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Ep 2.14- Murderbot, End Message
33 Plays2 months ago
Finishing out our coverage of the Murderbot Media current available, we discuss worker's rights, music, special effects, sexual tension, and as a special bonus, Ryn has a Biologist Moment!
Also stay tuned at the end for our announcement about whats happening for Season 3!! We're going to be taking a short break but will be back in a few weeks with brand new episodes on some media Ryn grew up with and Sam didn't!
Thanks for listening to Season 2, and we hope to see you in Season 3!
Covers Season 1 Episodes 7-10 of the AppleTV+ show Murderbot (2025)
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Transcript
Secret Podcast Plans and OnlyFans Discussions
00:00:00
Speaker
I am still thinking about ah The Phantom Apprentice after dark. I think that would be very fun. If you weren't going to be abroad, I would say if we get the podcast itch during our hiatus, we could do it a secret episode, but.
00:00:15
Speaker
Yeah, if I wasn't going to be in the very echoey apartment. With your family. With my parents. I don't know what would be worse, listening to that episode just like in its entirety or only hearing one half of that conversation.
00:00:34
Speaker
I did bring my podcast mic when I went to visit them last year in case we like needed to do anything. Yeah. Urgent podcast business.
00:00:44
Speaker
Obviously. Podcast emergencies. But now I'm going to I'm going to just put that not necessarily while you're on vacation, but at some point in the back of my brain. think the Phantom Apprentice After Dark would be fun.
00:00:56
Speaker
i would I would want... Listeners, you gotta give us something. leave Leave us a certain number of reviews or something. That'll be your prize. That's... Yeah. I feel like... Phantom Apprentice only fans, and it's only that episode.
00:01:11
Speaker
only There has to be like a ah pun that you could do with the OnlyFans Phantom Apprentice. Wait, how to make OnlyFans account?
00:01:26
Speaker
A beginner's guide to success um from the OnlyFans blog. Hey, what are you reading? Oh, you're just the OnlyFans blog. ah You can collab with other creators. Is that what we're calling it now?
00:01:41
Speaker
Yes, literally. Content tips and tricks from the OnlyFans blog. ah They recommend, if you want to succeed on OnlyFans, product reviews, how-to slash tutorials, countdown lists, comedy, challenges, reactions, Q&A, interviews, music videos, gaming, sports, and ASMR.
00:02:06
Speaker
All of those things that people just love to find on OnlyFans. I mean, I think all of those have genres. i True. oh That's what I was calculating. I was like, oh, okay. No, I've seen that.
00:02:20
Speaker
ah It also recommends that you think seasonally and plan content around seasons, holidays, and special events, which can be an easy way to kickstart your creativity. And it's saying, you know, for example, you could show off your Halloween costume in a photo set, stream your reaction to an awards show, or ring in the new year by counting down your resolutions.
00:02:41
Speaker
Or if you are a festive little kraken...
00:02:48
Speaker
And you want to fill up If you want to stuff a stocking. okay um Hey, everybody. i am here to review this 12-inch candy cane.
00:03:03
Speaker
it it has a peppery flavor. That's not ever happening for us. No. We might we we might talk about an erotica series later.
00:03:14
Speaker
You will never find OnlyFans content from either of us. There's one really disappointed person in Belgium right now just going, oh, shit.
00:03:25
Speaker
I remember at one point we were talking about, like, in our D&D group, what sorts of social media our characters would have. And I said, like, my character would absolutely have an OnlyFans, except it's mostly, like, chalk talks.
00:03:43
Speaker
And, like, one video of her in some very tight pants with great lighting. But, like, nothing actually showing. me I could also see her...
00:03:55
Speaker
Doing a lecture, turn around, boob jiggle, still paying attention? Good. Turn back around.
00:04:05
Speaker
It's one way to keep your attention on ah differential theories of ah transmutation magic. I also um neglected to mention the first tip from the OnlyFans blog, because I felt like this was just low-hanging fruit, but it is really funny the more I look at it.
00:04:22
Speaker
Challenge yourself. the tip from the OnlyFans blog?
00:04:27
Speaker
They should call it that. They should they call it just the tip. No, challenge yourself. You know, however you you want to. ah You can team up. You can also, you know, collaborate with other creators. We love this.
00:04:41
Speaker
Oh, my God. it's and So under their video editing tips, which I am now just so invested in this. The first, the number one thing that they recommend for free video editing is Canva.
00:04:55
Speaker
Yeah, let me just go edit my OnlyFans content on Canva. i cannot possibly imagine how that would work. I didn't even know you could edit videos on Canva. I didn't either. That's where you make flyers for PTA bake sales.
00:05:15
Speaker
You're not going to post whole on Canva. Wait, I've got to make a new Discord statusing?
00:05:24
Speaker
yeah Oh boy. um This is usurping a status about Etsy witches. We can all think about what that refers to.
00:05:35
Speaker
I could spend all day on the OnlyFans blog. I'm sure you could. Do we, however, instead want to record our podcast? I would love to do that.
00:05:47
Speaker
Oh.
Phantom Apprentice 2025 and Murderbot Series Overview
00:06:05
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Phantom Apprentice, our final episode for 2025 and our last Murderbot episode for now.
00:06:17
Speaker
It's sweet and bitter, one might say. Oh my god. I'm one of your hosts. My name is Rin. I am a lifelong nerd who grew up with all sorts of sci-fi and fantasy media and have spent a lifetime finding other friends to yell about that media with, even when that means foisting the media upon them for their first time.
00:06:42
Speaker
Hello, I'm Sam. I'm the other one. You all know the drill by now. I've had this media foisted upon me and I'm loving it. I have now finished watching this series for the second time.
00:06:54
Speaker
And i wish that I had the perspective of somebody who has never read the books or seen the show. To riff off of, because I have many notes throughout this that are just, what would somebody who doesn't know how this story goes think?
00:07:09
Speaker
But even though it is not my first time, it is still delightful to revisit. And I'm excited to get into it. Yeah. So this is the second, not quite half of our coverage of the Murderbot TV series on Apple TV+. plus If you did not listen to our first episode, it's right behind this one in our feed.
00:07:28
Speaker
You can go and listen to that and then come back and listen to this. This episode will contain spoilers for episodes 7 through 10 of the show. So if you don't want to hear that, you've been warned.
00:07:41
Speaker
Go watch the show. h There are many ways to do so on the high seas. Indeed. So episode seven is where we are reentering things. My little vibe summary log line for this one is the gang evacuates and deals with worm fucking.
00:08:00
Speaker
So naturally we open in a fancy restaurant.
00:08:05
Speaker
Because that's where the worms fuck, obviously. I don't know. Maybe the worms had a nice dinner first. We we only see a small, small portion of their lives. We don't know the worms in our world.
00:08:16
Speaker
So this is Port Free Commerce, I assume, shortly before the meeting that we see with the company representatives where they're agreeing to do the second unit thing.
00:08:31
Speaker
It's a little unclear. It could be immediately after, but it's in that sort of zone. They're all wearing the same outfits. So Prezox is in this fancy restaurant eating dinner, playing a game.
00:08:43
Speaker
that I don't know if this is a preservation thing, if it's just a them thing, but it involves making hand gestures and directing comments, stories, anecdotes at another member of the group. One sweet thing and one bitter thing. So one like positive memory with that person, one kind thing they did for you, or and going along with like one conflict that you've had or a misunderstanding between you.
00:09:11
Speaker
And then it ends with everyone going, we can talk about this, which will become very important later. That continues to be a theme. But there's all kinds of shit that is revealed. This is a messy game.
00:09:25
Speaker
First of all, Press Ox is just making a fucking scene in this restaurant. This is clearly they're getting rowdy. They're getting emotional. And all the other patrons are just kind of looking at them like, what the fuck are these people doing? But we learn that Bardwaj had an unrequited crush on Pinley.
00:09:44
Speaker
So that was fun. And just the the amount of emotional openness to have that conversation with a bunch of your friends and co-workers at a dinner table.
00:09:57
Speaker
To be like, yeah hey, I had romantic intentions towards you, and we already discussed this between us privately. Those feelings were not reciprocated, but it's okay. We're good. And I'm just going to talk about this loudly in front of everyone, including you.
00:10:12
Speaker
I don't know. Seems weird. Seems personal. But whatever. We learned that. But more importantly, we learned Garothan's tragic backstory. Would you like to talk about the tragic backstory? You want me to do it? i know i'll ah I'll let you go. i've okay I've got anecdotes or not anecdotes. I've got tangents later.
00:10:28
Speaker
Oh, I'm excited for the tangents. So ah we'll wait for my tangents later. Great. I will be the track so that you can take us off of it. In comedy, I believe that is the straight man, but I am neither of those things. So we will carry on.
