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The retro-futuristic and immeasurably cozy paintings of Simon Stålenhag have been given life by Amazon Prime. Thanks to my dad, who obtained the Tales from the Loop artbook (org. title Ur Varselklotet) when it was brand new (he may even have donated to its crowdfunding campaign), I’ve had a good look into Stålenhag’s dreamlike alternate past before.

My brother once referred to Stålenhag’s peculiar art style as «Sweden punk», where we’ll scan our eyeballs over familiar rural environments until, suddenly, some sort of technological behemoth appears. It may be a strange, defunct machine (that nevertheless looks as if Volvo or Stiga could realistically design it) next to a quaint Scandinavian meadow, or a vast spacecraft hovering over a dimly lit torp in the December twilight.

Amazon brings all of this to life with an anthology, each episode nonetheless set in the same continuity, directed by the likes of Andrew Stanton and Jodie Foster (a good choice after her work on Black Mirror) and scored in part by Philip Glass — his haunting, repetitive-but-beautiful tunes as distinctive as ever. The cast includes Jonathan Pryce and Rebecca Hall, who put it best when she said in an interview that the characters genuinely seem to inhabit a universe larger than themselves. The landscape around them clearly has history, even when it isn’t expositorily stated.

On that note, the «retro» part of the retro-futurism is also in the characters, including young children who are often more astute than the adults — it shares this with Stranger Things, another nostalgic streaming-original, but I currently think Tales from the Loop is better, partly because of how farcical Things has gotten. Early on, Loretta (Abby Ryder Fortson) and Cole (Duncan Joiner) are curious of the mysteries surrounding The Loop, a scientific facility in their area that seems to dabble in the unnatural.

One of the problems I had with the series is that, possibly due to the episodic structure, certain big revelations seem to come quite early in the show’s run. Let me elaborate: In the very first episode, we learn something shocking about two of the main characters, akin to one of the most existentially devastating twists in the Netflix masterpiece Dark, but since we don’t yet know these people that well, it isn’t as impactful as it could have been. Instead, the second episode moves on to a different (somewhat better-acted) story involving the effects of The Loop, starring a tertiary character from the prior story.

However, accepting the show and the format for what it is, ’tis certainly a charming expedition into the mind of Stålenhag. The book and the artwork are faithfully adapted (including the way the characters are cast, then costumed and groomed) by head writer and developer Nathaniel Halpern, but I gather Stålenhag himself was heavily involved (complete with an on-screen cameo). He even submitted a title card animation, pictured above, «as a suggestion» and they wound up using it.

It just warms my hollow ribcage when an artist gets to realize their vision in this manner, aided by people who demonstrably give a damn. Tales from the Loop, not unlike the Netflix series Love, Death + Robots, is one of those shows that truly prove what a safe space the streaming world is for auteurs, enabled to enrich us with something new instead of sticking to a marketable studio-imposed formula.

If shows like these become successful enough, ginormous studios may learn that providing something new and original is the way to go (people sometimes argue that recent Lucasfilm and Marvel movies do represent an artist’s vision, hence their controversy compared to other «factory-made» sequels, but I remain skeptical that Disney would truly allow freedom, or deem controversy as anything other than useful PR). I will certainly do my part and tell you this much: please check out Tales from the Loop. It’s a visually inventive and fun watch that touches on the «larger» life questions that sci-fi concepts ought to bring. The dialogue itself can be a bit obvious and some stories may be less intriguing than others, but no matter.

This is show is incredibly stylish. Beautifully made. A real work of art. Its really great to see a show of this caliber being produced today, in the age of the short attention span. Granted, you have to be in a certain mood. I watched it over a extended period. If you’re patient, it will certainly reward you.

Some episodes are better than others. I tend to agree with the individual rating on each. It’s not overly complex. Each episodes has its own simple story line, strong in concept. Perhaps not each story is entirely unique in the realms of science fiction, but in this particular setting, it does feel new. It doesn’t rely on effects either, so it’s strong concepts may give it a long life.

A breath of fresh air and an absolute pleasure to watch. Sadly I think the TikTok generation won’t be watching in droves so we may not see a second season. At least there is this. A real achievement.

I really enjoyed this series. It’s slow paced, yes, but it’s tremendous solid too. And in an artistic way also very gripping and thrilling. And I loved the actors.

I salute the makers because they could have went the obvious road and give the audience the usual SciFi stuff they’d conditioned to expect from a show like this. But instead they choose to take us on a journey of some kind of meditation about what really matters in life. And this journey is not only beautiful shot, but offers some great ideas and unexpected turns too. Sometimes as a kind of side note and not as she focus of the show — but that is the whole point: don’t get distracted by the things you might think life is worth living for, let the stars in the sky be the stars, don’t miss in your life what is yet full of awe. And the show never preaches. It’s always showing instead of pointing with the finger or shouting at us. You have to think about it to get it. But it isn’t a far fetched deep secret either. Just go on the journey and let it sink in.

I guess if they had done it a bit more on the nose, the chance for a second season were better. But I’m glad they didn’t — a show like this is nothing you get get to see often. But I sure hope they do another one anyway.

It’s not typical TV series. The ideas inside, the change of action and surprises caused my brain to constantly processing. As a engineer myself, I enjoyed the tech and alternative world. I really hope there will be more season. What a masterpiece!

If you like inception, you will like this one too.

Tales from the Loop is art. From the perfectly timeless visuals to the enduring relationships between the towns’ characters and the sublime music — this series should be in an art gallery.

