Defying Labels

a) i forgot how fun this is

b) it's really hard not to like, re-write for them and stick to just "hey add descriptions here, change this grammar, really cool ideas!" bc i'm an adult and not trying to talk over/railroad these kids, but i'm just so excited for their ideas!!!

c) little boys write cool stuff like "what if we went to mars but it sucked so we left, but left behind all our technology and the technology rose up and created its own society and then went to war with us for abandoning them? what if transformers had 100x the war crimes? what if the earth blew up. what if we were the robots all along?"

teacher: little girls have really rich inner lives to combat the way they're puppeted by society in real life. they'll learn to censor it out in a couple years, but it doesn't go away.

As of 30 May 2026:

From: AwardsBuzz interview about Murderbot 12 May 2026

episodes will be a little longer

boiling down the 3 remaining novellas into a single season

is ambitious for visual effects and action

the core is a character commenting on its life

they are not trying to replicate what they did in the first season

season 2 is totally new stuff

season 2 will be around 350 minutes / 5 hours long (so about 35 mins per episode)

intending to deliver within about a year (before June 2027)

he's looking forward to the visual effects and sound so he can see his mind on the screen

bunch of new characters being introduced

showing the new characters s1 to see how the show feels like

getting a lot of the original cast but not ALL of the cast

he's hoping it will have something for everyone

both repeatedly called it ambitious and super ambitious

From Martha Wells Q&As on Platform Decay 10 May 2026:

they’re filming in Madrid right now, and Martha is going to go see it in June.

for the next season they’re doing Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy, with some changes.

it's just Chris and Paul, brothers, who are the writers, directors, and producers.

they’re trying to figure out ways to show the interactions between ART and Murderbot, or Murderbot and the ComfortUnit.

changing things from a first person internal narration to third person in three dimensions.

In the second season they’re going to continue with showing Sanctuary Moon and some other shows.

I don’t think anyone gets much choice on what they look like. There’s something I want to tell but I can’t tell… It’s kind of fun. (regarding a discussion about muttonchops = secunit with a beard?)

From Martha Wells Q&A on Platform Decay 8 May 2026:

they are filming now

Martha doesn’t think they have cast ART yet (there's a stand-in reading lines)

said that next season will be all the way through Exit Strategy

She was very happy with the changes to the tv series for logistical reasons and considers it a parallel universe to the books

(She specifically mentioned she wished she had thought of LeeBeeBee for the book)

Also from 8 May 2026:

Martha is consulting on the show

likes their approach to portraying how ART and SecUnit communicate.

From 6 May 2026 Q&A (private discord attendees):

The TV show struggled (is struggling?) with portraying ART's presence.

They want to do something unique that also gets across the way that MB and ART communicate in a way entirely inhuman (ie, theyre not planning on doing scrolling text)

Martha hasn't seen final design for ART, has seen the initial ART design.

Has seen Tapan, Rami, and Maro design/costumes.

She is going out to the set to consult in June.

From 5 May 2026 Q&A (private discord attendees):

There will be 10 episodes and they will be longer (S1 Eps were supposed to be longer but the voiceover changed the calculations so they were shorter than intended.

Get to see Sanctuary Moon and Worldhoppers plus a few other new shows.

From Toa instagram story 13 March 2026:

Directors on site in Madrid scoping out potential filming sites

From The Coode Street Podcast Episode 692 December 2025 podcast interview with Martha on Murderbot release date:

No, it'll be 2027.

They're working on it now.

They're kind of in the pre-production writing the script and you know, doing the production design and all that kind of stuff and then they'll film it next year.

And then they'll be out in 2027.

Same podcast, consultation with Martha on the TV show:

No, I talked to them a lot.

They call me all the time when they're working on it and they need questions and answered fast.

Because sometimes and stuff like that, I know you don't know what you don't know until you get ready to do something that you need something answered really quickly.

Yeah, so we talk about it a lot.

From instagram stories and posts:

the directors have been in madrid since March 2026

skarsgaard is in madrid from early April 2026

(potential 2cm hair growth from tourist photo in Madrid)

Lady Ramkin made herself a cup of cocoa and listened to the rain gurgling in the pipes outside. She slipped off the hated dancing shoes, which even she was prepared to concede were like a pair of pink canoes. But nobbyless obligay, as the funny little sergeant would say, and as the last representative of one of Ankh-Morpork’s oldest families she’d had to go to the victory ball to show willing. Lord Vetinari seldom had balls. There was a popular song about it, in fact. But now it was going to be balls all the way.

lol.

also, i have a headcanon that at some point, vetinari is compelled to organize some kind of ball, but it turns out the facilities at the palace just aren't up to snuff at all. perhaps he's left them in disrepair ever since the Dragon Incident -- really! that long! or just uses it as extra storage space. there's some bits & pieces about him maintaining the Bloody Stupid Johnson garden, and the zoo, and the racehorse stable, just because he's reluctant to change things; & that he keeps leonard around just because he likes hanging onto anything that might be useful later. so i think the palace unfortunately has a bit of an Old Furniture Problem bc vetinari is not in favor of throwing things out. thus -- it ends up in the ballroom. thus -- there is no ballroom, so much as there's a very big, fancy storage room

so, anyway, upon being compelled to arrange a ball for visiting dignitaries, he's got no place to put it. luckily, it turns out sybil, although about as much of a packrat, has managed to maintain a fairly decent ballroom at ramkin manor, it'll be lovely with a bit of fresh paint & some airing out (to get rid of the dragon smell). it's a great idea. the big fancy ball goes great. vimes shows up for about half the night before slinking off, sybil charms everyone to bits, vimes & sybil & vetinari are all sort of in the capacity of being each other's plus-ones...