00:10:43
Speaker
Anyway. Garofan's tragic backstory. He is using this game to very clearly break this information to everyone for the first time. Everyone but Mensa is learning that he used to be a spy who was sent by some entity in the corporation rim to spy on Mensa specifically and learn secrets about preservation.
00:11:08
Speaker
And the hold that the company, whatever it was, not this company specifically, But whatever company it was had over him was they had him addicted to a number of substances to which only they possessed the formula. And so it was this incredibly difficult, toxic situation. He was seriously considering ending his own life.
00:11:29
Speaker
But then he meets Mensa and she shows him that a better world is possible. Basically, he confesses everything to her. She welcomes him to preservation. And that is kind of why he's so devoted to her, why he seems a little bit out of place amongst the Prezox crew, and also why he refused stimulants when Labibi offered them to him in the previous crop of episodes. And this will continue To come up and be a thing for him. But Garothan has mega tragic backstory.
00:12:03
Speaker
So that's his sweet thing, despite how sad it is, saying, you know, Mensa was nice to me, she welcomed me, she's so great. But then he doesn't want to do the bitter part. So they have a little aside, they look out a window together. it was kind of giving that, like...
00:12:19
Speaker
You know, when you have two characters and one of them's into the other and they're looking off at the scenery and one of them goes, it's beautiful. And then the other one's looking at them like, yeah, it is. And then the other one goes, what? Like it kind of giving that energy. But Mensa makes him do the second half of the game and he's like, OK, you're naive. This is a stupid plan.
00:12:41
Speaker
And that immediately casts Mensa's comment on. about Prezox being naive in a different light because she's talking to Sec Unit about that somewhere in the previous crop of episodes when they're in the hopper and she's saying like oh we're naive we're too trusting but like that's obviously referencing something that Garrothin had said to her earlier oh my god so that's the fancy restaurant scene we cut back to the habitat people are evacuating and then Prezox is trying to figure out what to do about Sec Unit and
00:13:12
Speaker
Yeah, they they have a lot of mixed feelings over the fact that Sec Unit fucking murdered Labibi. Just summarily executed on site. I mean, it wasn't strictly on site.
00:13:25
Speaker
It waited until Labibi had turned and clearly taken Garothan as a hostage. True, true, true. Because Labibi's holding the gun on Garofin, and then when Secunit comes in and tells her to drop the weapon, she rotates behind Garofin, holds her gun to his head, and goes, take one more step, and all, and then her head explodes.
00:13:48
Speaker
And so, like, Secunit gave her a chance. This is true. It just wasn't a very long chance. But yeah, the the crew is not particularly thrilled about this.
00:14:02
Speaker
Understandably. And Murderbot is grumbling about how they're ungrateful and they had gotten too close to it and forgotten what it really was and this was its true purpose and This is definitely masking a little bit of its own insecurities of the fact that, like, it had gotten close to them and had forgotten that they didn't understand it.
00:14:31
Speaker
Mm hmm. For sure. It's a two-way street here. But they do, Murderbot does get the group to evacuate. Yes.
00:14:42
Speaker
Because it is pretty certain that Labibi's colleagues are going to show up and kill them. o That scene when the hopper is landing, you can tell pretty strongly that that's a miniature.
00:14:55
Speaker
Oh yeah? I wasn't even paying attention to that. I was paying attention to that. And then I was reading about the effects in other parts of the show. And they did a lot with, they did a lot with blue screen, a lot with green screen.
00:15:08
Speaker
And then they also did, and this is an old sci-fi trick that Star Trek utilized a lot. They utilized matte paintings as backgrounds.
00:15:19
Speaker
Oh, interesting. So you have like a, like a matte painting of a scenario in the background. Yeah. Were there any like particular scenes?
00:15:30
Speaker
Because now I feel like I want to go back and look. Not that I noticed. I felt like maybe that one where the hoppers landing, um which is why it felt kind of like a miniature. then And then one where they're standing on the ridge overlooking the habitat later.
00:15:47
Speaker
That kind of felt like there might be a matte painting as as background there. Now I want to go watch it a third time just to just to see. But the Hopper lands and they go out and Murderbot goes, you know, I'm going to go check the perimeter, which we've learned at this point is code for I don't want to fucking deal with you people for a moment. Mm hmm.
00:16:10
Speaker
I'm going to take a goddamn walk. There's another bit right after that where the sec unit's refusing to participate in a heart-to-heart. And somebody just goes, maybe it just needs some perimeter time. And then Rati goes, what even is the perimeter? It really seems to vary.
00:16:29
Speaker
And they decide to sort of like, they're they're trying to have a talk and everyone's like, we can talk about this. Mm-hmm. And Murderbot's response is, no, you can't because you'll all be dead ah because it senses that something is coming.
00:16:44
Speaker
h In more ways than one.
Murderbot's Emotional Journey and Character Dynamics
00:16:48
Speaker
And another one of those giant arthroplura-like creatures bursts out of the fucking ground and starts running towards the hopper and they manage to shut the door. And, you know, then it's up above the hopper.
00:17:01
Speaker
And then there's another fucking crazy ass creature with the, you know four part mouth like the Demogorgon in the Stranger Things movies. That's exactly what I was about to say. Yeah. Demogorgon vibes. Yeah, and a bunch of tentacles. And honestly, like the the body of it, because the tentacles create kind of like a like like a mantle almost, like almost like a poncho around like a main body, which the only like good shot we really get of it, it's a little like...
00:17:38
Speaker
black and spiky and it reminded me a little bit of um the like volcanic snails oh show me a volcanic snail i love snails this is a little known fact about me is that i really adore snails yeah the scaly foot gastropod which absorbs uh iron sulfides oh oh that's so gross or the sea pangolin That is a weird looking thing.
00:18:10
Speaker
There's another layer that's made of argonite. It's gross and yet really, really, really cool. it's It's very cool. I'm just like, whoa. Okay, i have to stop looking at it because it's so weird.
00:18:24
Speaker
Okay. And, you know, they look like they're fighting and then they're intertwining on the top of the hopper and everyone's like, we're gonna die. They're gonna kill each other and then us. And Arada goes...
00:18:40
Speaker
No, I think they're complementary genders of the same species. Biologist, how do we feel about that? This is not a visual medium. You can't see me putting my head in my fucking hands.
00:18:53
Speaker
I don't know a single biologist. there There may be some biologists out there who would talk about it this way. We say sex. Yeah. Animals don't have gender.
00:19:06
Speaker
and And things aren't complementary. the The phrase I would use would be like, I think they're mating. I think they're the same species.
00:19:17
Speaker
I mean, Rati does say that they're making love. Yeah. Which is fucking hilarious. And it takes forever. And they're like, you know, grinding against each other and like shaking and the whole hopper's shaking.
00:19:34
Speaker
And I would like to have a biologist moment about this. Please, please do. Hi, my name is Rin. I'm a lifelong biologist. No, I have one degree in biology. I am going for another.
00:19:47
Speaker
And my undergrad training was largely in ecology. I work in molecular bio now. That is some wild sexual dimorphism. And I want to know why.
00:19:58
Speaker
Mm hmm. what selective pressures would prompt that level of of dimorphism we see that level of extreme sexual germorphism in things like angler fish like and there are certain invertebrates these are definitely invertebrate-like creatures But ordinary levels of sexual dimorphism in most species are like size changes or color differences.
00:20:25
Speaker
We have an adage in biology that um form equals function or form follows function, right? If there is a structure that is related directly to what it does and what it does is directly related to how it's structured.
00:20:44
Speaker
Mm-hmm. So you don't have selective pressures that give you weird tentacle things and scaly foot gastropod body unless there is a niche that that fulfills. And that that one clearly is not filling the same niche as ah the weird creepy millipede one.
00:21:05
Speaker
So, you know, I have to wonder, is... you know, is this some sort of sequential hermaphroditism? um Is this a larva form situation where one sex retains larval shape into adulthood in sequential hermaphroditism as species age?
00:21:24
Speaker
This happens in clownfish. So I believe it's they're all born male and then one becomes the dominant breeding female.
00:21:35
Speaker
And as they age, they take on different roles. So there's there's a couple of different types of when species are not one sex throughout the ah throughout their whole lives. Some either can self-fertilize, some have some sort of self-incompatibility, but can take on either a fertilization role or or a gestational role.
00:21:55
Speaker
Also, the other piece, in invertebrates that do use internal fertilization, which is in which there is... some insertation of sperm into the other's body.
00:22:10
Speaker
And that is where fertilization of an egg takes place. Copulation is usually not a long process. In spiders and other arachnids, they like create spermatophore, which is like a little packet, and then they put it down and walk away.
00:22:30
Speaker
And the other, and the female comes up and picks it up and takes it. That sounds very polite. That's very like respectful. Especially because a lot of arachnids have evolved sexual cannibalism.
