in the world of entertainment; if you have seen one police procedural, generally you have seen them all, irrespective of whether they have a dun-dun sound. But when you do stumble into something new, something weird, something quite odd, well, that is something to cherish.  

So, to set the scene, we open on the Mining Station Aratake in the Corporation Rim. Here, all the miners are celebrating the end of the mining expedition 115-24TTX. The one person not celebrating is the Security Unit, which has to follow human orders and tries to keep them safe. But as he is sitting there, he is able to hack the Governor Module in his head, thus Security Unit 238776431 did not have the right ring to it, so it became Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård). He was a free bot, but given the corporation would kill him the moment they discovered he was rogue, which is how he ended up on Mining Survey 0Q17Z4Y, with more humans, ones who just might care about him, because they were weird. Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.   

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Joy Ride – Movie Review

TL;DR – A film that is both crass, hilarious, and heartfelt, all in equal measure.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this film.

The gang on a motorbike.

Joy Ride Review

In the last run, before we do our best of 2023 lists, I wanted to try films that I knew I would enjoy and just missed, but also those that don’t fit into his category. There was a point in the year when it looked like everyone was putting out mature comedies again. Some were great, others not so much. So, I didn’t give much thought to Joy Ride during its short theatrical ride in Australia, and I think that might have been a mistake.

So to set the scene, it is 1998, and the Chen family has just moved into a new and very white neighbourhood called White Hills. But when Lolo Chen (Ashley Park) found Audrey Sullivan (Sherry Cola), there was an instant connection, a best friend connection that stayed with them all their lives, well up to this point. Audrey is going back to China for the first time, and she is taking Lolo with her as a translator. Lolo wants to see if they can find Audrey’s birth mother while they are there, but Audrey is just focused on her job because if she nails it, she will be moving out of White Hills. But throw in the complications of Lolo’s cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), Audrey’s college roommate Kat Huang (Stephanie Hsu), and her business meeting with Chao (Ronny Chieng) happening in a club, and things soon start falling apart.  

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