Since Love, Death & Robots has consistently wowed Netflix viewers for four seasons now, the show’s success should result in a revival for the sci-fi anthology format. The sci-fi anthology format never fully died, although it has been through various peaks and valleys throughout the history of television.
One of the earliest classic horror TV shows, the original version of The Twilight Zone, combined elements of horror, fantasy, and mystery in its storytelling, but the show was primarily remembered as a sci-fi satire. A spiritual precursor to Black Mirror, Rod Serling’s iconic series introduced a new standalone story in each episode.
In the decades since, The Twilight Zone was revived three times, in the ‘80s, ‘00s, and 2020s, while its most famous imitator, The Outer Limits, was revived in the ‘90s for a successful run on cable. Since then, Netflix’s iconic Black Mirror has become the first name in 21st-century sci-fi anthology shows, although another cult hit can rival it.
Love, Death & Robots Is A Sci-fi Anthology Hit For Netflix
Created by Deadpool director Tim Miller and executive producer David Fincher, Love, Death & Robots is a sci-fi anthology series whose episodes range from between six and twenty minutes long. Each episode is animated and each outing of the series features a new style of animation, resulting in a wide variety of tones throughout the series.
There are goofy, playful episodes like season 2, episode 6, “All Through the House,” about a killer mutant Santa Claus, and season 1, episode 6, “When the Yoghurt Took Over,” a parody of B-movies that focuses on the titular killer yoghurt. However, there is also a range of tragic, terrifying, and utterly unpredictable stories.
Maybe the most infamous episode of Love, Death & Robots is season 1, episode 7, “Beyond the Aquila Rift,” a devastating story of an astronaut’s unreliable memory that is just as heartbreaking and haunting as the best episodes of Black Mirror. This unique outing’s shocking ending highlights just how much the animated format works in the show’s favor.
Similarly, season 3, episode 8, “In Vaulted Halls Entombed,” features one of the best depictions of Lovecraft’s iconic monster Cthulu ever committed to the screen. By utilizing the medium of animation, Love, Death & Robots can often tell stories that would be prohibitively expensive or ambitious on live-action television.
The Anthology Format is Uniquely Well Suited to Sci-fi
Of course, it is arguably unsurprising that Miller and Fincher’s Netflix show has done such a stellar job of offering viewers unpredictable, original sci-fi stories from around the globe. After all, from Love, Death & Robots to Black Mirror to The Twilight Zone, there is a reason that the sci-fi anthology has been a TV staple for decades.
The self-contained stories in these shows can introduce new technologies, alien species, and other out there concepts without getting lost in endless world-building and exposition. Where a longer sci-fi show would need to establish the rules of its fictional future or the lore of its alien species, Love, Death & Robots and other sci-fi anthology shows can jump straight into the good stuff.
With such short runtimes, the show’s outings can’t afford to waste a minute. This results in a show that feels like nothing else on streaming services, as each episode of Love, Death & Robots is unique and inventive in ways that more conventional sci-fi shows can’t afford to be.
Even horror anthology shows can’t be as daring as Love, Death & Robots, since they do have one primary objective. As innovative and interesting as a horror anthology show episode might be, the story is primarily meant to scare viewers first and foremost. If the outing doesn’t achieve this, its artistic impact is always going to be secondary.
Love, Death & Robots Proves Viewers Deserve More Sci-fi Anthology Shows
In contrast, Love, Death & Robots can inspire reactions that range from terror to wonder to amused shock. The show’s sci-fi setup means that viewers never know what to expect from each new episode, as anything can happen in the chaotic anthology series. Even Black Mirror is more constrained, since some of its episodes are linked by a shared fictional world.
Although it has been over thirty years since the best horror anthology show of all time was on the air, Love, Death & Robots proves that the sci-fi anthology genre deserves a revival. Especially after the underrated, swiftly canceled Amazing Stories (2020) and Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams (2017), viewers deserve more shows with this level of invention and genuine wow factor.
Fincher and Miller’s series is far from perfect, and some episodes of Love, Death & Robots stretch their thin premises beyond breaking point. On the flip side, some episodes are too short for their own good, as it can be frustrating when the show blazes through an intriguing concept in only a few minutes.
However, in comparison with the rest of the sci-fi genre’s offerings of late, Love, Death & Robots can stand shoulder to shoulder with modern classics like Foundation and The Expanse. Sometimes, viewers need something smaller and more self-contained instead of an epic saga, and Netflix’s Love, Death & Robots fits that bill flawlessly.
- Release Date
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March 15, 2019
- Network
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Netflix
- Directors
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Víctor Maldonado, Patrick Osborne, Robert Valley, Alfredo Torres Martínez, Jerome Chen, Emily Dean, Rémi Kozyra, Léon Bérelle, Dominique Boidin, Alberto Mielgo, Maxime Luère, Andy Lyon, Robert Bisi, Dave Wilson, David Nicolas, Simon Otto, Damian Nenow, Laurent Nicolas, Kevin Van Der Meiren, Vitaliy Shushko, Owen Sullivan, István Zorkóczy, Javier Recio Gracia, Oliver Thomas