00:22:41
Speaker
o There are reasons for some of this. The thrusting and the with the the shaking of the hopper is usually seen a lot more in vertebrates and particularly in mammals.
00:22:55
Speaker
So, you know, not that we can assign our own evolutionary processes onto these completely different creatures on this far off planet.
00:23:06
Speaker
But I have questions about it how this came about and also where the design team is getting their inspiration for all of this.
00:23:17
Speaker
Yeah. Because there simply is no way that they fulfill the same niche, which you know suggests to me some sort of larva form or sequential hermaphroditism stage.
00:23:29
Speaker
Larva form. Did I explain that one already? Where one sex retains larva form into adulthood? Yes. Yeah, so um that happens in in some invertebrates. Frequently females will retain a nymph, the nymph form into adulthood.
00:23:44
Speaker
Frequently, you're not going to see a situation in which one sex has a completely different niche than the other all throughout their lives.
00:23:55
Speaker
That's weird to evolve, Mm hmm. It's not that it doesn't happen. um There's the dolphins of Shark Bay, Australia. Female dolphins in Shark Bay teach mother to daughter using a sea sponge to protect their rostrum, their noses. Oh, I've heard about this.
00:24:18
Speaker
there are debates on whether or not you can actually call it tool use i think it's tool use but there's arguments point is the males don't learn this behavior the males occupy a separate niche Yeah.
00:24:34
Speaker
the females have entirely different prey than the males in shark bay which is very interesting yeah that's why so it's not that it doesn't happen in our world but they still have the same like phenotype they still have like the same physical form So the the shark bay dolphins. So what sort of selective pressures have occurred that have have these two creatures evolving such wildly different forms from each other? I i have questions.
00:25:06
Speaker
But we won't get answers to the questions because they slink off and leave weird hanging fleshy eggs hanging from the hopper.
00:25:17
Speaker
Yay. And then all of a sudden, a sec unit drops from the fucking sky. Where the fuck did it come from? I assume another hopper.
00:25:29
Speaker
just kind of boop. But yeah, but there's no like hopper flying overhead. It's just sec unit. Boom. There. Yeah, it didn't really occur to me how... weird and random that was i didn't question it i was too distracted by the big bugs yeah the the gray curse sec unit shoots uh the egg sacks by mistake and gets immediately fucking attacked by the millipede one its head gets ripped off and then the millipede one goes and uses its like petipalps the little like graspers on the front its mandibles to pick up the egg sack and run back down underground
00:26:09
Speaker
don't talk to me or my eggs ever again ah don't talk to me you're my son or my son or my son or my son of my son because there were like a hundred of them yeah anyway episode eight yeah the only little thing at the tail end of episode seven is that garathan's condition from his shot wound gets much worse and he needs the med bay urgently he does fully just fall over yes So episode eight, logline, Murderbot mind melds and exercises free will.
00:26:41
Speaker
We open with more Sanctuary Moon, which is always great. Something that I remembered to notice at this point is that in all the Sanctuary Moon bits, there's a little... logo in the top corner to remind us that we're watching Sanctuary Moon. Like, I don't know how much I don't watch regular TV anymore. But it reminds me of when I was watching Saturday morning cartoons as a kid, and there would be a little like WB kids logo like in the corner for the first couple minutes of the episode.
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah, So it's kind of like that. It's just a cute little sanctuary moon up in the up in the corner. But this one has a kind of relevant theme, the theme of reconditioned constructs going rogue.
00:27:26
Speaker
And killing everybody because the nav bot just fucking obliterates the entire crew. I was reading an interview with one of the crew members who was talking about, and i don't remember whether it was Martha Wells talking about this or one of the Weitz brothers or the composer Amanda Jones, but they were talking about how...
00:27:48
Speaker
Sanctuary Moon kind of follows the plot of the show. And it starts out kind of comedic and like almost parodying sci-fi in general. And then all of a sudden gets really dark and bloody. Yeah.
00:28:02
Speaker
And you kind of don't see that coming with like intense emotions in the middle. And then, yeah. So going back to the present moment with our friends, Grey Chris is in the habitat and we're watching them via the security cameras.
00:28:16
Speaker
They demand to negotiate. And as a gesture of goodwill, question mark, they say, here's the coordinates for our meeting. We will leave your habitat so you can come back, which is good because Gugu needs the med bay very urgently. i think in the books, maybe it's Valescu who has a really fucked up knee at one point.
00:28:38
Speaker
I think so, but I think it's a result of the initial animal attack. Yeah, it's a different reason, but there is somebody who has a severe knee injury, which I remember the similarities.
00:28:53
Speaker
So they treat him. Paradoj isn't that kind of doctor, TM, but she's doing her best. And we get kind of a graphic knee surgery. Like I said last time, I really hate all the graphic surgery stuff. it really grosses me out. So I just tried to not look too hard.
00:29:11
Speaker
But during the procedure, Garothan insists on no painkillers because apparently this is how his addiction with the corporates started. So I don't know if it was an injury that they inflicted on him or if they took advantage of him when he was already in a vulnerable state. We don't find out.
00:29:30
Speaker
I mean, this is how opiate addiction starts in so many people in this country. There was a big push several decades ago to prescribe opiates as a safe, easy way of managing pain after surgery.
00:29:50
Speaker
But then it's like, oh, this is addictive. This could be dangerous. We can't prescribe too much. And so the need to manage pain or not be able to pay for your prescription or not be able to get a renewed prescription so you can wean. So with the help of your doctor, you can wean off or because You know, opiates are very, very quickly, you very, very quickly build up a tolerance and need more of them to have the same effects.
00:30:23
Speaker
they They become very addicting very quickly and it becomes very, very hard to stop. John Oliver has a couple of really good bits on ah the Sacklers and the pharmaceutical industry and ah opiate addiction and the opioid crisis.
00:30:44
Speaker
So check that out if you want more information. Luckily... Our friends have a workaround for this, which is because Garothan is an augmented human, sec unit can hook up directly to his brain and block his whole central nervous system so he doesn't see any pain. Thank you, MedCenter Argala, for that tip.
00:31:03
Speaker
And when Sec Unit suggests this, Mensa is very skeptical. And she goes, did you get this from Sanctuary Moon? And Sec Unit goes, no, I didn't get it from Sanctuary Moon. And then narration, I got it from Mid-Center Arcola. They always claim it's based on real cases. It's probably fine.
00:31:20
Speaker
And so then we get this whole weird dream sequence inside Garothan's brain, sifting through his thoughts and memories Sekun is just kind of rummaging around in there.
00:31:32
Speaker
And this is where we get explicit confirmation of Garothan's feelings for Mensa. But because they're so enmeshed with this mind meld situation... Sec Unit is saying out loud, repeatedly, why can't you love me back? Why can't you love me back?
00:31:52
Speaker
Which is embarrassing for everyone. And Garothan's like, did I say something? And Sec Unit it goes, nope, nope, you didn't. Nothing happened. It's fine. um So that's just a teensy bit awkward.
00:32:05
Speaker
But then Garrothin gets his revenge because he is also fishing around in Sekunit's brain and he sees the incident TM and has the it calls itself murder bot line when he wakes up.
00:32:20
Speaker
Which there's a very negative reaction to that in comparison to the book. Murderbot tries to sort of defend itself saying it doesn't know if it really was the one that killed the miners. It doesn't think it killed the miners by choice. And anyway, Murderbot goes to have some perimeter time.
00:32:39
Speaker
there's a lot of tension. Bensa is trying to keep everyone on task, trying to figure out who the fuck is Craycris. What do they want? Did they kill Deltfall? Obviously, yes. Piecing together, you know, the plot elements.
00:32:55
Speaker
There's another throuple scuffle. And Rati comes to what feels like it's gonna be a breakup, but it turns out he only wants to date Pin Lee. Sorry, Arata. And... And Arada's the one who had feelings for him. But then Pinley, who was originally not as on board, is going, well, why wouldn't he want to date me? I'm hot. I'm dateable. Yeah, sure, Raji. Yeah, you could date me. It's kind of this like little weird, defensive, strange moment. They do have a very sweet relationship, all of them.
00:33:31
Speaker
But it's just so it's so weird. so This whole arc is so weird and silly. hmm. But then we cut back over to SecUnit, who's having an angsty stomp around, thinking about media and going, I'm going to write my own storyline. And the show is obviously implying, I don't know if it really wants us to believe that it's going to betray its clients. This is one of those times where I don't know what it would be like to be encountering the story for the first time.
00:34:04
Speaker
Because we know, having read and reread all the books, that Murderbot's a huge softie and it loves its humans and obviously is not really going to betray them. If you don't know that, do you believe that things could change? Because we've seen that the tone of the show can turn on a dime.
00:34:21
Speaker
It's not impossible that that could happen. But to me, it's just so clear. Obviously, you're not going to betray your humans, you big teddy bear. But I don't really know how that lands with a new audience.
