Sunday, May 16, 2021

Love, Death and Robots Volume 2

I absolutely adored the first volume of Netflix's Love, Death and Robots and the second volume, which launched on Friday, doesn't disappoint at all.

While smaller in scope than the first season, with only 8 episodes this second volume packs a tremendous punch with some truly stunning visuals and hard-hitting stories which will leave you craving more.

As with any anthology some stories didn't hit the mark, but those that did blew me away. My absolute favourite was Snow in the Desert based on Neal Asher's short story of the same name. It was great to finally see his Polity universe brought to the screen. There's so much untapped cinematic potential in the Polity universe. Hopefully they'll soon be able to introduce the viewing public to Hooders and a little place called Spatterjay too...

A close second has to be All Through the House. You'll never look at Christmas in the same way again. I also loved Life Hutch and the, very dark, Pop Squad.

Ranking the episodes from most to least favourite is a tough choice since it will depend completely on your personal taste in art style and narrative. If I had to rank the episodes my list would look something like this:

  1. Snow in the Desert (Story by Neal Asher, 2002)
  2. All Through the House (Story by Joachim Heijndermans, 2017)
  3. Life Hutch (Story by Harlan Ellison, 1956)
  4. Pop Squad (Story by Paolo Bacigalupi, 2006)
  5. The Tall Grass (Story by Joe R. Lansdale, 2012)
  6. Ice (Story by Rich Larson, 2015)
  7. The Drowned Giant (Story by J.G. Ballard,1964 )
  8. Automated Customer Service (Story by John Scalzi, 2019 )

Love, Death and Robots Volume 2 should definitely be a priority on your watchlist. It's a visual feast of speculative fiction! I'm amazed at both the animation and story talent on show. I definitely want more.

Have you watched it yet? What's your favourite episodes?

1 comment:

  1. Hi: interesting! My views are pretty congruent with yours; I though Snow was the best - but with PopSquad second (I like it dark). I think LD&R is a wonderful series; I only hope they keep it going - and add to it, big time! More Asher. More Reynolds. Less Scalzi, to be honest, but resurrect an old-timer or two - like the Cold Equations rework that was in the first series.

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