There are some great episodes in, but which one is best? The Netflix anthology demonstrates an array of animation styles and a variety of narratives that come together to form a riveting experience when binged. Some episodes rely on action, while others are more meditative, but each one demands full attention from the viewer to soak in all the ideas and themes on display.
This generation's equivalent of 1981's sordid animated anthology Heavy Metal, Love, Death & Robots is just as profane, violent, and experimental. Some of the very best talent in Western animation is on display in stories that stretch from CGI to traditional animation, to live-action and back again.
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As such, putting them in order from worst to best is no easy task - some the character work is lacking but they look incredible, while others aren't as inventive aesthetically, but their scripts are charming and memorable. Taking all that into account, all 18 episodes of Love, Death & Robots season 1 can be weighed against each other in numerous ways. But which episode is best?
18. Fish Night
A plodding supernatural exercise that just sort of fades to black instead of ending, "Fish Night" is easily the worst - or, really, the least good -episode of Love, Death & Robots. It starts well as a cel-shaded drama about two men, a father and his son, stranded in the Arizona desert, but then goes overboard. The episode becomes a kaleidoscopic ghost story when they're visited by the spirits of the ancient aquatic life that once lived there, the son becoming so infatuated with the experience he strips naked, only to be eaten by a ghost shark - despite other ghosts harmlessly fading through their bodies. "Fish Night" is inconsistent and feels unfinished.
17. Sucker of Souls
There's a sheen of male bravado in Love, Death & Robots that is most evident without recourse in "Sucker of Souls". An expedition to find a locked away demonic force goes awry and it's up to the flippant, capitalistic, muscle-bound private security to save the day. The action is well-paced but the muscular-gym-selfie take on Indiana Jones is limp.
16. Suits
"Suits" is, on the surface, fun, charming, and good-hearted. Some red-blooded American farmers defend their land from unwanted invaders. Then the camera draws back at the end to reveal that humans are the ones invading and colonizing this planet and the episode stops being cute. The history of Native Americans being mistreated is no joke, and anything that shows white Americans as the heroes fighting for “their land” against what are characterized as wild, monstrous, native species is disingenuous at best.
15. Shape-Shifters
Another episode not short on testosterone is "Shape-Shifters", whose abs-maximized story at least has the good grace to try and say something about the male ego, even if it's couched in the overdone backdrop of America's occupation in the Middle East. Showing the Marine Corps to be disdainful of the monsters they're creating is good, as is framing “both sides” rhetoric firmly on the fault of the US, but bland leads and aesthetic make for a forgettable episode overall.
14. The Secret War
"The Secret War" gets ahead of "Shape-Shifters" by merit of being Love, Death & Robots' darkest take on war. Winding back the clock to the 1920s, this episode focuses on the futility of patriotic duty, having an elite group sacrifice themselves simply to cover up their government's mistakes. The CGI making"The Secret War"look like an elaborate cut-scene for a cookie-cutter first-person-shooter lets down some weighty subject matter.
13. Lucky 13
Of the war stories in Love, Death & Robots, "Lucky 13" is the best simply because it moves away from a male-centered focus. Rather than Marines throwing insults at each other and Russia soldiers freezing in Siberia, this is about Lt. Colby, a female pilot, developing a connection with a previously thought-to-be cursed aircraft. Novel and well-written, "Lucky 13" is unremarkable in its visuals, but the lovely ending note keeps it resonating.
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12. Zima Blue
The bold, stylish, black-heavy color scheme of "Zima Blue" is let down by its own pretentiousness. A reverse Bicentennial Man of sorts, there are all kinds of themes criss-crossed into Zima's look at what form the artists of the future might take. The saccharine short has no shortage of ideas, yet its reveal is plodding and overblown - not hurdles that would catch an actual robot artist.
11. Good Hunting
There are a few Love, Death & Robots shorts that could easily become feature-length, and "Good Hunting" is one of them. The anime-style, steampunk-riff on colonial Hong Kong tells the story of an apprentice spirit hunter, Liang, who becomes a whirlwind mechanic, and his friendship with a female spirit, Yan, who works as a sex worker. After Yan has her body forcefully replaced with a mechanical one, Liang helps her to take back ownership of her form by turning her into a full-fledged, transforming humanoid, with the power to become a metal fox. Though interesting, "Good Hunting" is overloaded with a cliched overuse of sexual violence on women for their redemption.
