Black Mirror Wants To Be Love, Death and Robots So Bad

Remember when you were singing an EDM-punk-death-metal song in your head, and then the beachside water polo team started blasting that exact tune while giving hip dysplasia prevention lessons to a group of 40-year-old women? Maybe that was just me. But you've probably had a moment that felt eerily tailored to your inner monologue or oddly predicted by your devices, like getting targeted ads after a casual conversation or watching influencers cry on livestreams. And when that happens, you’ve probably thought, 'This is so Black Mirror.'

There was a time when Black Mirror captured that uncanniness better than anything else on television. It didn’t just serve up dystopian tech horror, it reflected our real, present-day anxieties through a dark and twisted lens. But six seasons later, the mirror’s edge has dulled. The reflection is less precise, more distorted. In its early seasons, Black Mirror resonated because it wasn’t really about the future. It was about the now. Charlie Brooker’s most impactful episodes, “Be Right Back,” “The Entire History of You,” and “White Bear,” weren’t obsessed with speculative tech itself. They explored grief, memory, justice, and ego. Technology was just the lens. Over time, that lens solidified into a formula. The core message began to echo itself: technology is bad, and humanity is worse. While not an inherently false idea, it became predictable. As much as I would prefer otherwise as a passive pessimist, cynicism is easy.

As Black Mirror droned on, another Netflix sci-fi anthology quietly seized the zeitgeist in the background. It’s animated, uneven, and unapologetically weird. Love, Death & Robots, for all its inconsistencies, feels more vital. Even when it stumbles, it still says more about where we’re headed than Black Mirror does. It’s simple to write a story where the robots rise up or the algorithm betrays us. What’s harder, and what Love, Death & Robots strives for, is imagining the full, strange spectrum of how humans and technology might entangle. Created by Tim Miller and produced by David Fincher, Love, Death & Robots is an animated anthology where every episode reinvents itself. Some stories are rendered in near-photorealistic CGI, while others look like impressionist paintings in motion.

My personal favourite, “The Witness,” from Season 1, doesn’t hinge on any obvious, destructive piece of technology. Instead, it plays with time loops, perception, and simulated realities, hinting that the story might be unfolding in a digital environment, though it never confirms it. It’s less about what tech does and more about how we behave within it. Director Alberto Mielgo has said the episode explores relationships based on need rather than love, where characters spiral into destructive repetition. The animation style, handcrafted frame by frame, despite appearing hyperreal, reinforces this surrealism.

I was left asking, Is this a simulation? A metaphor? A looped dream? Whatever the answer, technology underpins the narrative not as a villain, but as a stage, a mirror, and a lens all at once. The hallmark of LDR is that technology isn’t always the antagonist. Often, it’s simply there, strange, ambivalent, and embedded in human stories. And that subtle integration reflects something more truthful. Much of Seasons 1 and 2 work this way. In some episodes, the tech is front and center. In others, it’s implied. And crucially, not all portrayals are negative. Where Black Mirror frames innovation as inevitable collapse, LDR offers a spectrum of consequences. Some tech elevates us. Some degrade us. Most simply reveal who we already are.

Of course, not every LDR episode lands. Some are all flair and no substance. The frequent nudity can veer into the gratuitous. But that inconsistency is also what gives the show its edge. It’s chaotic, genre-bending, and often absurd, like the internet itself. The dissonance isn’t a flaw, it’s a feature. The real difference between Black Mirror and Love, Death & Robots isn’t just tone, it’s philosophy.

Black Mirror treats technology as a cautionary tale. The phone, the implant, the AI—they’re ominous portents. The future, in Brooker’s world, is a cracked mirror reflecting our worst instincts. I’ve always seen technology as largely beneficial. Of course, it can be misused. But couldn’t that be said of any tool, whether human-made or not? The medical, scientific, and environmental advancements enabled by tech are rarely given as much screen time as the fear of social media addiction or surveillance capitalism. This isn’t to dismiss the dangers, but framing technology as inherently evil often flattens the narrative. Treating it as a tool, with potential for good or harm, gives these stories more dimension.

Black Mirror’s “Metalhead,” where robotic dogs ruthlessly hunt humans in a gray wasteland, is a horror story with sleek production, but no humanity. The tech is the monster. The world is dead. Again. That’s a compelling narrative, once or twice. Black Mirror‘s sixth season attempts to branch out, dabbling in horror (“Loch Henry”) and retro sci-fi (“Beyond the Sea”), but its messages still feel muddled. There’s even less clarity in its messaging about our relationship with technology, only that it’s increasingly toxic. Despite their attempted strides, the latest seasons feel less urgent, more performative.

This divergence between Black Mirror and LDR points to a broader shift in science-fiction storytelling. One continues to warn us of collapse. The other invites us to imagine everything in between. This evolution matters because technology is not inherently moral. It reflects us, our fears, hopes, flaws, and brilliance. Love, Death & Robots captures that reflection with all its weird shapes and colours.

Love, Death & Robots embraces this complexity. Technology isn’t always a saviour or destroyer. Sometimes it’s yogurt fixing global politics. Sometimes it’s a biomechanical siren bleeding gold. That range of possibilities makes the show’s vision more expansive. Take “Helping Hand,” where a stranded astronaut must sever her arm to propel herself back to safety. It’s not a story of betrayal by tech, but of human ingenuity. Or “Zima Blue,” perhaps the most philosophically layered episode of the entire anthology. A post-human artist, capable of creating cosmic masterpieces, yearns for the simple, repetitive task of pool cleaning, the act he was originally programmed to do. Instead of strictly focusing on the ruins of technology, it plays with the central idea surrounding peace in simplicity, origin, and purpose, which to me feels a bit more grounded.

The latest LDR season hits transcendent highs. “Jibaro” is a masterclass in non-verbal storytelling. It explores themes of exploitation, greed, and attraction through glitchy, gold-drenched visuals and piercing sound design. Notably, the deaf protagonist is immune to the siren’s voice, yet still ensnared by desire. Director Mielgo’s use of keyframe animation and real-world objects, metal spoons, plates, and jewelry, for sound design adds tactile depth.

The result is immersive, disorienting, unforgettable. Even the more comedic episodes carry weight. “Night of the Mini Dead” shrinks a zombie apocalypse into a stop-motion, tilt-shift spectacle. “Kill Team Kill” feels like a violent, over-the-top video game satire, mocking military bravado and toxic masculinity through absurd hyperviolence. They echo the internet’s chaotic spirit, where AI-generated art, death scrolls, and influencer meltdowns coexist in the same feed. Love, Death & Robots likes to provoke instead of preach which I prefer, since I have already lectured about "going on that damn phone" too many times to count.

In a media landscape saturated with dystopian narratives, Love, Death & Robots stands out for its willingness to explore the multifaceted relationship between humans and technology. Its anthology format allows for a diverse range of stories with altering perspectives. I'll admit that Black Mirror remains one of the 1st and one of the most significant players in the genre, but its recent seasons have struggled to maintain the innovative edge that defined its earlier episodes.

As we navigate an increasingly complex digital world, it's essential to engage with media that not only warns of potential dangers but also explores the possibilities for growth, connection, and the essence of human evolution. As Chef Remy said it best, change is nature, the part we can influence, and nature is usually viewed as virtuous or better than man-made. However, if humans were created by nature, technology is a byproduct of that creation and is no less part of the cycle and conversation. Love, Death & Robots invites us to accept those truths, while Black Mirror denies them.