It is slow, it is melancholy, it is dark, as it should be. It is also sensitive, moving and so very well done. The last episode had me in tears.

Such an antidote to today’s formulaic films. Thank you!

Beneath a small town exists The Loop, a scientific research facility. The townspeople end up experiencing an altered version of reality, where impossible things become possible.

This series had potential, a sci fi series with passing similarities to Stranger Things, Dark, Black Mirror and the original (1959-64) Twilight Zone series, all of which are excellent series. However, it ends up nowhere near as interesting or engaging.

The main problem is that the plots (each episode has a separate one) develop at a snail’s pace. That wouldn’t be so bad if the characters were worth following, but they’re not. Not that they’re dislikeable, they’re just bland.

So you have 1-hour stories that develop very slowly, due to the script being massively padded, with characters that you don’t care about. Makes for very unengaging, dull viewing. Time seemed to slow down while I was watching, like everything was happening in slow motion.

Some of the concepts are interesting but by the time you reach the punchline you’ve already lost interest (and the will to live). It’s like an episode of The Twilight Zone, except the characters are less engaging, the twist is less profound or unexpected and the whole thing takes 60 minutes instead of 24 minutes!

I don’t care that it’s slow and depressing. Lots of truly great films are slow and/or depressing. The pacing and mood of a story doesn’t matter so much, what matters is the destination and the trip along the way. WHAT do the filmmakers have to say and HOW do they say it?

The problem with «Tales from the Loop» is that they have absolutely nothing new to say AND they drag it out. The cinematography is great and the actors do a fine job but they have nothing to work with.

It is literally as if a production company’s president said «Hey this Black Mirror show is killing it, we’d better churn out something like this!» and then his yes-man VP said «Sir, didn’t your kid write some sci-fi short stories in creative writing class? Based off drawings of robots she saw on Reddit?» The show was then immediately green lit.

Every «twist» they utilize has been done before AND been done better AND takes them forever to get to.

• Two kids find an abandoned magic chamber that let’s them switch bodies. One boy convinces the other to trade bodies for the day by promising he will for sure trade bodies back. You’ll never guess what happens!
• Inexplicably not put off by the strange vortexes he’s seen opening in his field, a lonely man continues visiting that field and is — you guessed it — sucked through a vortex to another dimension. The version of him in that dimension has a super hot boyfriend. You’ll never guess what happens!
• A teen girl who grows tired of her boyfriend wishes magical moments could last forever serendipitously finds a time freezing machine on the beach. She freezes time with her exciting new boyfriend, who promises to stay in that moment with her forever guaranteeing constant happiness. You’ll never guess what happens!

Every episode has about ten minutes of poorly conceived story stretched out to an hour, with no real reason to do so other than to pad the screen time.

Characters behave completely irrationally, and questions are posed but never answered. I know unanswered questions can be great in and of themselves, but for this show they are a total crutch. This isn’t Kubrickian, it’s just people writing scripts who literally have nothing to say and no point to make.

Also, there are not many characters who an audience will find likable or even identify with. That’s a serious problem considering how much time we spend with them… in scenes that linger on and on and on…

For all the strange goings-on in this town, nobody ever seeks help from each other. They rarely have logical reactions and never take actions or attempt solutions that any human being in their position would. The most glaring example would be The Loop organization itself. They apparently just leave robots, powerful devices and magical chambers just lying all over the place, no matter how dangerous, for anyone to find. The fuel rods that power this equipment are readily available and so not secure that children literally steal them.

Strange things keep happening, and not one person ever thinks to say «gee whiz, you know that Loop we’re always mentioning where they do mysterious stuff underground? Why don’t we go tell them about the problem? Or ask them for help?» The children and grandchildren of the man who RUNS the place don’t even think to ask grandpa for information or help. This show isn’t just tedious, it’s infuriatingly stupid at many points.

This series is a whole lot of waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen, that you know is going to happen, then it finally happens, then you wait for something else to happen, then nothing happens. Roll credits.

Every episode is a cliche. For example: «Is the robot monster a monster, or is the real monster… MAN?»

Here’s everything that happens in one entire hour long episode (MILD SPOILERS): A man thinks a guy broke into his home. Instead of paying for much needed repairs he buys a robot from a junkyard to protect his lawn. His neighbours are upset, apparently forgetting that these machines are all over the damn place. The police ask him to stop standing in his yard with a robot but he says no. He never catches the bad guy but almost punches his deaf daughter with the robot, so his wife gets mad and leaves. He sells the robot and fixes the house, so his wife comes back. The end.

I am incredibly disappointed by this series because a lot of good work was put into it. There aren’t a ton of effects (given the source material I expected a hell of a lot more robots than just a couple scenes hiding behind trees in the woods), but the effects they did use are very well done. The actors aren’t stupendous but a lot of that could be due to the huge deficiencies they were dealing with script-wise, and possibly poor direction as well.

This series is pretentious and a huge, huge opportunity wasted. It could have been a truly great anthology series if they simply had capable writers who had an actual story to tell.

Edit, one month later. After 3 episodes we quit watching, it just didn’t interest us enough to watch more. Not that it is a bad show, but we couldn’t see an interesting story unfold and there are lots of other shows to watch.

Original impressions, one month earlier: My wife and I have started watching this on Amazon streaming, two of the eight episodes down so far. My initial impression — it is interesting but hardly anything is explained. Very unusual things happen, presumably related to something going on below ground in «The Loop» where locals work. Is this set in the future, or in some parallel universe? This sort of approach worked fine in shows like «Twilight Zone» back in the 1960s but today’s audiences, I think, require some connection, some explanation.

