The first thing that needs to be said about Love, Death + Robots is that there is nothing like it on TV. An animated anthology that returns something of its underground comics roots, the show can be described as a wayward cousin of Black Mirror, joined at the hip by a caustic, dystopian view, but render. Its commitment to the ethos of the kind of speculative fiction it takes from has remained consistent over the first two seasons, and the new one is no exception. The first episode is a callback to the season one opener. The three robots are back, taking us on a guided tour through a post-apocalyptic earth, providing cheeky commentary on the human follies that have led to it. Turns out Elon Musk did not survive either, and cats are much cooler than tech billionaires. Either way, the joke is on humans, and it’s one of ‘cosmic’ proportions.
Horror fans worth their salt will know what that term means in the context of the genre. In Episode 2 ("Bad Traveling") David Fischer taps into a very Lovecraft brand of dreadnought with a nautical story that operates on multiple levels: a sea monster with inexplicable characteristics lurks in the ship's basement as whalers and lurks. Takes a swarm hostage while survival politics is played up; It brings out the worst in the hero - worse than the monster.
EVERY EPISODE OF LOVE, DEATH + ROBOTS VOLUME 2, RANKED
Love, Death + Robots changes gears with every episode, but a majority of them are variations on survival scenarios. In episode 3 (“The Very Pulse of the Machine”) the protagonist crashes a rover in an inhospitable planet, that kills her colleague by accident, and on her futile walk against all adversities, she gets high on morphine. The mind-expanding effect of drugs, coupled with the idea that the mind, with a little help from a machine, can outlive a perishing body, ends the segment on a mysterious note while buying it with a profound sadness. Like the best science fiction, the show teases us with concepts that open up new possibilities.
Yet it never loses its sense of joy. The fourth ("Night of the Mini Dead") is seen a hundred times in a new light with the medium's inventive deployment of equipment: a zombie outbreak shown aerially in short stop-motion animation. The episode begins with a night of wild in a graveyard and ends with a fart, a reminder that it also doesn't lose its somewhat sick sense of humor. (It may be relevant that Tim Miller, the show's co-creator with Fischer, also created Deadpool).
In more than one volume, the implication is how ignorant man is of the vast unknown, how small he is in the larger scheme of things. In no other episode is this portrayed better than in the sixth ("The Swarm"), in which an overabundance of a scientist haunts an advanced, alien race—it's a cautionary tale. With its hive-mind, headed by a queen, and a utopian ecosystem of super foods, it lies somewhere between Alien and Avatar
You must be logged in to post a comment.