10. The Dump
"The Dump" is, like its lead Ugly Dave, uncomplicated and uninterested in being any more than it is. A morose take-down of the big city bureaucracy that facilitates gentrification, "The Dump" is a more than slight middle-finger to the whole idea. Some people and communities don't need to be moved, and if you want to move them, you're going to have to deal with what's uncovered. In the end, the episode is gross and frivolous, yet satisfying nonetheless.
9. Helping Hand
The sheer unending emptiness of space is well-trod at this stage, but this Love, Death & Robots episode still manages to tell a succinct story about dealing with a catastrophe in the dead vacuum. Breaking off an actual limb as Alexandria does is an on-the-nose way to illustrate that astronauts leave a part of themselves up there every time they travel, but it works.
8. Blind Spot
"Blind Spot" looks and sounds like many a pulp sci-fi premise from the 1990s - all violent and edgy with a cast of real underdogs - but it's much more than that, and that's partly where Love, Death & Robots starts to shine as a series. It's an effective homage, though, and it captures the feel of the era and the carefree zeal that made those stories what they are, with an ending that has an unexpectedly dark inflection.
7. Alternate Histories
Some entries of Love, Death & Robots are genuine experiments with the form of a short film, of which "Alternate Histories" is one of the most out-there ideas. Using an easy, round art-style, the "Alternate Histories" short depicts a demonstration of new software that can show what would happen if certain events in history were different; in this case, “What if Hitler died pre-World War I?” The timelines aren't serious, of course, but they're humorous and, as a quick-shot version of the premise, it leaves the viewerwanting more, which is a sure sign of success.
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6. Sonnie's Edge
As with its use of toxic masculinity, Love, Death & Robots relies on the rape-revenge trope without really engaging with it meaningfully. The twist in "Sonnie's Edge" - that Sonnie is the monster because she was beaten so badly her consciousness had to be transferred - is well done, and starts the Netflix series off strong. But the symbolism at work is messy - the implication that women can, or must, become monsters to survive trauma doesn't have the space necessary to breathe, and the vision here of the patriarchy is stereotypical and boring. However, none of that diminishes the impressiveness and shock-factor of Love, Death & Robots' first episode.
5. Ice Age
The one live-action entry of Love, Death & Robots is a good one. Topher Grace and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are a young couple who discover the old freezer in their new place has a literal micro-civilization living in it. Awe-struck, they watch history unfold before them that stretches through every revolution right up to human beings transcending our bodies and becoming energy before everything starts all over again. Lovecraftian overtones in a light-hearted, well-made short is what makes "Ice Age" one of the best episodes of Love, Death & Robots.
4. Three Robots
One day, robots that we've built will be the last things functioning as we find some way to erase human life from the planet, or at least that's what "Three Robots" puts forward. The trio of wise-cracking androids are enjoyable to be around, and their discussion of the civilization we've long vacated is sharply written, especially their struggling to understand our obsession with cats. All in all, "Three Robots" is amusing, with a strong concluding scene.
3. When the Yogurt Took Over
Douglas Adams worship isn't the easiest thing to do,and theLove, Death & Robots episode "When the Yogurt Took Over" nails it. In typical Adams style, the episode takes an absurd notion - What if we made yogurt sentient, and it out-smarted us? - and follows it to its logical conclusion. The short is wry and delivered eloquently with just enough speed that we don't stop to really question what's happening.
2. Beyond The Aquila Drift
The darkest Love, Death & Robots episode on an existential level, "Beyond The Aquila Drift" has a Star Trek-like premise delivered in a very non-Star Trek manor. A crew go in hyper-sleep awaken to find themselves at a colony in a distant corner of the galaxy. Except, they're not in a human colony; it's massive alien hive with a telepathic insect feeding them desirable dreams until their human bodies starve to death. Unrelentingly bleak, "Beyond The Aquila Drift" isthe kind of thing we wish there was more of in Love, Death & Robots.
1. The Witness
Stylish, quick, smartly written, and deftly executed, "The Witness" is the short that most encapsulates the various principles of Love, Death & Robots. There are shades of western and Japanese animation, along with stunning, stylized visuals that utilize remarkably lifelike camerawork, all of which are complete with characters occasionally interacting with the camera. The plot is succinct, packing a dramatic chase between logical beginning and end-points. Only a few Love, Death & Robots episodes legitimately feel like great short films in their own right, and "The Witness" is not only one of them, it's the best of the series.
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