This is the type of series that requires great viewer trust, that is trust that by the time all episodes are watched some sort of overall story, an interesting story, has emerged. If not, if these just turn out to be interesting but shallow episodes then I will be very upset with the producers of the show. Upset for betraying my trust. Eight hours is a long time to spend just watching interesting things without some rhyme and reason to tie it all together.

It is probably not the science-fiction series that is going to change the world of science fiction, but it is fascinating in many ways because of some surprising elements that you feel are not correct, are mentally disturbing.

The fact that the science and technology of this new modern world is underground is disturbing and yet not so much after all. It is disturbing because science and technology that are going to dictate our future have to be debated by the people and the people have to be informed about what is happening, what is coming tomorrow, what has already been in its own coming for years or even decades. And there is no real information or discussion in this world. Science and technology are nothing but a mysterious and secret underground reality, meaning an under-mental world. You people do not need to have information or to discuss it. Just take what you can out of it.

But that’s not so much, after all, when compared to the next elements.

First, you can change time, back to the past, or forward to the future, or even into another universe that is simply disconnected from any other world. We thus can have a young teenage girl meeting herself as an adult and a mother of two children. You can also freeze time for everyone except you if you are protected against this change by some contraption. That leads to very disturbing, at times very revealing confrontation with yourself, with the reality of the world that you have changed, that has been changed, revealing in you a depth, a dark and frightening depth, made up of racism, segregation, rejection of others, extremely selfish and egocentric demands, or expectations, etc. What about you, a young adult, meeting in another world with yourself at the same age, but that has realized your desire for some gay relationship with a phantasmagoric character you only found a picture of somewhere in an abandoned machine that is the gate to that other world, though it only works one way. Add to that the fact you are black and the person you desire is a white man. Racism and gay narcissistic jealousy or exclusive desire, all that in this relationship.

But there might be a lot more dramatic events when an average but scientifically brilliant teenager exchanges his personality with a brilliant artistic person directly connected with the Loop, this underground scientific dictatorship named the Loop. And this exchange cannot be worked back because the scientifically brilliant teenager had no connection and was destined to be a mediocre shovel operator, whereas after his exchange he was destined to become an important member of the Loop, due to his new relationship with it through his newly acquired grandfather and mother. The desire of Jakob, the teenager whose personality this Danny stole, to get his identity back goes against the will of Danny, newly transformed into Jakob, who sees an opportunity for his future he would not have if he went back to being Danny. So, fate is a monster and Jakob is turned into a robot, a scavenging scrapper, with no scrap to deal with anyway, hence a machine condemned to rot away in nature. And what’s more this scrapper will end up broken and dead.

I must say this play with time is very surprising, though it is like SMS text communication with messages coming from we do not know where, from we do not know whom, and we just enter the text and its time, its surrounding, its characters as if it were real even when it is totally paranoid and outlandish. This is the world of tomorrow managed by an Artificial Intelligence that is totally unknown, incomprehensible, beyond any control or restraint, and unquestionable. The dictatorship of this Artificial Intelligence is the worst possible future we can imagine, and this series gives us this future world with a good amount of people dying here and there in this world or another, hence dying eventually several times. The gay theme added to this vision is maybe the only element that is mundane, humane, and by far going beyond the purely mechanical and absolutely cold world with which we are confronted.

We’ll see if there is a second season soon and if the only central author, producer, and director is able to get to a higher level or a deeper depth of humanity in this frighteningly inhumane vision of our future. And I can’t erase from my mental eyes the people demonstrating in my village in the mountains against the building of a 4G, eventually later on 5G, telecommunications tower, all of them with their smartphones in their hands calling people to the demonstration, with SMS texts that could only reach the world thanks to the tower they were demonstrating against. Ô, you unnamed nameless mindlessness!

VERSION FRANÇAISE

Ce n’est probablement pas la série de science-fiction qui va changer le monde de la science-fiction, mais elle est fascinante à bien des égards en raison de certains éléments surprenants qui vous semblent incorrects, qui sont mentalement dérangeants.

Le fait que la science et la technologie de ce nouveau monde moderne soient souterraines est troublant et pourtant pas tant que ça après tout. C’est inquiétant parce que la science et la technologie qui vont dicter notre avenir doivent être débattues par les gens et les gens doivent être informés de ce qui se passe, de ce qui va arriver demain, de ce qui est déjà en train de se produire depuis des années, voire des décennies. Et il n’y a pas de véritable information ou discussion dans ce monde. La science et la technologie ne sont rien d’autre qu’une réalité souterraine mystérieuse et secrète, c’est-à-dire un monde sous-mental, mentalement atrophié. Vous, les gens, n’avez pas besoin d’avoir des informations ou d’en discuter. Prenez juste ce que vous pouvez en tirer et que la maître souterrain vous laisse prendre.

Mais ce n’est pas grand-chose, après tout, si on compare cela aux éléments suivants.

