''Murder Drones'' is an Australian

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horror comedy Comedy horror, also known as horror comedy, is a literary, television, and film genre that combines elements of comedy and horror fiction. Comedy horror has been described as able to be categorized under three types: "black comedy, parody and spo ...

web series A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single in ...

created by Liam Vickers and produced by

Glitch Productions ''Meta Runner'' (known as ''Meta Runner: The Final Season'' for its third season) is an Australian adult computer-animated cyberpunk web series created by Kevin and Luke Lerdwichagul. It is produced by Glitch Productions, with production fundi ...

. The pilot episode premiered on the YouTube channel ''GLITCH'' on October 29, 2021. It was picked up for a full 8-episode season, beginning on November 18, 2022. As of July 2024, the pilot episode had received over 45 million views. The series has been praised by viewers for its animation,

voice acting Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs to present a character or provide information to an audience. Performers are called voice actors/actresses, voice artists, dubbing artists, voice talent, voice-over artists, or voice-over talen ...

music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...

, action scenes,

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, and its blend of horror and comedy elements. Additionally, the series was nominated for a

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in the category of Best Animated Video.

Synopsis

The series takes place in 3071 on Copper 9, an

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...

owned by the

megacorporation Megacorporation, mega-corporation, or megacorp, a term originally coined by Alfred Eichner in his book ''The Megacorp and Oligopoly: Micro Foundations of Macro Dynamics'' but popularized by William Gibson, derives from the combination of the pref ...

JC Jenson. Worker Drones,

autonomous robot An autonomous robot is a robot that acts without recourse to human control. The first autonomous robots environment were known as Elmer and Elsie, which were constructed in the late 1940s by W. Grey Walter. They were the first robots in history ...

s designed to serve humans, inhabit the planet and mine it for natural resources. Eventually, the planet suffers a catastrophic core collapse brought on by the corporation's employees, wiping out nearly all

biological life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy transf ...

on the planet including humans. As a result, the planet becomes a frozen wasteland, and only the Worker Drones remain. One day, three violent killing machines known as Disassembly Drones—nicknamed "Murder Drones"—invade Copper 9 to exterminate the remaining Worker Drones. The Worker Drones live in constant fear of the Murder Drones and hide behind a series of doors in an attempt to protect themselves. The protagonist of the series is Uzi Doorman, an angsty teenage Worker Drone who dreams of escaping Copper 9. In the process, she forms an unlikely partnership with two of the Murder Drones: N, a male drone with a friendly and curious disposition toward Worker Drones; and V, a sadist who is purposely elusive about her history with N, after he rebels against them, Uzi and N kill J and take V for hostage. After "trucing" with V, the three work to uncover the truth about their origins and their purpose in the planet's harsh environment. Along their journey, they encounter several important individuals, Doll, a Russian-speaking Worker Drone with a vendetta against V; Tessa, a human employee of JC Jenson; and Cyn, a drone who serves as the host of an evil reality-altering virus known as the Absolute Solver.

Cast

Main

* Elsie Lovelock as Uzi Doorman * Michael Kovach as Serial Designation "N" * Nola Klop as Serial Designation "V" * Allanah Fitzgerald as Cyn / Absolute Solver * Shara Kirby as Serial Designation "J"

Recurring

Sean Chiplock Sean Edward Chiplock (born June 21, 1990) is an American voice actor who is known for voicing English versions of Japanese video games and anime. Based in Los Angeles, Chiplock is known as the voice of Rean Schwarzer from '' The Legend of Heroe ...

as Thad * David J. Dixon as Khan Doorman * Emma Breezy as Doll * Katie Hood and Caitlin Dizon as Lizzy * Liam Vickers as Teacher * Steph Crothers as Tessa Elliott * Darcy Maguire as Nori Doorman

Production

Liam Vickers had previously achieved attention for his 2D animated series ''CliffSide'' and ''Internecion Cube'', both currently unfinished. He first pitched ''Murder Drones'' to

with some early concept art and story, before becoming the series' writer and director. ''Murder Drones'' is animated on

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, with post-production being done on

Unreal Engine Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game '' Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of genr ...

. Including the pilot, the first season will last 8 episodes. It pushes into darker territory while making it more photorealistic than previous shows on Glitch. This series (alongside '' Meta Runner'') also marks to many fans a departure from the

Machinima Machinima, originally machinema () is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation. The word "machinima" is a portmanteau of the words '' ...

style often associated with Glitch, as its co-founder Luke Lerdwichagul is well-known for his ''Super Mario'' parodies on the channel ''SMG4''. On August 6, 2021, Liam released the full version of "Disassembly Required", the song that plays in the teaser. The video description reveals the character seen in the teaser to be "V", one of the titular ''Murder Drones''. By the time the series was announced, it had been worked on for one year until February 18, 2022, when Glitch Productions announced that the full series was in development now at the studio and will be released later in 2023. Glitch Productions confirmed the release date for the seventh episode to be on March 29, 2024, in a video they posted to their YouTube channel.

Episodes

Every episode is written and directed by series creator Liam Vickers.

Reception

Lauren Rouse of ''

Gizmodo Australia ''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite '' io9'', w ...

'' praised the character designs and visuals. In 2023 and 2024 (Episode 6 for 2024), the series earned a nomination for a

in the category of Best Animated Video and won it in the same category in the 2024 edition.

Awards and nominations

, - ! rowspan="2" scope="row" style="text-align:center;" , 2023 ,

, Animation (Series & Channels) Video , ''Murder Drones'' , , , - , One Voice Awards UK 2023 , Animation - Best Character Performance - Female , Elsie Lovelock - ''"Uzi - Murder Drones"'' , rowspan="2" , , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center;" , 2024 ,

, Animation (Series & Channels) Video , ''Murder Drones'' ,

References

External links

* {{Glitch Productions Animated television series about robots Glitch Productions 2020s YouTube series 2021 web series debuts Independent animation Animated science fiction web series American animated web series Australian animated web series Comedy horror web series Post-apocalyptic animated television series Dystopian fiction Television series set in the future Web series about robots Fiction about artificial intelligence