# Murder Drones

Murder Drones is an adult independent-animated web series created, written, and directed by Liam Vickers and produced by Glitch Productions.
The pilot episode premiered on Glitch's YouTube channel on October 29, 2021. It was picked up for a full 8-episode series from November 18, 2022, to August 23, 2024. The series received positive reviews and two nominations for a Webby Award in the Best Animated Video category, winning one, and has received praise for its plot and animation, however it has been criticized for its rapid pace and forced humour.

## Synopsis

The series occurs in the year 3071 on Copper 9, an Earth analog owned by the megacorporation JC Jenson. Worker Drones, autonomous robots 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 all biological life 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 blast doors, in an attempt to protect themselves.
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 male 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.

## Cast

* Elsie Lovelock as Uzi Doorman, 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.
* Michael Kovach as Serial Designation "N", a friendly and eager Disassembly Drone who befriends Uzi and provides her with emotional support throughout her possession.
* Nola Klop as Serial Designation "V", a sadistic Disassembly Drone and N's teammate who secretly harbors protective feelings towards him.
* Shara Kirby as Serial Designation "J", the domineering leader of N and V's Disassembly Drone squad.
* David J. Dixon as Khan Doorman, Uzi's neglectful father, architect of the hydraulic doors protecting the Worker Drone colony, and leader of the colony's defense force.
* Sean Chiplock as Thad, Uzi's friendly jock schoolmate.
* Caitlin Dizon (previously Katie Hood) as Lizzy, Uzi's popular classmate who bullies her and befriends V.
* Emma Breezy as Doll, 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.
* Allanah Fitzgerald as Cyn, 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).
* Steph Crothers (previously known as Daisy Rose) as Tessa Elliot, 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.
* Darcy Maguire as Nori Doorman, 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.

## Production

Liam Vickers had previously achieved online attention for his 2D animated series CliffSide and Internecion Cube, both currently unfinished. He first pitched Murder Drones to Glitch Productions with some early concept art and story, before becoming the series' writer and director.
Murder Drones is animated on Autodesk Maya and Unreal Engine. Including the pilot, the series lasted 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 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 would be released later in 2022. The show ended with the eighth and final episode released on August 23, 2024.

