Ranking ‘Love, Death And Robots’ Season 3’s Episodes From Great To Really Great

Love, Death and Robots is back with season 3, the collection of sci-fi shorts on Netflix that was fantastic in season 1, but a bit of a letdown in season 2. But season 3? It’s pretty amazing, and a return to form for the series. Heading into it, I wanted to rank the episodes from worst to best, and yet by the end, there were really none I didn’t like. So instead, I’m going from great, to really great, and the ones at the top may be my favorites across all three seasons.

Absolutely recommend this season of Love, Death and Robots, which you can get through in under two hours with episodes ranging from 7 to 20 minutes each. So, here’s my ranking order.

9. Three Robots: Exit Strategies – We have seen these robots before, and this is based on a John Scalzi story, but I’m just not sure their dissection of the apocalypse lives up to all the other ones here. Some funny moments, but the social commentary is a little on the nose, and the others are just more memorable.

8. Swarm – I did really like a lot of elements of this, including the dissection of the alien swarm and the motivations of the humans studying it. The last scene is horrifying and great, but it ends a bit quickly for me, like right when it’s about to get really interesting, and I want to see more.

7. Night of the Mini-Dead – Now we’re getting into ones I just don’t have much to criticize about at all. This is a really funny, really short examination of the zombie apocalypse in miniature form, and it really made me want to play a video game version of this, defending against the tiny hordes.

6. Kill Team Kill – Soldiers are forced to face off against a mechanized bear gone rogue in a hilarious, horrifying short that stars Joel McHale, Seth Green, Gabriel Luna and Steve Blum. Funny. Gross. Very good.

5. Mason’s Rats – The horrors of war as seen through the eyes of intelligent rats. This seemed like it was going to be a comedy, but it’s actually one of the more horrifying shorts in the series, as rats do battle with a violent rat-killing robot set upon them by a farmer. The second most gory short here, surprisingly, after Kill Team Kill.

4. The Very Pulse of the Machine – Love, Death and Robots shorts are often known for their beautiful animation, and this one is an all-timer. Mackenzie Davis stars as an astronaut who finds herself communing with Jupiter’s moon Io after an accident on the surface. A beautiful, tragic story where the animation makes it worth rewatching two or three extra times.

3. In Vaulted Halls Entombed – You want some Lovecraft? Here’s some Lovecraft. A squad of soldiers chases and enemy down into a cave system where they uncover an ancient, horrifying evil. Haunting, and with the most photorealistic animation of anything this season.

2. Jibaro – Man this was tough, and I moved this up and down from number one a few times. Jibaro is easily one of the most memorable shorts I’ve ever seen from this series as a deaf knight does battle with an ancient siren that I believe is some sort of metaphor for the raping and pillaging of native lands by invaders. The animation here is absolutely wild, and despite being almost entirely dialogue free, it’s gripping the whole way through. You will not forget this one.

1. Bad Travelling – Perhaps no surprise here that the ultimate victor is David Fincher’s short, which has pirates on a ship dealing with a monster lurking inside their hull, which causes them to turn on one another. In terms of the actual storyline, Bad Travelling is easily the best short here, and one of the best of the entire series. An incredible bit of storytelling in a small window, and I would expect nothing less from Fincher. You can’t miss it.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.