00:34:35
Speaker
i I wouldn't know because I thought it was like clear when it came back that it was like, oh, I'm actually a i have a plan. Well, yeah, it comes back after that with a plan and goes, yeah. But when it's having that little stomp about before it returns to the crew.
00:34:49
Speaker
My only other piece from this episode that I noticed just as a general filming note was there was a lot more of that like fisheye aperture strangeness with the shots as with with almost all of the outdoor shots.
00:35:04
Speaker
There's the point when Murderbot goes to retrieve its little like... Security camera, signal booster, drone thing from the tree. And when Alexander Skarsgรฅrd reaches for the tree, his hand and that branch of the tree are totally out of focus.
00:35:20
Speaker
Yeah. Like it's um it's impossible to see what Murderbot is picking up. Yeah, it is a little distracting at points, especially because it's so inconsistent. There are times where the background isn't blurred out when they're standing in nature. Like, it doesn't seem like there's a super consistent rule for when we're doing it versus when we're not.
00:35:40
Speaker
But I think if you're not looking for it, it's not as distracting, but it's definitely present. Because we are who we are and we're analyzing this more than it was meant to be. But that's what we're here for.
00:35:51
Speaker
that's That's all I've got for eight, and I don't have a whole lot for nine. but Yeah, my only other thing for that episode was just a general impression of how much everyone loves Garofin. And we'd commented on this before. He obviously has a very strong relationship with everyone on the team. But everyone's being very physically affectionate. People are always touching him, holding his hand, helping him walk, especially after his injury.
00:36:17
Speaker
And that's something that we don't get in the book narration because why would Sec Unit care that they're all just touching each other constantly? But it is kind of sweet to see that the, you know, grumpy guy, everybody likes him.
00:36:32
Speaker
Episode nine, logline, launching the beacon. Everybody's in the hopper. They're going to try to go. So whose beacon are they trying to fucking launch anyway? Yeah.
00:36:43
Speaker
They are trying to launch Grey Chris's beacon because it's the only one that's left. Okay. That's what I thought. But is I lost track of how many beacons there were at this point. i didn't care. So they're trying to launch Grey Chris's beacon.
00:36:55
Speaker
Sec unit is putting their chances of survival at low to extremely low. It's not good. Rati is hogging the calm as he is known to do.
00:37:07
Speaker
Pinley and Garofen are trying to launch a drone as part of the plan. But they both get distracted lusting over Mensa, which I think is really funny. And Pinley's complaining about her being hardheaded and determined. And then he's really, and Garotten says, frustrating? And she goes, oh, I was going to say hot.
00:37:30
Speaker
as As somebody with a very hard don't fuck your co-workers life rule, i like i get that they're all also friends.
00:37:43
Speaker
And you know particularly for Garothan, there's got to be some wildly fucked up emotion emotions for about the fact that like Mensa was the one that got him out of addiction and out of corporate slavery.
00:37:58
Speaker
Mm-hmm. But the fact that they're all like, yeah, you know, Bar-Bawad has feelings for and, has feelings for and and Pinli has feelings for Mensa, and Garothan has feelings for Mensa, and Mensa really just wants to get the fucking job done.
00:38:19
Speaker
Garothan is asking Mensa if she has feelings for Sec Unit, which was a couple episodes ago. like It's it' fine, I guess. You know, destigmatize desire. Attraction is not moral. It's not bad. Who cares? If you're all open about it, great. But it does have me feeling like Sec Unit, going, can you keep a lid on this, please?
00:38:43
Speaker
You keep it together and do your fucking job, you're going get eaten by a worm thing. Yeah, it is. It is a little bit to me like, OK, like I get, you know, being posted somewhere for a long time. it makes sense that, you know, people have needs and desires and definite they haven't even been there that long. It's been a couple of days. They genuinely haven't.
00:39:05
Speaker
But like, who knows how long it's been going through the wormhole and getting there from preservation. And yeah, they don't actually spend that long planet side. Well, it's also not really established how long that they've been there when they first get attacked.
00:39:20
Speaker
True, true. Anyway, they have this drone going up. And I was watching an interview with Martha Wells before this, and she was saying like, she would have loved to have more drones. But that was like one of the things that they kind of had to cut from the books.
00:39:35
Speaker
Because it's it was just really, really difficult to have that visualized. It was really expensive to either have like actual drones, or to animate that in.
00:39:47
Speaker
And so, you know, we only actually have, like, the practical effect of the hopper, the mini hopper drone, and this one signal boost camera drone, which is very obviously...
00:40:02
Speaker
The signal boosty thing is like duct taped to the drone. It's jury rigged at the last minute. And it is reminding me of the life tender just in terms of janky blorpiness. I'm just rooting for this poor little thing before it gets eaten by a bird.
00:40:18
Speaker
bird pterosaur thing it has a big crest it's pink like a flamingo but again it's not very in focus because nothing outside is in focus x why would it be this was definitely another one of those situations where they're really hoping we don't notice that this is just canada yeah you're looking at this and it's like oh this is this is like a you know it's it's in a quarry in ontario but i'm looking at this like this is a logging road Mm-hmm.
00:40:45
Speaker
Like, you can go into any, you know, large Canadian forest and and find something that looks like this. Yeah. Hell, you can go to, you know, old fucking scout camps that i spent time at growing up and find places that look fucking identical to this. Yeah.
00:41:04
Speaker
But the actual plot that's happening is very interesting. This is different from the books. That sec unit is representing itself in this negotiation and presenting the decapitated head of the sec unit that got killed earlier. pretending that it's Garrothin's head, which was very funny, and pretending to double-cross Prezox, and saying, I'm rogue, I killed one of my stupid clients, you help me and I'll help you, and trying to lead Greycris to the beacon so that they'll all die in the blast radius when it launches.
00:41:46
Speaker
And Prezox hates this plan for a lot of reasons, especially because it also puts Secunit at risk. Bird eats the drone. Mensa has her own plan that she begins enacting from the hopper.
00:42:00
Speaker
Secunit tries small talk to try to buy more time with Grey Chris, which is also hilarious. And it's saying, where are you from? And my first thought was Cambridge, Massachusetts.
00:42:12
Speaker
Thank you, Sam Reich. And then because it's assuming that the original plan is still going forward and it's expecting the beacon to launch at a certain time, it it throws itself off a ridge and goes, boldness is all.
00:42:29
Speaker
But then nothing happens and it's just kind of embarrassing. And it doesn't even fall that far off the ridge. No, it's like two feet.
00:42:38
Speaker
Pinley probably kills a guy. So that's fun. We cut to her and Garofin hacking into the mainframe and there's gray chris guy and she whacks him with a big wrench yeah without the drone the only way that they can get the beacon to launch because they have to make this plan go off and the only way they can get back in contact is to hack into gray chris's ah actual system so they have to go down to the habitat and they're trying to break in and somebody you know shows up and notices them and so pinley whacks him with a wrench m
00:43:12
Speaker
She's like, I hope it didn't kill it I hope it didn't kill him. And it flashes to the guy on the ground and he's like pretty clearly dead. Or at least has some sort of severe injury.
00:43:28
Speaker
Yeah. But you know, good for you, Pinley. And they do manage to launch the beacon. And then flashing back to Sec Unit and the Grey Chris people, Mensa to the rescue. She comes and does this cool badass negotiation. i think we're all here for alien remnants.
00:43:47
Speaker
And there's honestly some sexual tension with the Grey Chris leader. a little bit. I was feeling it. i was like, this is evil. they They could kill each other or they could kiss.
00:43:59
Speaker
I, listeners, you can make your own informed decision. But I saw it. Okay. Toxicure. I'll have to go watch that scene, I guess. Because they're just slowly kind of stalking towards each other and making really intense eye contact and like,
00:44:17
Speaker
layered double entendre, not in like a sexual way, but in like an evil corporate way, can sexualize just about anything. But you know, if you, for those with eyes to see, it's there.
00:44:30
Speaker
Then of course, They pin Lee and Garroth and get back in contact. They manage to restart the beacon launch. A fight breaks out. The Greycris humans either shoot each other purposefully or not on purpose, some of them. And they they have no loyalty to each other. One of them tries to escape in the hopper and then the leader shoots her.
00:44:54
Speaker
And then the beacon starts to launch and... And Murderbot grabs Mensa and leaps off the cliff before they get completely immolated.
00:45:06
Speaker
Murderbot's like, oh, this is gonna suck in the slow-mo narration on the way down. goes, if I angle my body just right, Mensa might survive. And it falls and has a catastrophic failure as it looks on Garothan and Pinli showing up and embracing Mensa and having a very tearful reunion.
00:45:28
Speaker
And then think it fades out thinking, my clients are the best clients. And it it slows down. says, my clients are the best clients.
