Three Robots: Exit Strategies

Netflix's "Love, Death and Robots" series returns for a Third run. Overall, I enjoyed the first two seasons and wrote short individual reviews for each episode and I think I'll take the same approach here.

Three Robots, K-VRC (Josh Brener), XBOT 4000 (Gary Anthony Williams) and Elena (Katie Lowes) continue to explore the planet Earth, following cataclysmic events. This time though, they're focused on the ways Human's looked to avoid their demise, be is isolationism, exclusivity or fleeing the planet.

For the first time in "Love, Death and Robots" we see a sequel, as these characters were exploring a ruined Earth back in season one. It's the same animation style but the style of joke is a bit different - last time it was more about the way anthropologists work - this time it's more targeted directly at the uselessness or selfishness of various sections of society, in current society.

As before it's not hilariously funny throughout, but it has its moments and it was nice to see the characters again.

The episode's politics pretty much skewered modern views with accurate scorn. But the writing was entirely too didactic and lacking in subtlety. Just being on-point isn't enough -- the writing also needs to have an element of actual narrative rather than just going from one observation to the next and having the characters expostulate on the ideas.

It wasn't a bad episode, but it felt like the writers didn't put much effort into the dialogue, choosing instead to just have the characters pontificate. That makes for a boring story.

While I enjoyed the animation which was superb, I felt the message about negligent humanity was just a little too preachy for my taste. I did like the ending. I certainly believe humankind needs to do more for environmental stewardship, but this short was just repeating the message over and over again, I mean I get it.

At this point, just give these trio a show. The dynamic of these characters is insane and I wouldn't mind seeing them in every season. Great insight and social commentary about human greed.

Ok, come on reviewers! A lot of people are being pretty critical of this one, but they're failing to remember one thing: it's just a short! In this format, the "one-the-nose", hyperbolic and over-the-top storytelling here is perfect. The timing of the humor here, tied with the master-class level of timing in the animation itself is absolute perfection. Are they sending a message here? Absolutely. Are they making fun of all sides of the "spectrum"? Oh heck yeah. Lighten up a bit and enjoy this for what it is. At this point I'm just typing additional characters to make up for the minimum character limit. Oh, there we go! All done. Go check it out!