Tout d’abord, vous pouvez changer le temps, remonter dans le passé, ou avancer dans le futur, ou même dans un autre univers qui est simplement déconnecté de tout autre monde. On peut ainsi avoir une jeune adolescente qui se retrouve en face d’elle même adulte et mère de deux enfants. Vous pouvez également figer le temps pour tout le monde, sauf pour vous, si vous êtes protégé contre ce changement par un dispositif quelconque. Cela conduit à une confrontation très perturbante, parfois très révélatrice, avec vous-même, avec la réalité du monde que vous avez changé, qui a été changé, révélant en vous une profondeur, une sombre et effrayante profondeur, faite de racisme, de ségrégation, de rejet des autres, d’exigences ou d’attentes égoïstes et égocentriques extrêmes, etc. Qu’en est-il de vous, jeune adulte, qui vous retrouvez dans un autre monde avec vous-même au même âge, mais qui avez réalisé votre désir d’une relation gay avec un personnage fantasmagorique dont vous avez seulement trouvé une photo quelque part dans une machine abandonnée qui est la porte de cet autre monde, bien qu’elle ne fonctionne que dans un sens. Ajoutez à cela le fait que vous êtes noir et que la personne que vous désirez est un homme blanc. Racisme et jalousie narcissique gay ou désir exclusif, tout ça dans cette relation.

Mais il peut y avoir des événements beaucoup plus dramatiques lorsqu’un adolescent moyen mais scientifiquement brillant échange sa personnalité avec une personne artistique brillante directement liée au Loop, cette dictature scientifique souterraine nommée le Loop. Et cet échange est irréversible, car l’adolescent scientifiquement brillant n’avait aucune connexion et était destiné à être un médiocre manipulateur de pelle ou fossoyeur, alors qu’après son échange, il était destiné à devenir un membre important du Loop, en raison de sa nouvelle relation avec elle par l’intermédiaire de son grand-père et de sa mère nouvellement acquis. Le désir de Jakob, l’adolescent dont ce Danny a volé la personnalité, de récupérer son identité va à l’encontre de la volonté de Danny, nouvellement transformé en Jakob, qui voit une opportunité pour son avenir qu’il n’aurait pas s’il redevenait Danny. Ainsi, le destin est un monstre et Jakob est transformé en robot ferrailleur, qui n’a pas de ferraille à gérer de toute façon, donc une machine condamnée à pourrir dans la nature. Et qui plus est, ce ferrailleur finira brisé et mort.

Je dois dire que ce jeu avec le temps est très surprenant, bien qu’il s’agisse d’une communication par SMS avec des messages venant on ne sait d’où, on ne sait de qui, et on entre dans le SMS et son temps, son environnement, ses personnages comme si c’était réel même si c’est totalement paranoïaque et farfelu. C’est le monde de demain géré par une Intelligence Artificielle totalement inconnue, incompréhensible, hors de tout contrôle et de toute contrainte, et incontestable. La dictature de cette Intelligence Artificielle est le pire futur possible que l’on puisse imaginer, et cette série nous donne ce monde futur avec une bonne quantité de personnes mourant ici et là dans ce monde ou un autre, donc mourant finalement plusieurs fois. Le thème gay ajouté à cette vision est peut-être le seul élément qui est banal, humain et qui va de loin au-delà du monde purement mécanique et absolument froid auquel nous sommes confrontés.

Nous verrons s’il y a une deuxième saison bientôt, et si le seul auteur, producteur et réalisateur central est capable d’atteindre un niveau supérieur ou une profondeur plus profonde d’humanité dans cette vision effroyablement inhumaine de notre avenir. Et je ne peux pas effacer de mes yeux mentaux les gens qui manifestaient dans mon village le mois dernier dans mon Massif Central contre la construction d’une tour de télécommunications 4G, éventuellement plus tard 5G, tous avec leurs smartphones à la main appelant les gens à la manifestation, avec des SMS qui ne pouvaient atteindre le monde que grâce à la tour contre laquelle ils manifestaient. Ô bêtise innommable !

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU.

Just for a moment it felt like the old late 50’s early 60’s Sci-Fi anthologies read by a teenager in the 70’s, then it wasn’t. I get it, some people like watching clouds drift by, I do sometimes, but not all the time. There’s slow then there’s ponderous and repetitive.

The whole show was inspired by an artist’s retro futuristic imagery, which sounds great in a pitch meeting I guess, but when put to moving pictures it falls short and always will.

The characters are an imitation of real people, that could have worked, but they just seem dull, immature, detached or inexplicably irrational.
The «Sci-Fi» ideas aren’t new, that’s why I can’t understand how they managed to balls it up, they have so much material to borrow from.

The show wants to be a slow meal thoroughly enjoyed, but the chefs weren’t up to the task. Some will enjoy this, but it left me hungry for something with more flavour.

If you’re a fan of sci-fi, art and the bigger questions in life, you will enjoy this.

If you’re looking for mindless or predictable action based sci-fi, this is not for you.

Amazon’s TV series ‘Tales from the Loop’ is set in a rural 1970s Ohio where some experimental physics research is going on at an underground facility called The Loop. This has resulted in the surrounding countryside being littered with futuristic gizmos irresponsibly dumped by the scientists. The narratives derived from this scenario are old-fashioned Twilight Zone fables which seem to last much longer than their 60-minute running time. Instead of unsettling enigmas, the tales are schmaltzy, the characters dull, the pacing glacial, the dialog clunky and the directing ponderous. Schoolkids are the protagonists in several segments, with the actors mostly delivering stilted performances, although much of their awkwardness could be the director’s fault.

The project was inspired by Simon Stalenhag’s striking landscape paintings of monstrous rusting robots looming over the suburbs, seashores, strip malls and wildernesses of a semi-dystopian America. The artist created eerie and threatening imagery portraying these mechanical behemoths wandering aimlessly on unimaginable missions or else as broken down derelicts. Presumably due to budget limitations, the machines which feature so prominently in the paintings, make only fleeting appearances in the TV episodes. Although Stalenhag is credited as one of the writers, these stories are almost devoid of the mysterious element present in his artwork.