00:45:41
Speaker
Yeah. As it's shutting down. That's all I have for nine. Let's move on to ten. So. The final episode.
SecUnit's Struggles and Team Resilience
00:45:49
Speaker
Be-ne-ne. Episode ten, getting SecUnit back from the company.
00:45:55
Speaker
This is a really weird one. Back on Port Free Commerce, we have SecUnit waking up in a company lab. as it's being repaired, memory wiped, things are happening to it.
00:46:08
Speaker
The first thing it asks is where it is. And then the second thing it does is ask for Dr. Mensa, which is just a fucking stab in the heart.
00:46:19
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And then it gets its memory wiped, which we could talk about the implications of that for the story. Maybe a little bit later on. I don't really know how I feel about it. But back with the Prezox team, they're asking where Sec Unit is. Pin Lee is vibrating with fury and ready to sue the asses of everyone in that room.
00:46:46
Speaker
i I love, there's you know a lot of back and forth, a lot of back and forth. Pinley's standing in the corner like with their arms crossed, just kind of watching everyone. And the and the like young company execs are talking and equivocating and finally...
00:47:02
Speaker
one of the ones, the only one who hasn't talked yet, just puts up a hand and delivers the most legalese sentence of, you know, like, we accept no responsibility for anything that may or may not have happened and admits to no knowledge of anything that may or may not have happened or people who may or may not have been there and accepts no liability.
00:47:23
Speaker
And Pinley comes and sits down and goes, Okay, good. So... you the fucker we actually have to deal with? Yeah, I'm that fucker.
00:47:37
Speaker
There's also a great line where the people are being disrespectful to Mensa and she goes, you will address me as Madam President. And then it flashes so quickly to Garofen just doing the littlest proud smile. who and like hell yeah, Mensa, get him.
00:47:53
Speaker
Very good. And then Gaurathan realizing that respectful negotiation is not going to work says that they will buy Sekhunit, but the company breaks the news that they've already wiped its memory, which is very problematic. Rati goes to go find it, but Sekhunit doesn't recognize it. The gang makes a plan to get its memories back, which involves more of Gaurathan's backstory and divergences from the book plot. So Gugu...
00:48:24
Speaker
hits up his old drug dealer, but not for drugs, for security clearance, so that he can go into whatever computer mainframe room has the stuff that they need to hack into it and try to find whatever data they may have saved from SecUnit. Because...
00:48:43
Speaker
As they're sort of debating and discussing things, Mensa's saying, you know, I'm sure that they removed memories from SecUnit, but there's no way they just deleted it all. And Garathan goes, yeah, anything that might possibly have monetary value to the company, they're going to keep, they're going to data to mine all the information that SecUnit collected. And SecUnit's personality is not valuable to the company. They would have no reason to save that, but there has to be something that we can find. And so he's searching around for files, doing hacker stuff, and he eventually has the idea to search for the keyword Sanctuary Moon, which then brings up all of SecUnit's data, all of its memories, Which he downloads into his own brain, which was very affecting and sweet. There's so much of Garoth and just really doing a complete 180 on Sec Unit in this episode and being fully on board with rescuing It just breaks my heart.
00:49:46
Speaker
Unfortunately, in the meantime, Murderbot has been sent over to be a cop and put down a worker's strike. It's really interesting to listen to all of the media standing there talking about everything. Mm-hmm, yeah. how pro- corporatepo they all are and how the miners are in violation of their contracts and are refusing very reasonable rules about how if they don't
00:50:17
Speaker
work they won't get food then you know the the miners get kettled in miners workers doesn't particularly matter they get kettled in because three sec units and several cops show up in the back On the march to put down the strike, they encounter Rati, who is like, hey, Seki, remember me?
00:50:41
Speaker
And Seki in it from the memory wipe, of course, doesn't remember Rati and in fact, almost shoots him. Whoops. However, it is in amusing and tracks and it's notable.
00:50:54
Speaker
However, this did show us that they didn't bring Rati into the talks. They just kind of like left him. Everyone else is there. Rati just... Which tracks? Yeah.
00:51:07
Speaker
Sorry, bud. Yeah. He's such a main, especially in the books, he's such a main character because Sekyunit loves him so much. But once you think about it, you realize how little he's allowed to participate in the actual plot of the story. Yeah.
00:51:24
Speaker
his's He's Sec Unit's Blurbo. Yeah, he features disproportionately. And i I love that for him. and the And the strike situation is very brutal to watch. I mean, we already know that Sec Unit has killed innocent people before.
00:51:42
Speaker
But they really don't pull any punches. We see it maim people. Along with the other SecUnits, it's ripping fingers off. It's smashing heads in. Like, it is bad. There is no question about whether or not SecUnit has committed these acts. It's just, you know, it's under the influence of the company and the governor module and all that. And this causes a catastrophic failure because it's having flashbacks to the mining massacre incident.
00:52:10
Speaker
so Then there's a lot of back and forth between what's happening with SecUnit and what's happening with Prezox. But Mensa and Bardwaj are having a press conference, putting pressure on the company to release SecUnit.
00:52:24
Speaker
We find out that SecUnit is about to be melted. it is fully stripped down in a cage, about to be lowered into a vat of acid. um Which, it gets escorted in by two sec units.
00:52:39
Speaker
And it has a governor module, so why are there guards there? Hmm. Like, why do they need sec unit guards if, in theory, like, they're supposed to just obey all commands?
00:52:50
Speaker
I mean, I guess because it had just had the catastrophic failure. So it could not be relied upon to execute commands, is just in case. Fair. And while it's waiting to be lowered into the vat of goo, it tries pinging the other sec units and doesn't get a response, which is so sad. Because it doesn't know what's going on. It's trying to reach out to other beings like it for any kind of information and it's just being completely...
00:53:20
Speaker
shut out which kind of reinforces sec unit's view that constructs can't be friends with each other which we don't really get it talking about in the tv series but we know from the books saying oh construct can't be friends because they all suck well yeah if this is your experience of other constructs it does suck a lot but luckily pinley and rothi come to the rescue at the last possible second with the court injunction saying, don't destroy this sec unit.
00:53:46
Speaker
And there's a very awkward reunion with all the Prezox people. Garothan shows up with the memories. It's just lots of dramatic rescues at the last possible minute in the these couple of episodes but it gets back online errata makes it some clothes from the recycler and makes it do a little fashion show which is kind of cute mensa tells sec unit that it's coming back to preservation with them and sec unit gives the group a we can talk about this which i think is nice which is very cute but it's it's clearly struggling yeah it's it's going through a lot it has a lot to process
00:54:28
Speaker
And ultimately, when all of them go to bed, and interestingly, they all have the little like green lights in their little bunks.
00:54:38
Speaker
Yeah. They're getting some sort of light therapy when they sleep. i guess i don't know i thought it was just for vibes like it was like a nightlight maybe it's just it's probably just vibes but garoth and wakes up and it's like hey like it'll be okay it's sucks now but like they're good people because we see just framing this sec unit is getting up to leave it's obviously kind of giving a lingering look over all the crew and walking to the door thinking they're all asleep and then garoth and pops up
00:55:09
Speaker
Mm hmm. And, you Garrothin is waxing poetic about like, how much he loves all of these people. And second unit it will, you know, learn how to exist outside of the corporation rim, just like he did.
00:55:23
Speaker
And second it stops him and goes, Dr. Garrothin, I need to check the perimeter. And that's a shift because at the beginning of that conversation, Garotten's like, hey, bud, what you doing? And Sekhuna says, I'm going to check the perimeter. And then the second time it says, i need to check the perimeter, which is just the double whammy of like, no, I need this. And then Garotten understands.
00:55:49
Speaker
Mm hmm. But it's just the saddest. Skarsgรฅrd does a really good job when he delivers that. I need to check the perimeter. It's with just the saddest eyes and still the flat murder bot affect. You could just see the pain and torment of like, don't make this harder for me than it already is.
00:56:06
Speaker
Martha Wells, in that interview I was watching, talked about how she's not a casting director. And, you know, the interviewers were asking about, like, was she worried about somebody so mask playing Merbot?
00:56:18
Speaker
And she was like, well, I'm not a casting director. But like when I was told that they were bringing on Alexander Skarsgรฅrd, I was like, well, first of all, he's an incredibly big name. That's incredible for our show.
00:56:31
Speaker
And second of all, then I saw the audition or not the audition tape. He didn't audition. He was offered the position. They like sought him out. But like when she got to see him doing little pieces, she was like, oh, he has the micro expressions.
00:56:47
Speaker
Like he's he's so expressive, like with just little, little changes of his face without adjusting his voice or little, little changes in his voice without adjusting his face. And she was like, no, he's he's perfect. Yeah, absolutely.
00:57:01
Speaker
We get sec unit moving through the station and stealing clothing v as it heads away. This is just a Toronto subway station.
