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Murder Drones

Australian animated web series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Murder Drones is an Australian adult independent-animated web series created, written, and directed by Liam Vickers and produced by Glitch Productions.[2] The series revolves around two factions of autonomous robots—worker drones and disassembly drones—following the extinction of humans on their planet, and a rebellious worker drone who accidentally befriends a disassembly drone.

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The pilot episode premiered on Glitch's YouTube channel on October 29, 2021. The remaining seven episodes were released from November 18, 2022 to August 23, 2024. The show made it on to Amazon Prime Video on May 16, 2025. The series received positive reviews from critics for its animation and plot, though its pacing and humour have received criticism. The series received three nominations for a Webby Award in the Best Animated Video category, winning two.

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Synopsis

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The series occurs in 3071 on Copper 9, an Earth analog owned by the megacorporation JC Jenson (a parody of SC Johnson). Worker Drones, autonomous robots designed to serve humans, inhabit the planet and harvest it for natural resources.[3] The planet suddenly suffers a catastrophic core collapse, wiping out all biological life on the planet, including humans.[‡ 1] 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 blast doors, in an attempt to protect themselves.[4]

The protagonist of the series is Uzi Doorman, an angsty teenage Worker Drone who plans to defeat the murderous drones and save her kind. In the process, she forms an unlikely partnership with two of the Murder Drones—N, a drone with a friendly and curious disposition toward Worker Drones; and V, a sadist who is purposely elusive about her history with N—and works with them to uncover the truth about their origins and purpose in the planet's harsh environment.[5]

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Cast

  • Uzi Doorman (Elsie Lovelock), a rebellious teenage Worker Drone who seeks to end her oppressed lifestyle. Throughout the series, Uzi struggles with being possessed by the Absolute Solver, which she learns to use to manipulate reality.[5]
  • Serial Designation "N" (Michael Kovach), a friendly and eager Disassembly Drone who befriends Uzi and provides her with emotional support throughout her possession.[5]
  • Serial Designation "V" (Nola Klop), a sadistic Disassembly Drone and N's teammate who secretly harbors protective feelings towards him.[5]
  • Serial Designation "J" (Shara Kirby), the neglectful leader of N and V's Disassembly Drone squad.[5]
  • Khan Doorman (David J. Dixon), Uzi's father, architect of the hydraulic doors protecting the Worker Drone colony, and leader of the colony's defense force.[citation needed]
  • Thad (Sean Chiplock), Uzi's friendly jock schoolmate.[citation needed]
  • Lizzy (Katie Hood in episode 1 and Caitlin Dizon from episode 2 onward), Uzi's popular classmate who bullies her and befriends V.[citation needed]
  • Doll (Emma Breezy), Uzi's Russian-speaking classmate who harbors a vendetta against V for murdering her parents. Like Uzi, Doll can manipulate the Absolute Solver and has much more control over it than Uzi does.[5]
  • Cyn (Allanah Fitzgerald), a Worker Drone who serves as the Disassembly Drones' system administrator and the host of an evil, reality-altering computer program called the Absolute Solver (also voiced by Fitzgerald).[5]
  • Tessa Elliot (Steph Crothers),[a] a human girl who salvages N, V, J, and Cyn before the former three's remodeling into Disassembly Drones. An adult version of Tessa appears on Copper 9 as a JC Jenson technician, but is later revealed to have been killed as a child by Cyn, who impersonates Tessa while wearing her skin.[5]
  • Nori Doorman (Darcy Maguire), Uzi's mother and one of the Absolute Solver's hosts. Initially stated to have been killed by a Disassembly Drone, she is later revealed to have sent her consciousness to her own mutated core to survive.[citation needed]
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Episodes

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Every episode is written and directed by Liam Vickers.

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Production

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Liam Vickers had previously achieved online attention for his 2D animated series CliffSide and Internecion Cube, both currently unfinished.[‡ 2] He first pitched Murder Drones to Glitch Productions with some early concept art and story, before becoming the series' writer and director.[‡ 3]

Murder Drones is animated on Autodesk Maya and Unreal Engine.[‡ 4] Including the pilot, the series lasted 8 episodes. It pushes into darker territory while making it more photorealistic than previous shows on Glitch.[1] This series (alongside Meta Runner) also marks to many fans a departure from the Machinima 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.[‡ 5] 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 would be released later in 2022.[‡ 6][6][non-primary source needed] The show ended with the eighth and final episode released on August 23, 2024.[‡ 7]

On May 16, 2025, all eight episodes of the series were made available on Amazon Prime Video.[7]

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Reception

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Critical reception

Prior to the release of the pilot episode, Lauren Rouse of Gizmodo Australia praised the character designs and visuals.[1] Writer GiovanH criticized the show for being hard to follow, especially for first-time viewers. He wrote at-length that several minute factors worked against each other to make the show confusing to watch, such as fast pacing, excessive humour and poor visual language. He blamed the "friction" on "fundamental trade-offs" that come with the indie setup of Glitch Productions, claiming that a limited budget likely caused a compression of the plot into eight episodes, but despite this, he praised the plot, CGI, voice acting and soundtrack, writing that "it really intentionally embraces the edgy random mid-2000s teen vibe [...]. The whole show is really kind of a love letter not just to fandom, but that particular cringy dorky teenager version fandomhood".[8]

Awards and nominations

In 2023 and 2024, the series earned a nomination for a Webby Award in the category of Best Animated Video and won it in the same category in the 2024 edition.[9] It was also nominated for the Scripted (Series & Channels) category for the 2025 edition, later winning that category.[10] Meanwhile, the voice actress for Uzi, Elsie Lovelock, won the 2023 edition of One Voice Awards UK in the Animation - Best Character Performance - Female category for her portrayal of the character.[11]

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See also

Notes

  1. Credited as Daisy Rose

References

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