The retro-futuristic and immeasurably cozy paintings of Simon Stålenhag have been given life by Amazon Prime. Thanks to my dad, who obtained the Tales from the Loop artbook (org. title Ur Varselklotet) when it was brand new (he may even have donated to its crowdfunding campaign), I’ve had a good look into Stålenhag’s dreamlike alternate past before.

My brother once referred to Stålenhag’s peculiar art style as «Sweden punk», where we’ll scan our eyeballs over familiar rural environments until, suddenly, some sort of technological behemoth appears. It may be a strange, defunct machine (that nevertheless looks as if Volvo or Stiga could realistically design it) next to a quaint Scandinavian meadow, or a vast spacecraft hovering over a dimly lit torp in the December twilight.

Amazon brings all of this to life with an anthology, each episode nonetheless set in the same continuity, directed by the likes of Andrew Stanton and Jodie Foster (a good choice after her work on Black Mirror) and scored in part by Philip Glass — his haunting, repetitive-but-beautiful tunes as distinctive as ever. The cast includes Jonathan Pryce and Rebecca Hall, who put it best when she said in an interview that the characters genuinely seem to inhabit a universe larger than themselves. The landscape around them clearly has history, even when it isn’t expositorily stated.

On that note, the «retro» part of the retro-futurism is also in the characters, including young children who are often more astute than the adults — it shares this with Stranger Things, another nostalgic streaming-original, but I currently think Tales from the Loop is better, partly because of how farcical Things has gotten. Early on, Loretta (Abby Ryder Fortson) and Cole (Duncan Joiner) are curious of the mysteries surrounding The Loop, a scientific facility in their area that seems to dabble in the unnatural.

One of the problems I had with the series is that, possibly due to the episodic structure, certain big revelations seem to come quite early in the show’s run. Let me elaborate: In the very first episode, we learn something shocking about two of the main characters, akin to one of the most existentially devastating twists in the Netflix masterpiece Dark, but since we don’t yet know these people that well, it isn’t as impactful as it could have been. Instead, the second episode moves on to a different (somewhat better-acted) story involving the effects of The Loop, starring a tertiary character from the prior story.

However, accepting the show and the format for what it is, ’tis certainly a charming expedition into the mind of Stålenhag. The book and the artwork are faithfully adapted (including the way the characters are cast, then costumed and groomed) by head writer and developer Nathaniel Halpern, but I gather Stålenhag himself was heavily involved (complete with an on-screen cameo). He even submitted a title card animation, pictured above, «as a suggestion» and they wound up using it.

It just warms my hollow ribcage when an artist gets to realize their vision in this manner, aided by people who demonstrably give a damn. Tales from the Loop, not unlike the Netflix series Love, Death + Robots, is one of those shows that truly prove what a safe space the streaming world is for auteurs, enabled to enrich us with something new instead of sticking to a marketable studio-imposed formula.

If shows like these become successful enough, ginormous studios may learn that providing something new and original is the way to go (people sometimes argue that recent Lucasfilm and Marvel movies do represent an artist’s vision, hence their controversy compared to other «factory-made» sequels, but I remain skeptical that Disney would truly allow freedom, or deem controversy as anything other than useful PR). I will certainly do my part and tell you this much: please check out Tales from the Loop. It’s a visually inventive and fun watch that touches on the «larger» life questions that sci-fi concepts ought to bring. The dialogue itself can be a bit obvious and some stories may be less intriguing than others, but no matter.

This is show is incredibly stylish. Beautifully made. A real work of art. Its really great to see a show of this caliber being produced today, in the age of the short attention span. Granted, you have to be in a certain mood. I watched it over a extended period. If you’re patient, it will certainly reward you.

Some episodes are better than others. I tend to agree with the individual rating on each. It’s not overly complex. Each episodes has its own simple story line, strong in concept. Perhaps not each story is entirely unique in the realms of science fiction, but in this particular setting, it does feel new. It doesn’t rely on effects either, so it’s strong concepts may give it a long life.

A breath of fresh air and an absolute pleasure to watch. Sadly I think the TikTok generation won’t be watching in droves so we may not see a second season. At least there is this. A real achievement.

I really enjoyed this series. It’s slow paced, yes, but it’s tremendous solid too. And in an artistic way also very gripping and thrilling. And I loved the actors.

I salute the makers because they could have went the obvious road and give the audience the usual SciFi stuff they’d conditioned to expect from a show like this. But instead they choose to take us on a journey of some kind of meditation about what really matters in life. And this journey is not only beautiful shot, but offers some great ideas and unexpected turns too. Sometimes as a kind of side note and not as she focus of the show — but that is the whole point: don’t get distracted by the things you might think life is worth living for, let the stars in the sky be the stars, don’t miss in your life what is yet full of awe. And the show never preaches. It’s always showing instead of pointing with the finger or shouting at us. You have to think about it to get it. But it isn’t a far fetched deep secret either. Just go on the journey and let it sink in.

I guess if they had done it a bit more on the nose, the chance for a second season were better. But I’m glad they didn’t — a show like this is nothing you get get to see often. But I sure hope they do another one anyway.

It’s not typical TV series. The ideas inside, the change of action and surprises caused my brain to constantly processing. As a engineer myself, I enjoyed the tech and alternative world. I really hope there will be more season. What a masterpiece!

If you like inception, you will like this one too.

Tales from the Loop is art. From the perfectly timeless visuals to the enduring relationships between the towns’ characters and the sublime music — this series should be in an art gallery.

