Love, Death & Robots is an adult animated anthology web television series on Netflix. Each episode was animated by different crews. The episodes include alternative histories, post apocalyptic worlds, robots, and other aspects of science fiction/fantasy.
Each episode is completely different in terms of animation, plot, and theme. They are short and digestible episodes that typically leave me with a lot of questions as to the deeper meaning. Below I have analyzed a few of the episodes that I feel encapsulate the show as a whole.
"Long after the fall of humanity, three robots embark on a sightseeing tour of a post-apocalyptic city."
Three robots explore a city where humans have gone extinct. The robots interact with the tattered city and try to understand how humans used to live. They uncover information about human industrialization, sports, and even pets when they stumble across a cat still living. The three robots learn about how they were created and they find an old nuclear missile base. The small triangular robot explains that humans died from their own actions which caused an environmental disaster. Another One of the robots talks about how the humans allegedly genetically engineered their cats. The cat they found confirms this idea by speaking to the robots and demanding to be pet while many other cats encroach on the robots.
This episode connects to the modern world and satirically displays the downfall of humanity. At first, when the robots find the missile base it leads the view to believe that humans wiped each other out with weapons of mass destruction. However, the female robot explains that humans died from their own stupidity. She says they “poisoned the water, killed the land and choked the sky”. Nuclear warfare and environmental disasters are concerns for the livelihood of human society. However, this episode takes a twist from the critique of modern functioning society and shows that it was in fact the genetically engineered cats that became too powerful and caused the downfall of humanity.
"After scientist accidentally breed super-intelligent yogurt, it soon hungers for world domination."
A group of scientists mutate yogurt. The experiment appears to be a failure at first but eventually the yogurt "comes to life" and asks to be brought to the leaders of the United States. The yogurt says it has a full proof plan to solve the problems of the country and return the yogurt asks to be in control of Ohio. The yogurt gives over the plan to get rid of the national debt, but warns the leaders of the U.S. that straying away from the plan would be disastrous. The president is unable to follow the plan exactly and the global economy completely declines except for in Ohio. The president then decides to give the bowl of yogurt supreme executive power and within a few years, humans are prosperous once again and living in peace. The yogurt then decides to take his reach to space and leaves the humans behind on earth to control themselves once again.
The yogurt represents the powerful technology humans will eventually be capable of making. Luckily, the yogurt was of well intent and did not abuse its knowledge and power to control humanity, but that is a fear in modern society. This episode also makes commentary on the inevitable nature of humanity. The Human's could have reached prosperity on their own if they had just followed the yogurts plan, but their own vanity got in the way. It is also inferred at the end of the episode that with the yogurt now gone in space, the humans will revert back to their old self destructing habits.
"The renowned artist Zima recounts his mysterious past and rise to fame before unveiling his final work."
A journalist is asked to go and interview the artist Zima Blue. He lives in complete isolation but wants to tell his story before he reveals his final piece of art. He began his career creating portraits but soon began to only make abstract shapes in a specific shade of blue. His murals continually got larger and larger until they were depicted as being all the way in space. Zima Blue was originally an android designed to clean pool tiles. He was passed along to different owners, continually being upgraded and modified to his current human like state. He wants express meaning through his art, thus providing his back story to the reporter to make his final piece understandable. For his final work of art he immerses himself in a pool, rids himself all of his modifications and returns to his original state as a pool tile cleaning machine.
Zima Blue represents the search for purpose in life. Even after becoming a successful and popular artist, he still wonders if there is deeper meaning in the world. Zima looked for the truth out in the world but eventually realized truth could only be found internally. He went back to his own origins and decided that the simple life of cleaning pool tiles is all he truly needed to know. Humans often look to money and power to give purpose to their life. Zima Blue is challenging this notion by showing that happiness and self understanding comes from the simple things in life.
I would certainly recommend this show on Netflix. Despite the episodes being no longer than fifteen minutes, each episode is truly engaging and thought provoking. The creators of the show did not make the deeper meaning and issues rooted in each episode apparent, thus the show pushes for a deeper and more meaningful thought process while viewing.
I also like that no episode is dependent on one another so you can watch them in whatever order you please. Additionally, some episodes are more interesting than other so the ability to pick and choose to find your personal favorite episodes is fun.