## Episodes

Every episode is written and directed by Liam Vickers.
| No. | Title | Storyboard by | Original release date |
| 1 | "Pilot" | Liam Vickers | October 29, 2021 (2021-10-29) |
| The human population of the planet Copper 9 is wiped out by a planetary core collapse, leaving behind their robotic workforce, the Worker Drones. The workers are massacred by a trio of Disassembly Drones from Earth—designated N, V, and J—ostensibly sent by the interstellar corporation JC Jenson in response to the workers' newfound independence; the survivors retreat into a bunker fortified by the worker Khan Doorman. Uzi, Khan's rebellious daughter, leaves the bunker to salvage parts for a railgun to use against the Disassembly Drones. She tests her weapon on N, who regenerates with short-term amnesia and malfunctioning optic sensors. Mistaking Uzi for a new teammate, N tries to befriend her until J restores his memory and vision. N infiltrates the bunker and attacks Uzi, but falters after Khan shuts them out to protect the other survivors. J installs a virus on N for questioning their directive, but Uzi repairs him, and together they destroy J and capture V. Heartbroken by Khan's betrayal, Uzi banishes herself with N and V and declares vengeance against the humans of Earth. ||||
| 2 | "Heartbeat" | Liam Vickers, Matthew Peckham, and Jarrad Rumble | November 18, 2022 (2022-11-18) |
| J's mutated heart emerges from her remains and produces an eldritch worm monster that kills several Worker Drones. Uzi and N are informed of the incident by Uzi's classmate Thad while trying to repair the Disassembly Drones' space pod. Returning to the bunker to investigate, they learn about a supposed reboot program called the Absolute Solver, symbolized by an insignia that has begun appearing in place of Uzi's eye; Uzi concludes that J is using the Solver to repair herself with the drones' assimilated matter. They are soon attacked by the worm-like Solver, which proclaims J and the other drones to be its puppets. The Solver unnerves Uzi with disturbing, lifelike holograms, including one of itself killing Khan. N rescues Uzi as her damaged railgun explodes, causing the Solver to vanish. Frightened and confused by the Disassembly Drones' true nature, Uzi shuns N and returns to Khan. Meanwhile, Uzi's classmate Doll telekinetically crushes a robotic cockroach while glancing at a photograph of V, with the Solver symbol appearing over Doll's eye. ||||
| 3 | "The Promening" | Liam Vickers, Robin French, and Cameron Qayoom-Taylor | February 17, 2023 (2023-2-17) |
| Uzi is approached by Doll and her friend Lizzy to receive a makeover for the upcoming school prom. However, Uzi escapes upon discovering that Doll is targeting her in a recent string of disappearances at school, while Lizzy is conspiring to let V into the bunker. Meanwhile, N refuses to participate in V's plan to slaughter the prom-goers for their own sustenance, leading V to go alone. Uzi and N reconcile and head to the prom to stop V. Against the trio's expectations, V is crowned prom queen as part of a trap devised by Doll, whose parents were murdered by V. Uzi and N rescue V, overcoming Doll's reality-bending Solver powers before V shoots Doll. Doll later regenerates and attacks the group again, but flees when Uzi manifests her own Solver powers against her. Meanwhile, the human JC Jenson technician Tessa and a living J arrive on Copper 9 to perform "maintenance work". ||||
| 4 | "Cabin Fever" | Matthew Peckham and Cameron Qayoom-Taylor | April 7, 2023 (2023-4-7) |
| Uzi travels to the abandoned Camp 98.7 to investigate a set of collars with significance to her mother, Nori. Uzi's class is forced to come along as part of a field trip, with N and V acting as supervisors. Uzi eventually finds the "keybug", a golden robot cockroach designed to activate an elevator in the Cabin Fever Labs. When she returns to the campsite, a startled classmate fires at Uzi with an arrow, which her Solver powers turn into a living organic mass. Uzi flees into one of the cabins, where she grows fleshy wings and a tail similar to those of the Disassembly Drones. Against V's wishes, N searches for Uzi and finds an instructional video cassette titled "Zombie Drones". Overcome with a craving for the drones' oil, Uzi kills several of her classmates and battles a hostile V before N intervenes, calming Uzi and returning her to normal. Uzi, N, and V leave with the other survivors, bringing the keybug and video cassette with them. ||||
| 5 | "Home" | Liam Vickers and Neda Lay | June 9, 2023 (2023-6-9) |
