Summary

Love, Death, + Robots Season 4 trailer promises an insane blend of animation styles and themes.
The show's previous season achieved a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, setting high expectations for the new season.
Love, Death, + Robots stands out from Black Mirror with its bite-sized, visually diverse episodes exploring similarly heavy themes.

Well, looks like the USS Callister is no longer the only game in town. Netflix's Black Mirror has been on a critical roller coaster over its seven-season run. Meanwhile, David Fincher's Dark Sci Fi anthology series Love, Death, + Robots has seen a steady rise in critical reception over its previous three volumes, winning 13 Emmy awards on 15 nominations. The show could do the improbable by continuing to outdo itself with Season 4, and possibly in the process, outdo Black Mirror as well.

Both series are Netflix properties, so the competition isn't necessarily cutthroat, but Black Mirror's producers have long held the comfortable distinction of being Netflix's premier gritty episodic science fiction series. That title has maybe excused some of its lapses in quality. No matter how good Black Mirror is this season, Love Death + Robots' Season 4 trailer promises Love, Death, + Robots has big guns and is rushing in red-hot and guns blazing.

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By Ollie Tuscarny

Love, Death, + Robots' Season 4 Trailer Is Insane

Looking for a series with living adult toys, fighting dinosaurs, giant babies, and miniature alien attacks? Love, Death, + Robots Season 4 has you covered. Season 3 was the anthology's most well-received season yet, seeing a staggering 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Season 4's wall-to-wall insanity - laser-ray infants and all - suggests there's at least fertile grounds for growth moving forward. Black Mirror' s Rotten Tomatoes critic score topped out at 98% for its first season, followed by its second-best rating of 89% in its most recent outing.

The last season of Love, Death, + Robots aired in May 2022. By the time Season 4 drops in May 2025, it will have effectively been three years since the previous collection. Hopefully the time was well-spent during that gap fine-tuning the episodes, which were likely further delayed by the SAG AFTRA strikes. Still, there's reason to believe Fincher and company are well-aware of the show's ascending notoriety and associated quality expectations. Love, Death, + Robots' Season 4 slick teaser definitely supports that idea.

Love Death + Robots Vs. Black Mirror

Black Mirror is a nihilistic collection of full-length science fiction stories featuring high-profile actors to lead them. Love, Death + Robots is a nihilistic-leaning anthology of short-form stories utilizing various cutting-edge animation styles to propel its stories, all based on one of the subjects presented in the series title.

While both programs are rather bleak in their overarching narratives, Love, Death + Robots' more bite-sized presentation, paired with its animation, can allow for easier digestion of its heavier themes. Meanwhile, Black Mirror's episodes hover around an hour per episode, meaning its barren moral landscape can be a much longer, difficult journey to contend with despite its high production values and star-studded cast.

For example, Black Mirror Season 7, Episode 1 'Common People' doesn't have cute computer-generated robots or hand-drawn dark forces to shudder at momentarily before a new set of vibrant colors are splashed on to the screen. 'Common People', like its title, and like a hefty portion of Black Mirror installments, is just barely fiction - allowing its far-too feasible science to do all the frightening.

Mike and Amanda in Black Mirror Season 7

'Common People' doesn't present any fiery devils, or sea monsters, or nuclear bombs, yet it's still more deeply chilling than any of those Love, Death + Robots featured players. In the episode, starring Rashida Jones, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Chris O'Dowd, Jones' character Amanda falls into a tumor-driven coma. Her husband agrees to a start-up medical tech operation that would replace her infected brain tissue with a piece of Rivermind's server.

Over the course of the episode, the financially-strapped couple face increasing levels of indignation at the hands of a greedy, inhumane, capitalist data broker. That description fits a disturbing number of companies and services we all submit to on a daily basis, and that's where Black Mirror turns its reflective glass upon its audience for a methodical, destabilizing rug-pull. With an estimated 26 million Americans lacking health care, according to commonwealthfund, the fear-of-falling sensation viewers might derive from that story could be closer and more costly than ever in real life.

What To Expect From Season 4 of Love, Death, + Robots

After such a long wait, the bar for Season 4 has undoubtedly risen for what fans will accept as a fitting follow-up to Love, Death, + Robots Season 3. The Season 4 teaser promises its patented cocktail of disparate animation styles that, together, form its crowd-pleasing mix of zany and horrifying stories. Audiences can expect a lot of CGI, hand-drawn animation, and even a stop-motion piece with an injection of computer-generated special effects.

Love, Death + Robots will surely continue to wow viewers with spectacle and top-tier technology while delighting and disturbing them with themes of love, death, and, to varying levels of apathy - robots. Black Mirror's most recent season is already live on Netflix and has set the stage for Fincher's own upcoming dark science fiction anthology airing on May 15th.

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