From Adult Swim and CrunchyRoll, Blade Runner: Black Lotus is a spin-off anime series set in 2032 (that’s after the original movie, but obviously before the 2049 Ryan Gosling led sequel). Running for 13 episodes, the show is a neat take on the Blade Runner ethos, where the rich are using androids in a game-hunting scenario (in the same way someone might go on safari and shoot antelope, say). Elle, a replicant, escapes and while piecing back what memory she can, seeks revenge for those that they slaughtered.

The episodes run for under half an hour and can serve as a nice sci-fi slot to fill in between more time-consuming shows like Westworld or Stranger Things. Plus, any new releases involving the Blade Runner world should be devoured, especially after the wonderful Blade Runner 2049. That movie did the impossible, becoming a more than worthy sequel to one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made, if not rivaling it at the very least with its visuals and grand breadth of scope and expansion.

It’s difficult to tell where Black Lotus stands though. There’s a feeling that it’s very much attempting to be its own thing, to set itself apart whilst still exist inside that Philip K. Dick world of androids, violence, and noir goings-on — but also like it doesn’t have the know-how to do either, and doesn’t look good enough to warrant the attempt.

The Origami Elephant in Blade Runner’s Room

There’s a running theme regarding the uncanny valley in this series, both in form and content, and as a result the animation is grotesque, to the point where it will take you two to three episodes before you’re acclimatized to it. For a show made and released in 2022, the visuals in Blade Runner: Black Lotus reminds one of the Starship Troopers animated TV series (1999), or the intro cut scene from Tekken on the Playstation 1 (1994).

It looks bad — really bad. God only knows what must have happened in the hand-over between the excellent official Blade Runner anime short Black Out (premiering with two other shorts to coincide with the release of Blade Runner 2049) and the ugly mess that is Black Lotus.

Looking to the video game world, it brings up the age-old debate that if a story is engaging enough, perhaps graphics don’t really matter. To cite a video game from 1997, N64’s GoldenEye 007 remains one of the best multiplayer shooters around for its variety, ease in controls, and vibrant level designs — and Pierce Brosnan’s blocky polygon-filled face doesn’t detract from that over 20 years later.

Comic books take a similar line of questioning: do I really want to read this if I don’t enjoy the art? At a push, if you like the writer it’s arguably something a reader can probably look past. But (beyond asking you not to look at your phone while it’s on) a television show doesn’t require any further engagement like the pressing of buttons or the turning of pages that a game or a comic asks.

We’ve reached a point in time when the technology is available and affordable for pretty much anything to look somewhat decent, but Black Lotus‘ looks are distractingly awful, to the point where the N64 GoldenEye comparisons become flattering to Black Lotus. YouTubers are creating better looking stuff than this in their home set-ups, and it becomes embarrassing when recognizing the wealth of production companies behind this new Blade Runner series.

Black Lotus’ Weak Attempt at a Skin-Job

Are these some cheap, obscure production companies? Quite the contrary, actually, which makes this even more upsetting. Distributed and co-created by the Adult Swim brand (a major broadcaster and a place known for its own ingenuity in animation with Rick & Morty and Robot Chicken), Black Lotus was also produced by CrunchyRoll (who are owned by Sony, no less), and of course Blade Runner‘s creator Ridley Scott’s own Scott Free Productions.

CrunchyRoll prides themselves as being the place to go for all the latest in anime, and Ridley/Scott Free Productions were directly attached, and yet Black Lotus‘ visuals look amateurish and immediately crappy. Scott and his team have just finished up on the prematurely canceled Raised by Wolves (one of the finest looking shows television has seen in many years), and to see the end result of Black Lotus’ visuals makes this series come off like an afterthought to these prolific companies, a disgusting belch after a very large dinner. It’s really just not good enough to have the Blade Runner™ name attached; they could have done so much better.

Related: Blade Runner 2099 Live-Action Series is Happening at Amazon with Ridley Scott

Its characters move like tired scarecrows and their faces are dead-eyed and cold, and this spills out onto its world-building as well. Both Blade Runner feature films have only upped cinema’s collective game with their visuals, but the Black Lotus world is just bland. It doesn’t feel lived in. It doesn’t look like a place where crime has to be managed around the clock; it’s instead a sterile place, strange and rubbery to the touch. Even the (dare we say) “easier” boxes that should be checked off in making Blade Runner‘s world, like the neon lighting and the synth soundtrack, are denied or entirely ignored (some musical choices, mostly over the credits, are wildly out of place, with Black Lotus literally and regularly opting for R&B at times).

Bland Runner: Black Lotus

Worst of all, Elle, our main character, is perhaps the least interesting thing on screen. It’s hard to root for Elle as a protagonist when she remains so wooden throughout. She is bland and one-note, never really evolving whatsoever. With her bug-eyed expression and lack of, well, humanity in both her movements and speech, she remains robotic in every sense of the word (they’re called ‘replicants’ for a reason, and should be hauntingly similar to humans).

The dialogue in Black Lotus never really picks up either. When not comfortable with merely being basic, it is laughably clichéd and comes off like an AI forced an AI to write a script about AI. We don’t get a ‘tears in the rain’ moment of dialogue here — it’s not even close.

Related: Blade Runner: Black Lotus: Possible New Storylines for Season 2

Unlike the two films from which it spawned, this series also lacks the humanity and ambiguity that made the Blade Runner world so ahead of its time(s). There is no sense that the dynamite under the table will go off at any second, just Elle realizing a task she has to achieve, doing so, and then repeating that process until the finale. It’s even more obvious when the characters around Elle are given the best moments. ‘Clare De Lune’ is the stand-out episode of the series largely because it’s less about Elle and much mote about Jay’s past and his riveting back and forth feud with fellow Blade Runner Marlowe, which builds electrically to an inevitable firefight.

Easter Eggs Can’t Wholly Save Blade Runner: Black Lotus

Episodes like ‘Clare De Lune’ prove that Black Lotus isn’t all bad. The series also has a nice way of including easter eggs from the films and placing them within its own story without it feeling cheap or shoehorned in. Take the one-scene cameo from Barkhad Abdi (who was in Blade Runner 2049 and is best known as the pirate from 2013’s Captain Phillips). Voiced again by Abdi here, the character is younger and given far more of an opportunity to be fleshed out across the episodes. Another nice touch shows how Niander Wallace Jr. (played by Jared Leto in 2049) loses his sight. In a final nice moment of casting, the legendary Brian Cox also provides his booming voice as Wallace Sr.

Blade Runner 2049 was one of the best sci-fi films released over the last two decades. With stunning visuals and lofty ambitions, it managed to both set itself apart from and expand on a fondly beloved classic. Both of those feature films would involve a very clear vision and direction on screen and off. Its spin-off TV series, Black Lotus, lacks that throughout.

Disappointing considering it’s part of a world made up of so much awe and brilliance, this short series is a barely ‘Just Fine’ connect-the-dots between the two feature films for the diehards to check out.