It is slow, it is melancholy, it is dark, as it should be. It is also sensitive, moving and so very well done. The last episode had me in tears.

Such an antidote to today’s formulaic films. Thank you!

Beneath a small town exists The Loop, a scientific research facility. The townspeople end up experiencing an altered version of reality, where impossible things become possible.

This series had potential, a sci fi series with passing similarities to Stranger Things, Dark, Black Mirror and the original (1959-64) Twilight Zone series, all of which are excellent series. However, it ends up nowhere near as interesting or engaging.

The main problem is that the plots (each episode has a separate one) develop at a snail’s pace. That wouldn’t be so bad if the characters were worth following, but they’re not. Not that they’re dislikeable, they’re just bland.

So you have 1-hour stories that develop very slowly, due to the script being massively padded, with characters that you don’t care about. Makes for very unengaging, dull viewing. Time seemed to slow down while I was watching, like everything was happening in slow motion.

Some of the concepts are interesting but by the time you reach the punchline you’ve already lost interest (and the will to live). It’s like an episode of The Twilight Zone, except the characters are less engaging, the twist is less profound or unexpected and the whole thing takes 60 minutes instead of 24 minutes!

I don’t care that it’s slow and depressing. Lots of truly great films are slow and/or depressing. The pacing and mood of a story doesn’t matter so much, what matters is the destination and the trip along the way. WHAT do the filmmakers have to say and HOW do they say it?

The problem with «Tales from the Loop» is that they have absolutely nothing new to say AND they drag it out. The cinematography is great and the actors do a fine job but they have nothing to work with.

It is literally as if a production company’s president said «Hey this Black Mirror show is killing it, we’d better churn out something like this!» and then his yes-man VP said «Sir, didn’t your kid write some sci-fi short stories in creative writing class? Based off drawings of robots she saw on Reddit?» The show was then immediately green lit.

Every «twist» they utilize has been done before AND been done better AND takes them forever to get to.

• Two kids find an abandoned magic chamber that let’s them switch bodies. One boy convinces the other to trade bodies for the day by promising he will for sure trade bodies back. You’ll never guess what happens!
• Inexplicably not put off by the strange vortexes he’s seen opening in his field, a lonely man continues visiting that field and is — you guessed it — sucked through a vortex to another dimension. The version of him in that dimension has a super hot boyfriend. You’ll never guess what happens!
• A teen girl who grows tired of her boyfriend wishes magical moments could last forever serendipitously finds a time freezing machine on the beach. She freezes time with her exciting new boyfriend, who promises to stay in that moment with her forever guaranteeing constant happiness. You’ll never guess what happens!

Every episode has about ten minutes of poorly conceived story stretched out to an hour, with no real reason to do so other than to pad the screen time.

Characters behave completely irrationally, and questions are posed but never answered. I know unanswered questions can be great in and of themselves, but for this show they are a total crutch. This isn’t Kubrickian, it’s just people writing scripts who literally have nothing to say and no point to make.

Also, there are not many characters who an audience will find likable or even identify with. That’s a serious problem considering how much time we spend with them… in scenes that linger on and on and on…

For all the strange goings-on in this town, nobody ever seeks help from each other. They rarely have logical reactions and never take actions or attempt solutions that any human being in their position would. The most glaring example would be The Loop organization itself. They apparently just leave robots, powerful devices and magical chambers just lying all over the place, no matter how dangerous, for anyone to find. The fuel rods that power this equipment are readily available and so not secure that children literally steal them.

Strange things keep happening, and not one person ever thinks to say «gee whiz, you know that Loop we’re always mentioning where they do mysterious stuff underground? Why don’t we go tell them about the problem? Or ask them for help?» The children and grandchildren of the man who RUNS the place don’t even think to ask grandpa for information or help. This show isn’t just tedious, it’s infuriatingly stupid at many points.

This series is a whole lot of waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen, that you know is going to happen, then it finally happens, then you wait for something else to happen, then nothing happens. Roll credits.

Every episode is a cliche. For example: «Is the robot monster a monster, or is the real monster… MAN?»

Here’s everything that happens in one entire hour long episode (MILD SPOILERS): A man thinks a guy broke into his home. Instead of paying for much needed repairs he buys a robot from a junkyard to protect his lawn. His neighbours are upset, apparently forgetting that these machines are all over the damn place. The police ask him to stop standing in his yard with a robot but he says no. He never catches the bad guy but almost punches his deaf daughter with the robot, so his wife gets mad and leaves. He sells the robot and fixes the house, so his wife comes back. The end.

I am incredibly disappointed by this series because a lot of good work was put into it. There aren’t a ton of effects (given the source material I expected a hell of a lot more robots than just a couple scenes hiding behind trees in the woods), but the effects they did use are very well done. The actors aren’t stupendous but a lot of that could be due to the huge deficiencies they were dealing with script-wise, and possibly poor direction as well.

This series is pretentious and a huge, huge opportunity wasted. It could have been a truly great anthology series if they simply had capable writers who had an actual story to tell.

Edit, one month later. After 3 episodes we quit watching, it just didn’t interest us enough to watch more. Not that it is a bad show, but we couldn’t see an interesting story unfold and there are lots of other shows to watch.

Original impressions, one month earlier: My wife and I have started watching this on Amazon streaming, two of the eight episodes down so far. My initial impression — it is interesting but hardly anything is explained. Very unusual things happen, presumably related to something going on below ground in «The Loop» where locals work. Is this set in the future, or in some parallel universe? This sort of approach worked fine in shows like «Twilight Zone» back in the 1960s but today’s audiences, I think, require some connection, some explanation.