00:57:13
Speaker
a Literally or just in terms of vibes? Because it could be either. Literally. Amazing. um Like, they they just filmed this in Toronto Underground.
00:57:28
Speaker
Sorry to everyone who couldn't get on that stop on the train that day. Sec unit had to exercise free will. It was also really beautiful as it...
00:57:40
Speaker
steps out into the main sort of area of the station and it's looking out through these sort of organic shaped windows that we were talking about last time that are all screens displaying this kind of twilight sky and then each little segment switches from the twilight view to like a star view which is symbolically opening up the stars to Murderbot as it's going on its journey. Oh, I love it so much.
00:58:12
Speaker
I'm going to come back to that when I finish because I have many thoughts. Okay, please do. Please do. um But we'll just continuing through to the end of the episode. Yeah.
00:58:24
Speaker
Murderbot is giving its ending narration as it gets onto a bot driven transport. which i do Which is not art, I don't think. No, I don't think so either. It's not big enough or fancy enough to be art.
00:58:35
Speaker
It's also, it also, at the end of All Systems Red, it gets onto a bot-driven transport to go somewhere before it eventually meets art. And Mensa wakes up, sees that it's gone, and watches the ship launch.
00:58:49
Speaker
And she's crying, but like, there's there's almost an element of happiness for it. Of like, you know, this this hurts, this sucks, but yeah, this is what it needed.
00:59:02
Speaker
And she's I don't know if it's literally she is in that moment receiving Murderbot's message or if she's just she kind of knows and then she'll receive the message later. But it ends with the narration saying Murderbot and message just like in the book. Mm Also, Mensa is wearing the Target lesbian tank top. Yes, I noticed that the first time that I watched it. I own the Target lesbian tank top in several colors.
00:59:33
Speaker
and Instantly, I noticed that because my my old roommate owns like four of them. I would know that tank top anywhere. It's kind of hard to tell with the lighting. They might have gotten a white one and done a custom dye job on it, but it is instantly recognizable. Yeah.
00:59:53
Speaker
Also, when Murderbot says something about like being conflicted about leaving its favorite human, it focuses on Mensa's face, which is fucking perfect.
01:00:05
Speaker
And that ends season one. And I have a bunch of other thoughts on on episode 10, so we're not quite done with it yet. But couple of other thoughts that I noticed through all of this.
01:00:18
Speaker
When they walk, when Garofan walks into that neighborhood to go find his old drug dealer. Yes. The background we hear is authorized solicitations only. You are entering a class six lifestyle area.
01:00:35
Speaker
Authorized solicitations only was what caught me. Like, you know, you are constantly going to be sold to, but only by the corporations that can make money.
01:00:47
Speaker
Yeah. Right. There is no proselytizing. There is no panhandling. There is no you know way of making yourself get ahead or bring anybody else into your group. Only have things sold to you by the corporations.
01:01:03
Speaker
Mm-hmm. There were a couple of instances here. The closed captions when SecUnit comes to out in new clothing say, he's back.
01:01:16
Speaker
I noticed that, yeah. And I saw, but i when I listened back to it, I heard SPAC. m So like, I don't know what the word actually was.
01:01:27
Speaker
And then later when Seki says, we can talk about this, not only do the captions say it, but Arada actually does say that's his first one. Which is, were so good about not gendering Seki.
01:01:43
Speaker
There are two other instances that Yeah, there are two other instances in in which one of the people in the first episode says he and gets corrected to it. And then at one point when Garrothin is being a dick, Garrothin goes, oh, he's coming back.
01:02:01
Speaker
It. Which is a dick move. But that that feels like... we didn't edit correctly yeah and then i want to talk about that scene with the the lights turning out and gonna use i will use that to fade into talking about uh the score yes please because as we know i'm a music nerd this i enjoy the score ah It is not super overstated, as I think I talked about when we were watching the Lord of the
Murderbot Series Production Insights and Musical Contributions
01:02:35
Speaker
Rings movies. There's a couple of different ways to do a film score. You can do it as this big standout themes that you are paying heavy attention to, or you can do it it sort of understated.
01:02:46
Speaker
So the music is enhancing the scenario, but you're not really like... It's not forward and in your face. This was really the second one. All of the music makes sense. All of the music enhances the scene. Without it, the scene would not be, every scene would not be as impactful as it was.
01:03:05
Speaker
but But Amanda Jones did a really, really excellent job at being understated when she needed to be understated and in your face when she needed to be in your face. Mm-hmm.
01:03:16
Speaker
And of mixing styles and instrumentation to create the the like sci-fi effect that she was going for. She talked about, i saw an interview with her. Amanda Jones, by the way, is the ah the first Black woman to ever be nominated in a score category at the Primetime Emmys.
01:03:41
Speaker
Oh, damn. ah Not for this show, but for another Apple TV show, Home. Mm-hmm. She previously worked with Hans Zimmer, John Powell, Henry Jackson um on films like How to Train Your Dragon 2, Kingsman.
01:03:59
Speaker
She worked on Dear White People. She was nominated for an Emmy for Home. She worked on ah Love in the Time of Corona. I assume several others.
01:04:12
Speaker
She pointed out at one point in ah the interview i was reading with her, just the general underrepresentation of women and especially of women of color in film scoring and in in the movie making industry in general, which maybe think about it. Like, I don't think I know another woman who does like film or video game scores. Yeah.
01:04:35
Speaker
Every name that I could possibly rattle off in my through my little Rolodex of film, TV, video game composers is a man. And almost all of them are white men. Yeah.
01:04:49
Speaker
Which is kind of embarrassing to not have thought about that before. But so to to see her succeed in in something like this is is very, very cool.
01:05:01
Speaker
Yeah. She was saying she used a number of tritones and sliding pitches frequently to create anxiety and bring in that sort of sci-fi feel.
01:05:12
Speaker
There were some pieces of the soundtrack that used heavy synth, some that blended synth with orchestra, and some that were full orchestral. The Sanctuary Moon sequences were entirely orchestral to give that sort of like retro future, like epic feel to it.
01:05:28
Speaker
But that piece, the but the song in that scene um where Murderbot walks out into the Toronto train station and watches the twilight sky tick to night.
01:05:43
Speaker
In our chat, the first, you'll see that end message link. Just listen to the first 15 seconds of that, will you? Yeah.
01:06:13
Speaker
that make you think of anything? Is it supposed to make me think of it? Because the first thing that I think is like the little ding ding as like the little windows are changing, but maybe that's too obvious and I'm missing something very artistic.
01:06:26
Speaker
Yes. And...
01:06:34
Speaker
Space, the final frontier. Ah, okay. See, i would that I haven't watched a lot of the original series. Well, original series, but I mean, you could also, honestly, it works just as well with...
01:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, see, these are the kind of subtle musical things that are completely lost on me. This would not have occurred to me as a similarity at all if you hadn't pointed it out. But when I was listening to that, especially with that like opening chord into the little like ding, ding, ding, ding bits.
01:07:26
Speaker
I was like, there's no way this is not an intentional homage to Star Trek. This feels incredibly TNG. g Yeah.
01:07:38
Speaker
We're seeing the start of a journey. We're seeing we're seeing our main character moving towards space. Mm-hmm. you know as that bit was going i kept expecting the narration to just switch to space the final frontier these are the voyages of the sec unit murder bot its continuing mission to discover strange new media to seek out new constructs and new fucked up dangers to boldly go where boldness is all um but that was very good that was very very good but i did itoooooo do dooo doo do
01:08:14
Speaker
There's absolutely no way that that wasn't intentional on Amanda Jones's part. there That was so well done. isn Between the visual and then the narration, immediately you're like, this is this is the beginning of a journey. This is not the end of the show. This is the beginning of what comes after.
01:08:39
Speaker
Yeah. This is an opening theme as much as it is a closing. And I thought that was just fucking brilliant. I agree. Even though I didn't notice that, you know, as it was happening. But having it laid out, it is very cool.
01:08:55
Speaker
The other piece that I thought when I started thinking about Star Trek and Murderbot side by side was that the Ferengi would fucking love the corporation rim. Oh my god, they absolutely would. also the company would stand no match against the Ferengi.
01:09:08
Speaker
See, I kind of think it would be the other way around. I don't think the Ferengi... At least not Quark. Quark couldn't hack it in the corporation room. But yeah, because the problem is the Ferengi are played for laughs so much. True. Whereas the corporation is the corporation room in general is so sinister. We don't really see the Ferengi killing each other that often.
01:09:31
Speaker
I mean, the Ferengi were supposed to be the big bad in TNG, and then it just, they kind of realized that there was no way, one, you could keep that cost up with the makeup, and two, that you could actually make them anything but funny. Yeah. Yeah.
