LOVE, DEATH & ROBOTS (Season 3) -- Another Set of Wonderfully Animated Shorts with Some Execution Problems

Review by Camden Ferrell

Love, Death & Robots is an anthology show for adults that premiere on Netflix in 2019. It had its second season in 2021 and is about the release their third season. While David Fincher has been a producer from the start, this season sees him sitting in the director’s chair for the first time on the series among other creators. This season features another batch of enjoyable shorts of differing quality, and it’s clear that there are some episodes that are significantly better than the others this season.
 
In this season, there are 9 episodes, and I was able to watch four of them: Three Robots: Exit Strategies, Bad Traveling, Night of the Mini Dead, and Jibaro. Fans of the show will recognize the first title, which is a continuation of those same robots we met in season 1. The rest of them are about radically different things like the open sea, zombies, and a reimagining of a folktale. Like previous seasons, these ideas are really unique, diverse, and interesting on paper, but the show has also had some problems with developing and properly executing their exciting and original premises.
 
The writing in the four episodes I watched are decent. The writing has never been the strong suit of the show, and these episodes let other aspects take the reins. I will say that Bad Traveling was particularly well written more so than the other episodes and tackled some really interesting themes and ideas as well. I will say that while this season isn’t perfect in this regard, there is a noticeably reduction in the amount of casual and subtle misogyny that was so prevalent throughout the first two seasons.

As always, the actors they cast are above average, but the real star of the show is the innovative animation. This is a show that experiments with different styles and types of animations more than anything else streaming today. I particularly liked the animation of Bad Traveling and Jibaro as they both aimed for realism in their animation and achieved it with great results.
 
As mentioned before, Fincher made his animation directorial debut with his short Bad Traveling, and it’s easily one of the best episodes the series has put out thus far even if it still has some minor flaws. I also enjoyed some of the execution in Night of the Mini Dead and Jibaro even if they weren’t as memorable as Fincher’s episode. While I enjoyed all of the episodes so far to some extent, it doesn’t seem like a big step up in quality for the series, and it remains a show full of beautifully animated and average to great anthology shorts.
 
Love, Death & Robots will please its fans in its third season but for those who had a hard time getting into the show previously, this one will still probably not satisfy you. It’s worth watching for Fincher’s episode alone, but as always there’s always at least one thing to enjoy in each episode.
 
Love, Death & Robots season 3 will be available on Netflix May 20.

Rating: 3.5/5