This is the type of series that requires great viewer trust, that is trust that by the time all episodes are watched some sort of overall story, an interesting story, has emerged. If not, if these just turn out to be interesting but shallow episodes then I will be very upset with the producers of the show. Upset for betraying my trust. Eight hours is a long time to spend just watching interesting things without some rhyme and reason to tie it all together.

It is probably not the science-fiction series that is going to change the world of science fiction, but it is fascinating in many ways because of some surprising elements that you feel are not correct, are mentally disturbing.

The fact that the science and technology of this new modern world is underground is disturbing and yet not so much after all. It is disturbing because science and technology that are going to dictate our future have to be debated by the people and the people have to be informed about what is happening, what is coming tomorrow, what has already been in its own coming for years or even decades. And there is no real information or discussion in this world. Science and technology are nothing but a mysterious and secret underground reality, meaning an under-mental world. You people do not need to have information or to discuss it. Just take what you can out of it.

But that’s not so much, after all, when compared to the next elements.

First, you can change time, back to the past, or forward to the future, or even into another universe that is simply disconnected from any other world. We thus can have a young teenage girl meeting herself as an adult and a mother of two children. You can also freeze time for everyone except you if you are protected against this change by some contraption. That leads to very disturbing, at times very revealing confrontation with yourself, with the reality of the world that you have changed, that has been changed, revealing in you a depth, a dark and frightening depth, made up of racism, segregation, rejection of others, extremely selfish and egocentric demands, or expectations, etc. What about you, a young adult, meeting in another world with yourself at the same age, but that has realized your desire for some gay relationship with a phantasmagoric character you only found a picture of somewhere in an abandoned machine that is the gate to that other world, though it only works one way. Add to that the fact you are black and the person you desire is a white man. Racism and gay narcissistic jealousy or exclusive desire, all that in this relationship.

But there might be a lot more dramatic events when an average but scientifically brilliant teenager exchanges his personality with a brilliant artistic person directly connected with the Loop, this underground scientific dictatorship named the Loop. And this exchange cannot be worked back because the scientifically brilliant teenager had no connection and was destined to be a mediocre shovel operator, whereas after his exchange he was destined to become an important member of the Loop, due to his new relationship with it through his newly acquired grandfather and mother. The desire of Jakob, the teenager whose personality this Danny stole, to get his identity back goes against the will of Danny, newly transformed into Jakob, who sees an opportunity for his future he would not have if he went back to being Danny. So, fate is a monster and Jakob is turned into a robot, a scavenging scrapper, with no scrap to deal with anyway, hence a machine condemned to rot away in nature. And what’s more this scrapper will end up broken and dead.

I must say this play with time is very surprising, though it is like SMS text communication with messages coming from we do not know where, from we do not know whom, and we just enter the text and its time, its surrounding, its characters as if it were real even when it is totally paranoid and outlandish. This is the world of tomorrow managed by an Artificial Intelligence that is totally unknown, incomprehensible, beyond any control or restraint, and unquestionable. The dictatorship of this Artificial Intelligence is the worst possible future we can imagine, and this series gives us this future world with a good amount of people dying here and there in this world or another, hence dying eventually several times. The gay theme added to this vision is maybe the only element that is mundane, humane, and by far going beyond the purely mechanical and absolutely cold world with which we are confronted.

We’ll see if there is a second season soon and if the only central author, producer, and director is able to get to a higher level or a deeper depth of humanity in this frighteningly inhumane vision of our future. And I can’t erase from my mental eyes the people demonstrating in my village in the mountains against the building of a 4G, eventually later on 5G, telecommunications tower, all of them with their smartphones in their hands calling people to the demonstration, with SMS texts that could only reach the world thanks to the tower they were demonstrating against. Ô, you unnamed nameless mindlessness!

VERSION FRANÇAISE

Ce n’est probablement pas la série de science-fiction qui va changer le monde de la science-fiction, mais elle est fascinante à bien des égards en raison de certains éléments surprenants qui vous semblent incorrects, qui sont mentalement dérangeants.

Le fait que la science et la technologie de ce nouveau monde moderne soient souterraines est troublant et pourtant pas tant que ça après tout. C’est inquiétant parce que la science et la technologie qui vont dicter notre avenir doivent être débattues par les gens et les gens doivent être informés de ce qui se passe, de ce qui va arriver demain, de ce qui est déjà en train de se produire depuis des années, voire des décennies. Et il n’y a pas de véritable information ou discussion dans ce monde. La science et la technologie ne sont rien d’autre qu’une réalité souterraine mystérieuse et secrète, c’est-à-dire un monde sous-mental, mentalement atrophié. Vous, les gens, n’avez pas besoin d’avoir des informations ou d’en discuter. Prenez juste ce que vous pouvez en tirer et que la maître souterrain vous laisse prendre.

Mais ce n’est pas grand-chose, après tout, si on compare cela aux éléments suivants.