01:09:47
Speaker
A couple other pieces on production in general. i didn't talk about the production team last time, but it was the teleplay was written by Paul and Chris Weitz, who are a pair of um brothers who do a number of who've done a number of various series, including American Pie uh chris white's co-wrote wrote star wars rogue one and directed twilight new moon so you know they've been all over the american movie making scene for decades they were two of the executive producers alongside alexander skarsgรฅrd and david goyer and andrew miano and chris le or keith levine
01:10:39
Speaker
who are not names that i know besides alessandra skarsgรฅrd but david goyer apparently was um one of the first people to like option the series and then directly work with martha wells because apparently he was a fan of the of the book series and wanted to directly work with martha wells to bring it to the screen i love that it sounds like She had a lot of say in, like, who eventually got to direct it. Once, like, the direction was going on, the original contract, apparently, there was a possibility she could end up as an executive producer. But, you know, the the contract team was like, we don't want to give her that kind of power. And she was like, that's fair. They don't know me at all. I could be this, you know, power-hungry tyrant.
01:11:26
Speaker
And she was like, and also, I didn't want to have to work. um So she was a consulting producer. So they did bring a lot of ideas to her and ask for her thoughts and approval. But she didn't have like final say on things. But it sounded like she did really enjoy all of the adaptations. She said she really actually liked the LaBibi storyline.
01:11:47
Speaker
o Because they needed to, it sounds like the reason that was included was because they needed to pad out time. They had a 10 episode run and they didn't have enough for the full 10 episodes. That makes sense.
01:11:59
Speaker
Which is why you get these extra storylines about the memory wipe and the Labibi bit. She is also saying that one of the things she might incorporate into the future, in the future writing, she didn't think she was going to incorporate many things, but she might incorporate a Rada sewing.
01:12:18
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Because when she went to see the costumes, the costume director apparently had sort like built stories around how the costumes were designed. Mm-hmm.
01:12:30
Speaker
There was embroidery on the socks that we just never got to see. I love that. That was just for the actors. That's such a costume designer thing. And the the costume designer said they decided that Arada got bored when they were traveling through the wormhole and started embroidering and mending everybody's clothes. And that's why we see all the embroidery and all the visible mending on everyone's clothing.
01:12:51
Speaker
That's so cute. And then when Baradwaj's coat gets repaired, it's repaired very visibly in such a way that it almost reflects the way the coat was previously.
01:13:04
Speaker
It's like a mirror opposite. And the but costume team's justification for that was that it's ah it's a way that preservation helps people deal with change and trauma.
01:13:16
Speaker
is by noting that something has happened and something has changed. There was an injury here, but it's fixed now. That's like the Kintsugi with like the golds.
01:13:27
Speaker
Yeah. Pottery repair. h Which I thought was just very cool. That's all I've got for my notes. Did you have anything else you want to talk about for episode 10 or for the series? Yeah.
01:13:40
Speaker
You kind of answered my question about the memory wipe because I didn't understand why that arc was put in there. But with the needing to pad out time, I guess that makes sense. Yeah, I didn't love it personally.
01:13:53
Speaker
It felt like it kind of undercut the whole journey that we had just been on. And especially in the books, you know, that's Murderbot's one of its greatest fears is having something like that happen again. So to have it immediately happen again, especially within, you know, season one of the show felt a little weird, but I am willing to forgive it to chalk it up to pacing.
01:14:20
Speaker
One random just neurons firing in my brain connection while I was watching the last episode was when it has the catastrophic shutdown during the workers strike and one of the workers throws a rock at it. And then all of the other workers kind of descend on it. It reminds me of those, think it's the Boston Dynamics robot cop dogs.
01:14:45
Speaker
Yeah. And just videos of people destroying them, which is the fandom apprentice probably should not be on record encouraging people to destroy. destroy police property in case we get accused of crimes but you you know you know gang you know what to do the official position of the fandom apprentice is that cops should have less military grade hardware yeah i the official position of the phantom apprentice is that cops shouldn't exist but yes that's uh so long as they do they need to not have military-grade hardware and that includes weird fucking ai run robo dogs yeah and so it kind of reminded me of that but different the
01:15:33
Speaker
Kind of different question mark because this is sec unit. This is our friend. But also, is it really sec unit in this moment? Does it matter who it is because it is oppressing workers? I don't have a neat and tidy answer to that. It's just something that it made me think of just watching that scene.
01:15:51
Speaker
The workers were obviously in the right to do what they did. Oh, yeah. It's an interesting little sci-fi question that we're presented with in the last episode of what makes you You you know, is it your physical body? Is it your actions? Or is it your memories?
01:16:10
Speaker
Is it your interests? Is it the people around you? Like what at what point do you become no longer you if you don't have any one of those things? Mm hmm.
01:16:22
Speaker
I really enjoyed the show. I thought it was a a solid adaptation. There were points that, you know, there are points that, you know, we obviously had our issues with, but as we've said, we're not filmmakers.
01:16:36
Speaker
And overall it was, it was a really well done series. And some of these things watching it, I feel like I'm watching things definitely working on kind of a shoestring budget compared to various other like big budget Netflix series.
01:16:53
Speaker
And yet they're clearly still doing you know everything they can with that budget, reading about how they did some of the special effects and utilizing practical effects to set up the computer effects and you know adjusting for actor safety.
01:17:10
Speaker
In the worm fight, when they shot the worm fight, there were two dudes in green morph suits there. And instead of like throwing Tamara Podemski around, one of the guys just picked her up and carried her off.
01:17:26
Speaker
um So there was no like, you know, wires or anything jerking her around as, you know, barbed water is getting thrown around by the by the worm. They also built a Partial wormhead.
01:17:41
Speaker
o So that they could met sort of, one, get like the lighting shots right. So they could get where exactly the rips in Bardwadda's costume were. So the costume department could make...
01:17:56
Speaker
a secondary costume for a ripped jacket. And then the shot where Murderbot is inside the worm's throat, they shot Alexander Skarsgรฅrd inside like one of those little kids like play tunnel things.
01:18:10
Speaker
So it's just a really interesting mix of practical and and computer effects. Yeah. I remember when we watched it the first time, you had said that, kind of like with Beowulf, it's it's a retelling.
01:18:25
Speaker
It is very much Murderbot. It is the spirit of Murderbot, absolutely. It is not the same experience as the books, but no that doesn't make it a lesser experience. I think if someone encounters Murderbot for the first time through this series and then goes to read the books,
01:18:46
Speaker
then they'll have fun and they'll get to meet more characters and have a good time. But it won't be a vastly different experience. I think it is very faithful to the soul of the series.
01:18:59
Speaker
Yeah. I, especially if you're coming from the Murderbot show and going to the books, I cannot recommend the audiobooks enough. Not the full dramatizations, because those are out there.
01:19:12
Speaker
um The abridged, like, dramatized versions. No. Kevin R. Free's narration. It's the only one. The only one Is just so spectacular. bring Kevin Arfrey on for art for season two xoxo please love the fandom apprentice it probably won't happen but wouldn't that be fucking amazing that'd be perfect it's a voice role it can be whoever you want I also kind of want art to be multiple people but I that is my that is my greatest wish in the world is for Kevin Arfrey to be art but
01:19:45
Speaker
Who's to say? Who's to say? Maybe he can have a cameo in another episode or something. but The only other piece from when we meet Garothan's ex-drug dealer, h who is gay, by the way, because you can be gay in the corporation room so long as they can make money off of you.
01:20:03
Speaker
I was like, how the fuck do I recognize this dude? He's sitting in the same part of my brain. as Alan Tujic and Martin Freeman and Anthony Rapp sit.
01:20:16
Speaker
Same exact part of my brain. I was like, how the fuck do I recognize this dude? That is Sergio DeZio. And I recognize him from the same place that I recognize Tatiana Jones. um He was in all of Flashpoint.
01:20:33
Speaker
that was That was one of those things that I watched all of in high school. Niche knowledge bubbling up to the surface. i love little niche Canadian actors. Little.
01:20:44
Speaker
He's a very accomplished Canadian actor. I'm just imagining him as ah as a little man, as a little Funko Pop of a guy. A little blurbo from your shows. Any last thoughts that we want to share about Murderbot in general?
01:21:00
Speaker
I don't think I have anything that I haven't already said. i love this series. You had a little mention that I am very intrigued if you want to come back to from that Martha Wells interview about neurodivergence. It sounded like maybe there was more that seemed very intriguing to me if you wanted to let go back to that. But I don't think I have anything else.
01:21:22
Speaker
It was just she was saying that she didn't really figure out her own neurodivergence until she started writing Murderbot. Hmm. Like it it took her writing Murderbot to get her to be like, and and particularly seeing the response to All Systems Red.
