Murder Drones is an Australian adult animation independent-animated comedy horror web series created, written, and directed by Liam Vickers and produced by Glitch Productions.
The pilot episode premiered on Glitch's YouTube channel on 29 October 2021. The remaining seven episodes were released from 18 November 2022 to 23 August 2024. The show made it on to Amazon Prime Video on 16 May 2025. The series received positive reviews from critics for its animation, voice acting, action sequences, cinematography, and plot, though its pacing and humour have received criticism. The series received three nominations for a Webby Awards in the Best Animated Video category, winning two.
Synopsis
The series occurs in 3071 on Copper 9, an
Earth analog owned by the
megacorporation JC Jenson (a parody of
SC Johnson). Worker Drones,
designed to serve humans, inhabit the planet and harvest it for natural resources.
The planet suddenly suffers a catastrophic core collapse, 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 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.
Characters
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Doorman (voiced by 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.
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Serial Designation "N" (voiced by Michael Kovach), a friendly and eager Disassembly Drone who befriends Uzi and provides her with emotional support throughout her possession.
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Serial Designation "V" (voiced by Nola Klop), a sadistic Disassembly Drone and N's teammate who secretly harbours protective feelings towards him.
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Serial Designation "J" (voiced by Shara Kirby), the neglectful leader of N and V's Disassembly Drone squad.
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Khan Doorman (voiced by David J. Dixon), Uzi's father, architect of the hydraulic doors protecting the Worker Drone colony, and leader of the colony's defense force.
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Thad (voiced by Sean Chiplock), Uzi's friendly jock schoolmate. Much like Uzi, he dislikes that they hide behind the doors instead of fighting the Disassembly Drones.
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Lizzy (voiced by Katie Hood in episode 1 and Caitlin Dizon from episode 2 onward), Uzi's popular classmate who bullies her and befriends V.
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Doll (voiced by Emma Breezy), Uzi's Russian-speaking classmate who harbours 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.
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Cyn (voiced by 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).
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Tessa James Elliot (voiced by Steph Crothers), a human girl who salvages N, V, J, and Cyn, before the former three's remodelling 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. In this form, Cyn is known as Cynessa.
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Nori Doorman (voiced by Darcy Maguire), Uzi's mother, and one of the Absolute Solver's hosts. Initially presumed dead, it is later revealed that only her body was killed, while her conscience inhabits her heart.
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Yeva (no voice actor), Doll's mother, and a host of the Absolute Solver. She is deceased. She was friends with Nori and Alice, from when they were at Cabin Fever Labs.
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Alice (voiced by Amber May), a minor antagonist who takes and harvests drone parts. She kidnapped Uzi, V, N, and Tessa to harvest their parts. She later tortured Uzi due to her dislike of her mother, Nori.
Episodes
Every episode is written and directed by Liam Vickers.
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.[ (YouTube playlist. See episodes 1-8 credits.)] Including the pilot, the series lasted 8 episodes. It pushes into darker territory while making it more photorealistic than previous shows on Glitch.
On 6 August 2021, Vickers released the full version of "Disassembly Required", the song that plays in the teaser.
On 16 May 2025, all eight episodes of the series were made available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.
A Kickstarter for a graphic novel adaptation to be published under Oni Press was created on 8 September 2025,
Reception
Critical reception
Prior to the release of the pilot episode, Lauren Rouse of
Gizmodo praised the character designs and visuals.
reviewer Melissa Camacho said that the show "combines dark humour, dystopian themes, and fantasy violence to tell a good story."
Joel Keller of Decider praised the characters and CGI and complimented the "zooms and shaky 'camera' work" for making the action sequences more immersive.
Writer GiovanH criticised the show for being hard to follow due to the fast pacing, excessive humour and poor visual language. Despite this, he praised the plot, CGI, voice acting and soundtrack, writing that "it really intentionally embraces the edgy random mid-2000s teen vibe."
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.
It was also nominated for the Scripted (Series & Channels) category for the 2025 edition, later winning that category.
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.
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! rowspan="2" scope="row" style="text-align:center;" | 2023
| Webby Award
| Animation (Series & Channels) Video
| Murder Drones
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See also
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Adult animation by country § Australia
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List of web series
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Independent animation
Notes
Primary sources
In the text, these references are preceded by a double dagger (‡):
External links