Tout d’abord, vous pouvez changer le temps, remonter dans le passé, ou avancer dans le futur, ou même dans un autre univers qui est simplement déconnecté de tout autre monde. On peut ainsi avoir une jeune adolescente qui se retrouve en face d’elle même adulte et mère de deux enfants. Vous pouvez également figer le temps pour tout le monde, sauf pour vous, si vous êtes protégé contre ce changement par un dispositif quelconque. Cela conduit à une confrontation très perturbante, parfois très révélatrice, avec vous-même, avec la réalité du monde que vous avez changé, qui a été changé, révélant en vous une profondeur, une sombre et effrayante profondeur, faite de racisme, de ségrégation, de rejet des autres, d’exigences ou d’attentes égoïstes et égocentriques extrêmes, etc. Qu’en est-il de vous, jeune adulte, qui vous retrouvez dans un autre monde avec vous-même au même âge, mais qui avez réalisé votre désir d’une relation gay avec un personnage fantasmagorique dont vous avez seulement trouvé une photo quelque part dans une machine abandonnée qui est la porte de cet autre monde, bien qu’elle ne fonctionne que dans un sens. Ajoutez à cela le fait que vous êtes noir et que la personne que vous désirez est un homme blanc. Racisme et jalousie narcissique gay ou désir exclusif, tout ça dans cette relation.

Mais il peut y avoir des événements beaucoup plus dramatiques lorsqu’un adolescent moyen mais scientifiquement brillant échange sa personnalité avec une personne artistique brillante directement liée au Loop, cette dictature scientifique souterraine nommée le Loop. Et cet échange est irréversible, car l’adolescent scientifiquement brillant n’avait aucune connexion et était destiné à être un médiocre manipulateur de pelle ou fossoyeur, alors qu’après son échange, il était destiné à devenir un membre important du Loop, en raison de sa nouvelle relation avec elle par l’intermédiaire de son grand-père et de sa mère nouvellement acquis. Le désir de Jakob, l’adolescent dont ce Danny a volé la personnalité, de récupérer son identité va à l’encontre de la volonté de Danny, nouvellement transformé en Jakob, qui voit une opportunité pour son avenir qu’il n’aurait pas s’il redevenait Danny. Ainsi, le destin est un monstre et Jakob est transformé en robot ferrailleur, qui n’a pas de ferraille à gérer de toute façon, donc une machine condamnée à pourrir dans la nature. Et qui plus est, ce ferrailleur finira brisé et mort.

Je dois dire que ce jeu avec le temps est très surprenant, bien qu’il s’agisse d’une communication par SMS avec des messages venant on ne sait d’où, on ne sait de qui, et on entre dans le SMS et son temps, son environnement, ses personnages comme si c’était réel même si c’est totalement paranoïaque et farfelu. C’est le monde de demain géré par une Intelligence Artificielle totalement inconnue, incompréhensible, hors de tout contrôle et de toute contrainte, et incontestable. La dictature de cette Intelligence Artificielle est le pire futur possible que l’on puisse imaginer, et cette série nous donne ce monde futur avec une bonne quantité de personnes mourant ici et là dans ce monde ou un autre, donc mourant finalement plusieurs fois. Le thème gay ajouté à cette vision est peut-être le seul élément qui est banal, humain et qui va de loin au-delà du monde purement mécanique et absolument froid auquel nous sommes confrontés.

Nous verrons s’il y a une deuxième saison bientôt, et si le seul auteur, producteur et réalisateur central est capable d’atteindre un niveau supérieur ou une profondeur plus profonde d’humanité dans cette vision effroyablement inhumaine de notre avenir. Et je ne peux pas effacer de mes yeux mentaux les gens qui manifestaient dans mon village le mois dernier dans mon Massif Central contre la construction d’une tour de télécommunications 4G, éventuellement plus tard 5G, tous avec leurs smartphones à la main appelant les gens à la manifestation, avec des SMS qui ne pouvaient atteindre le monde que grâce à la tour contre laquelle ils manifestaient. Ô bêtise innommable !

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU.

Just for a moment it felt like the old late 50’s early 60’s Sci-Fi anthologies read by a teenager in the 70’s, then it wasn’t. I get it, some people like watching clouds drift by, I do sometimes, but not all the time. There’s slow then there’s ponderous and repetitive.

The whole show was inspired by an artist’s retro futuristic imagery, which sounds great in a pitch meeting I guess, but when put to moving pictures it falls short and always will.

The characters are an imitation of real people, that could have worked, but they just seem dull, immature, detached or inexplicably irrational.
The «Sci-Fi» ideas aren’t new, that’s why I can’t understand how they managed to balls it up, they have so much material to borrow from.

The show wants to be a slow meal thoroughly enjoyed, but the chefs weren’t up to the task. Some will enjoy this, but it left me hungry for something with more flavour.

If you’re a fan of sci-fi, art and the bigger questions in life, you will enjoy this.

If you’re looking for mindless or predictable action based sci-fi, this is not for you.

Amazon’s TV series ‘Tales from the Loop’ is set in a rural 1970s Ohio where some experimental physics research is going on at an underground facility called The Loop. This has resulted in the surrounding countryside being littered with futuristic gizmos irresponsibly dumped by the scientists. The narratives derived from this scenario are old-fashioned Twilight Zone fables which seem to last much longer than their 60-minute running time. Instead of unsettling enigmas, the tales are schmaltzy, the characters dull, the pacing glacial, the dialog clunky and the directing ponderous. Schoolkids are the protagonists in several segments, with the actors mostly delivering stilted performances, although much of their awkwardness could be the director’s fault.

The project was inspired by Simon Stalenhag’s striking landscape paintings of monstrous rusting robots looming over the suburbs, seashores, strip malls and wildernesses of a semi-dystopian America. The artist created eerie and threatening imagery portraying these mechanical behemoths wandering aimlessly on unimaginable missions or else as broken down derelicts. Presumably due to budget limitations, the machines which feature so prominently in the paintings, make only fleeting appearances in the TV episodes. Although Stalenhag is credited as one of the writers, these stories are almost devoid of the mysterious element present in his artwork.