Love, Death & Robots Aired A Great Episode Recently (But It's Not Enough To Redeem Season 4)
SPOILER WARNING: The following article may contain a few light spoilers for Love, Death & Robots Season 4. So, if you have not used your Netflix subscription to catch up on this latest batch of weird, wild animated shorts, do not say I did not warn you if you continue to read on.
I am a huge fan of anthology TV shows, and one of my all-time favorites is Love, Death & Robots. From creator Tim Miller and co-executive producer David Fincher, the Emmy-winning, Netflix animated series for adults is a collection of short sci-fi/fantasy films, typically no longer than 15 minutes, boasting mind-blowing, highly inventive stories and out-of-this-world beautiful animation.
However, I hate to admit that I would not quite say that about Love, Death & Robots Season 4 (billed as Vol. 4), which is easily the series' weakest collection of films so far, in my personal opinion. Luckily, there was one bright spot among the largely disappointing experience I had this time around. In fact, I'll start by singing my praises for that episode before I get into my reservations about the season overall.
Director Diego Porral's "How Zeke Got Religion' is based on John McNichol's short story of the same name. It follows a group of World War II-era pilots, one of whom, named Zeke (Keston John), is unlike the rest by being a staunch atheist. However, he begins to question his certainties when his crew's plane is attacked by a monstrous demon conjured straight from Hell by the Nazis.
Love, Death & Robots is not quite a horror anthology TV show, but it has been known to scare in some episodes, and 'Zeke' is a great example of that for its traumatically graphic violence, cleverly juxtaposed with gorgeous animation from the studio Titmouse. What really takes the creature feature over the edge for me is its message about the benefit of second-guessing your beliefs, or lack thereof, and acknowledging the secrets of the universe that we, as humans, cannot confidently understand. I can't say I would call it one of the all-time best Love, Death & Robots episodes yet, but it's easily my favorite from Season 4, especially in comparison to the rest.
To be clear, I do not believe Love, Death & Robots Season 4 is a complete dud, and not just counting 'Zeke.' For instance, I found director Jennifer Yuh Nelson's 'Spider Rose' quite touching, especially as a devoted pet owner, and the Tim Miller-directed 'The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur' was a decent, futuristic chase flick. However, even those bear the same problem I have with the shorts I do not care for.
As far as I am concerned, the majority of installments in this volume suffer from weak executions of decent concepts or weak executions of weak concepts. I have always praised the show for consistently having story ideas that I could only dream of coming up with on my own, and animation styles unlike anything I have ever seen. Season 4, for the most part, offers very little that is refreshing in the animation department, in my opinion, which is a shame because that could have redeemed some of these shorts from their relatively unremarkable plots.
Patrick Osborne's 'The Other Large Thing' has a cute concept of a cat achieving world domination with a robotic assistant's help, but it ultimately felt like a setup for a joke with a weak punchline. I was even more disappointed by Miller's live-action short, 'Golgotha,' which is about a priest (Rhys Darby) meeting with an extraterrestrial, that I feel does not fully live up to its potential in its 10-minute runtime, especially with its abrupt conclusion. I was also excited about the star-studded, stop-animation comedy 'Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners,' in which tech products complain about the humans who use them, but it was not nearly as funny to me as it clearly tried to be.
The first short in this latest collection had me invested from the beginning. An animated recreation of the Red Hot Chili Peppers performing 'Can't Stop' live, and from none other than David Fincher at the helm? Hell yes!
However, it ended up being a little underwhelming, since it is really nothing more than a short concert doc that replaces humans with CGI marionettes. Sure, I had fun with it, but I didn't think it was anything special like what Love, Death & Robots has been capable of presenting before. It is certainly cool to see Fincher return to his roots as a music video director, but I suppose I was hoping for something more from the man who directed what I believe is the absolute best episode of this anthology series, Season 3's "Bad Traveling."
You know, I have rewatched some of the series' older shorts and ended up liking many of them more a second time. So, perhaps I should try to stream Love, Death & Robots Season 4 on Netflix again at some point and see how I feel then. However, there are still a few installments I might skip.
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