Can't Stop

I never thought I'd be this let down by Love, Death & Robots, but Season 4 kicks off with a total misfire. Episode 1 isn't really an episode at all - it's just a glorified Red Hot Chili Peppers music video. Seriously.

There's no story, no characters, no dialogue, no twist - none of the things that made the previous seasons so memorable. It's just a four-minute CGI trip set to a track that, while decent on its own, has absolutely no place masquerading as part of an anthology known for groundbreaking animation and provocative sci-fi.

I get that the show likes to experiment, but this feels lazy and self-indulgent. It's not "artsy" or "bold." It's a bait-and-switch. We waited years for a new season, and this is how they open it?

If this is a sign of what's to come in Season 4, then we're in for a rough ride. Here's hoping this is just a one-off stumble - because right now, this show looks like it's losing its edge.

Yes, I like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Yes, I like the song. And hell yes, I love Love, Death & Robots.

But what the hell was that? What was the point of this episode? It would've worked better as a music video by them than as a full episode in this series. That was just a waste of time for me.

Sure, the visuals and animations looked amazing, no doubt about that. But the entire episode was just one single song. That has nothing to do with Love, Death & Robots in my opinion. The episode felt pointless, without any meaning.

Fine, let the band members appear in an episode, but at least make it one that has some kind of storyline. Not just a music video.

Thanks, but no thanks, no matter how great the concert may have been.

Listen, I'm not saying that this music video is not well made, or that the music is not good. What I am saying is that as an episode of Love, death and robots, it fails. Might as well make a video of someone baking a cake, or playing volleyball. I don't understand why the creators included this in the new 10 episode season 4. It's a misuse of talent and creativity, and has nothing to do with Love, death and robots. For us viewers having waited a long time for a new season, there is disappointment and only thing on my mind now is I hope the other nine episodes make up for it. Hopefully they will.

While I'm adittedly not a massive RHCP fan, I do like some of their output. The problem here isn't an issue of liking or disliking their work. It's that this episode was misguided from the very start. It offered us nothing that a team of animators working for a music video programming network couldn't have conceptualized in a half-hour discussion with the Chili's legal team over a serving of late in some boardroom. It's basically advertising on an MTV scale. It was pointless in the context of "Love, Death & Robots" since, unless Flea dropped dead of a heroin overdose just as it faded to black, it had none of those thing.

For what it was, it was fine, and I'm sure hardcore RHCP fans will enjoy it. It just made no sense as a LDR episode.

This episode is not the worst in terms of the technical compartment, in fact it is well done and I enjoyed it very much. The factor that makes it the worst episode, however, is that it has nothing to do with Love Death and Robots. There are no robots, there is no death, there is no love. There is no plot, no invented characters, no narrative twist. There's just the Red Hot Chili Peppers singing. This episode, ladies and gentleman, is just and only a trivial and very stupid music video that they could just as well have uploaded on youtube instead of putting it in the episode list of this series. I would rather have had one less episode than this.....