| N relives his repressed memories as a Worker Drone servant at Tessa's mansion alongside V, J, and a malfunctioning "zombie" drone named Cyn. After ignoring several cryptic messages instructing him to enter the mansion's basement, N establishes contact with Uzi, who has hacked into the comatose N and V's minds to keep their memories from being erased by Cyn, the Solver's host and the Disassembly Drones' administrator. With Tessa and J's help, Uzi and N evade a monstrously mutated V and unlock the basement, where they discover evidence of Cyn remodeling N and the other servants into Disassembly Drones. Uzi's hacking is interrupted when Doll intrudes to take the keybug, which Uzi begrudgingly gives her to save N and V. While the past Cyn takes control of the other drones and massacres the humans in the mansion, the present Cyn attempts to use V to lobotomize N in Uzi's absence, but N returns V to her senses before Uzi overrides Cyn's administration. Sometime later, Doll brings the keybug to Tessa and J at the frozen Camp 98.7 lake, where Uzi, N, and V find them. ||||
| 6 | "Dead End" | Neda Lay | August 18, 2023 (2023-8-18) |
| Tessa and J ally with Uzi's group, revealing Cyn as the one who sent the Disassembly Drones to Copper 9. Doll immediately takes the keybug back and enters the nearby Cabin Fever Labs alone, leading the group to give chase while J stays behind to guard Tessa's ship. The group is quickly captured by Alice and Beau, two cannibalistic Worker Drone lab subjects who have used the facility's Velociraptor-like Sentinels to kill the other subjects and intruding Disassembly Drones. During their escape, Tessa privately reveals to N that Cyn's actions have already destroyed Earth, and urges him to save the universe over Uzi, who risks being possessed by Cyn the more she uses her Solver. After the Sentinels kill Alice and Beau, Doll traps the group in the elevator hallway with more Sentinels and descends further down, damaging the elevator in the process. When the others are cornered inside the elevator, V remains outside and severs its cables to save them while the Sentinels surround her. ||||
| 7 | "Mass Destruction" | Neda Lay and AD Taeza | March 29, 2024 (2024-3-29) |
| Uzi, N, and Tessa are separated underground when Uzi's Solver triggers a cave-in. N encounters Nori's sentient heart, who owns a patch on a crucifix-shaped USB drive used for "exorcising" the Solver from its hosts. Doll is mortally wounded by Cyn while demanding the patch from Tessa to cure herself. Tessa follows the dying Doll to a cathedral where she finds and attacks Uzi. N decapitates Tessa and gives the drive to Uzi, but Cyn possesses Uzi and destroys the drive. Uzi regains control when N provokes her and Nori into bickering by confessing that he and Uzi "hang out", although Uzi accidentally kicks Nori down a pit into Copper 9's core in the process. Tessa reattaches her head and reveals herself as Cyn, having been disguised with the real Tessa's corpse. Cyn eats Doll's heart and drags Uzi and N into the pit with her. Aboveground, J is confronted by Khan, Thad and Lizzy after destroying the Disassembly Drones' landing pods under Cyn's orders, dropping her spaceship key into the pit. Before falling, Uzi throws N to safety with the key. Uzi later awakens in outer space, where she sees the planet's exposed core. ||||
| 8 | "Absolute End" | Neda Lay, AD Taeza, Robin French and Liam Vickers | August 23, 2024 (2024-8-23) |
| Having merged with Copper 9, Cyn begins consuming the broken pieces of the planet. Uzi reunites with Nori, who explains the Solver can be stopped if Cyn's heart is destroyed. N rescues Uzi in Cyn's spaceship, which Cyn destroys; Uzi and N affirm their relationship as they fall back towards the planet. J reveals her allegiance to Cyn and attacks Khan, Thad and Lizzy, but V intervenes, riding a Sentinel she managed to tame. Cyn attempts to consume N's heart but fails. Shortly after this, Uzi, N, and V battle Cyn and J, with N and V knocking J into a chasm. Uzi eventually rips out Cyn's heart, but fails to destroy it and is forced to swallow it when Cyn attempts the same, causing Cyn's body to melt. In the aftermath, N and V find that Uzi has partially taken on the Solver's yellow eye color and abilities while still retaining her sense of self. The drones resume their normal lives and hold a funeral for Doll; meanwhile, J begins repairing her spaceship, and the Solver, whose consciousness now inhabits Uzi's tail, harmlessly pesters Uzi. ||||

## Reception
### Critical reception

Lauren Rouse of Gizmodo Australia praised the character designs and visuals. Writer GiovanH criticized the show for being hard to understand, especially for first-time viewers—which he partially attributed to an apparent compressing of the plot into an eight-episode series as a result of the limited budget of Glitch Productions—noting that several minute factors worked against each other to make the story harder to understand. Despite this, he praised the plot, animation quality, voice acting and soundtrack, and noted that the characters themselves are the most appealing aspect of the show to the fandom.

### 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.
| Year | Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
| 2023 | Webby Award | Animation (Series & Channels) Video | Murder Drones | Nominated |
| 2023 | One Voice Awards UK 2023 | Animation - Best Character Performance - Female | Elsie Lovelock - "Uzi - Murder Drones" | Won |
| 2024 | Webby Award | Animation (Series & Channels) Video | Murder Drones (Episode 6 – "Dead End") | Won |