Netflix Testing Random Episode Orders With 'Love, Death & Robots'
Netflix launched a very different kind of animated series last week, in the form of David Fincher [...]
Netflix launched a very different kind of animated series last week, in the form of David Fincher and Tim Miller's Love, Death & Robots. The new project is an anthology made of completely different animation styles and stories. Some are 17-minute war epics, while others are more on the comedic side or only lasting six minutes in length. Each of these shorts is wholly unique, so the order in which you watch the episodes shouldn't matter, right? Netflix doesn't seem to think so, as the streaming service has been experimenting with changing the order of the episodes for different viewers.
The topic of the episode orders came up earlier this week, when co-founder of Out in Tech Lukas Thoms shared a thread on Twitter about these episode orders, claiming that the order episodes was changed from person to person based on what Netflix determined their sexual orientation could be.
"Just discovered the most INSANE thing," Thoms wrote. "The ORDER OF THE EPISODES for Netflix's new series Love Death & Robots changes based on whether Netflix thinks you're gay or straight."
Thoms shared evidence in the thread, revealing that a few members of the LGBTQ community had an order that began with a short featuring a lesbian storyline. Some of Thoms' straight friends had a different order, one that began with a short featuring an explicit heterosexual sex sequence.
We've never had a show like Love, Death & Robots before so we're trying something completely new: presenting four different episode orders. The version you're shown has nothing to do with gender, ethnicity, or sexual identity — info we don't even have in the first place.
— Netflix US (@netflix) March 19, 2019
Netflix responded to Thoms' thread, confirming that there are four different episode orders, all of which are assigned to users randomly. The company stated that it has nothing to do with gender, ethnicity, orientation, or anything like that. Instead, it's just a few different orders so that Netflix can figure out the best way to get people to keep watching.
Being an anthology series, Love, Death & Robots is one of the few series where the episodes can be changed around without effecting the watching experience itself. No matter which order you get, all of the episodes are still available.
What do you think of Love, Death & Robots? Which order do your episodes appear in? Let us know in the comments!
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