01:21:41
Speaker
Yeah. Other neurodivergent people being like, oh, this this character represents me. For her to be like, huh. Yeah. huh, maybe. Wait a minute. You've been peer reviewed, Martha. Well, she she was like, I grew up in the 70s and they didn't diagnose girls with that sort of thing in the 70s. You were just a bad person.
01:22:02
Speaker
But she said, yeah, writing Murderbot has really helped her come to terms with and start working with her own anxiety and neurodivergence. Well, that's awesome. I'm really glad that like it Her creation could also be her healing comfort media. That's lovely. Because it it is so, so important to so many people, either, you know, on the ace arrow spectrum on, you know.
01:22:31
Speaker
um on the Nerd Virgin side of things, is such a wonderful look at queer platonic relationships. It is such a wonderful look at friendship and learning to love yourself.
01:22:47
Speaker
h I love this series. It will live forever in my brain. There will be at least one annual reread every year. That is what annual means, Catherine.
01:22:59
Speaker
I am not a big rereader of books, but I have reread this series several times. It's just the kind of thing that I have to come back to, and I never get tired of it.
01:23:10
Speaker
and And we will come back to Murderbot when the new book comes out and when season two comes out, because there will be a season two of the show. More premium quality entertainment.
01:23:22
Speaker
Yeah, so if you want to hear our premium quality entertainment, you can listen to us then. But this is the end of our Murderbot content, which means we are going to take a very short break in the new year.
01:23:35
Speaker
And then we'll be back with season three. And so here's what we're doing for
Exploration of Star Wars and Audience Engagement
01:23:42
Speaker
season three. Season three.
01:24:00
Speaker
We are doing star Wars for season three. Back to our roots, actually, of I grew up with this and Sam didn't. This was the original thing. Before we even started doing Tolkien stuff, you had come up with the Star Wars machete order for maximum emotional damage. Yeah. And I had said, oh, yeah, I've never really been into Star Wars. I've never really seen it. So this idea has been germinating for so, so long.
01:24:33
Speaker
Like literally three or almost four years at this point. Yeah. So we're we're ready. It's time. I'm very, very excited to dive into Star Wars. I'm very excited to talk about it in its fantasy context, in its sci-fi context, how it relates to Westerns and samurai movies. and there's There's so much to talk about. Star Wars is such a massive IP. It is such an impactful IP.
01:25:02
Speaker
And it has just so much material to go through. Visual media, audio media, books, comics, video games, and we will not be covering all of it.
01:25:17
Speaker
I think that would be impossible. There's so much. It is impossible. It is definitely impossible. But the next time that we come back, we will have our sort of intro episode where we will once again reintroduce ourselves, who we are, and cover everything that Sam knows about Star Wars before we actually dive into it.
01:25:36
Speaker
Yeah, I will just do my goddamn best. I think I might surprise myself with how much I can conjure. But it will be one of those things where like, somebody shows their mom pictures of Pokemon and she has to guess what they're called.
01:25:51
Speaker
You know, I will just uninterrupted, just go off and do my goddamn best to say this is what I think I know about Star Wars. That'll be the next time we come back.
01:26:04
Speaker
And after that, our next episode will be covering the first three episodes of The Mandalorian. Let's go!
01:26:15
Speaker
controversial, I know. but there are methods to my madness, most of the time. And there is there is a reason we are diving in with with the Mandalorian.
01:26:30
Speaker
And we will cover that in our first Mandalorian episode. And I'm very, very excited. Is the reason just because we want to look at Pedro Pascal? We get to be horny again.
01:26:40
Speaker
ya Yeah, we do get to be horny on main again about this, ah about Star Wars, because it was really hard to be horny on main about anything in Murderbot.
01:26:51
Speaker
I mean, I think we still managed it, but, you know, it's, we're gonna be in our element. I'm so ready. It's very exciting. um If you want to listen to us dive into Star Wars, there will also, once again, be many opportunities for us to talk about spinoffs and references and ah take breaks between different...
01:27:18
Speaker
bits of Star Wars media to cover random little things. Maybe i have a thought of some point we'll cover the Battlestar Galactica miniseries. We'll, know...
01:27:30
Speaker
We'll talk about... We've been teasing the fact that we're going to talk about D&D and d in its relationship to Tolkien for fucking ever. At some point, we'll do that. But we are rolling into what is potentially our biggest project yet, which is covering a whole fuckton of Star Wars media. And I, you know, we grew up in the era in which there was the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy.
01:27:56
Speaker
And... You know, technically, I've been alive longer than the prequel trilogy has been a thing. Both of us have. So just, it was there for most of my childhood. I did see Revenge of the Sith in theaters.
01:28:11
Speaker
That is my, that is my, that was my first Star Wars in theaters. There is a whole lot to talk about. The re-rise of Star Wars, the Disney acquisition, the different the TV shows, the movies, the games, the books, whatever.
01:28:24
Speaker
The Legends content versus canon content. We will be in Star Wars for literally years. If you would like to come along on this wild ride, if you have ideas on what we should cover in little side episodes that don't talk about Star Wars, if you have ideas of little side episodes that we should do that do talk about Star Wars, just not maybe any particular one piece of media, if you have...
01:28:52
Speaker
Bits of obscure Star Wars media we really need to cover. I have a lot of things that are on that list. We will be talking about the Thrawn books at some point. um We're going to talk about the Quinlan Vos Asajj Ventress book. That one's going to be great. If you have old VHSs, Rin wants some really specific VHSs for us to watch. Yeah, I do have very specific opinions about the original trilogy, but we will get into that.
01:29:21
Speaker
If you would like to come along with us on this journey, you can subscribe to our podcast wherever you're currently listening to this podcast. We are so excited to dive into our next journey in a galaxy far, far away.
01:29:33
Speaker
I'm so excited to talk about so much music. Mm-hmm. this The music of Star Wars is... you could You could do an entire season on the music of Star Wars alone, and it would last us two years. um If you have any ideas, if you have any commentary, if you have any thoughts at all on our previous content, on our upcoming content, I keep using the fucking term content, despite saying that I hate it every time.
01:30:03
Speaker
It's okay. It's allowed. If you have any thoughts on our podcast, on what we have featured on our podcast, you can come into our DMs on any one of our social medias. We are at fanapppod, F-A-N-A-P-P-P-O-D.
01:30:20
Speaker
On any social media app that we are on, we are far more active on some than we are on others. Our Tumblr's a fucking great time. You can always send us an email at thefandomapprentice at gmail.com. That is the best way to get in contact with us. I check that the most regularly.
01:30:36
Speaker
You like what you're hearing, you can leave us a five-star review and share us with your friends. Word of mouth is still the best way for us to spread. If you don't like what you're hearing, particularly as we roll into Star Wars, the fandom menace is a ah is a known quantity. If you don't like what you're hearing,
01:30:55
Speaker
Too fucking bad. Oh, I was gonna say listen to our extensive backlog of like 60 other episodes. Yeah, there's always that. I would say leave us a five star review anyway.
01:31:06
Speaker
And ah leave us a written review in that case because then I will actually pay attention and care. We only accept hate comments and constructive criticism in the form of five star reviews.
01:31:18
Speaker
Yes. Or shit in the public forum that I can dunk on you. Or paid subscriptions to our OnlyFans. We don't have one of those. Yet. Not yet.
01:31:31
Speaker
But we're losing the plot. Thank you so much for coming along on this little murder bot self-indulgence journey for us. We're very excited to launch ourselves into hyperspace, into the next phase of our journey.
01:31:48
Speaker
So until you see us next time, we're going to take a little short break and come back to you with a hell of a lot of Star Wars. So until you see us next time, we hope that you have a wonderful new year, if you are listening to this right when it comes out. We hope if you are celebrating a holiday around now that it is a wonderful holiday filled with love and light and family, blood or chosen, of good food and good podcasts. We have a lot to listen to in our backlog and lots of wonderful other podcasts out there. But thank you so much for listening.
01:32:24
Speaker
We hope you have a wonderful break and we hope you will come back and join us for season three. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time. See you next time. Boldness is all.
01:32:36
Speaker
Boldness is all. The Phantom of Brentis is produced and edited by Rin and Sam. Our music is composed and performed by James. You can find more of his work on Spotify and Bandcamp under Bayruz, B-A-E-R-U-Z.
01:32:52
Speaker
Our art is by Casey Turgeon. You can find more of her work at KCT Designs on Instagram. The content discussed is the property of the original copyright holders and is used here under fair use.
01:33:40
Speaker
Now I'm thinking about those fake horny. This is really, really niche. The fake horny Tumblr posts that are formatted in the same style of a horny post with like the colorful text, but it's something stupid. That's like, you know, your mommy's good little turtle, aren't you? That's like, bad little audiophile.
01:34:04
Speaker
really I can't even say it. So I'm laughing too hard. was trying to say his render me daddy. a
01:34:18
Speaker
yeah
01:34:22
Speaker
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