This Sci-Fi Series Blends The Genre With Quiet, Heartbreaking Drama
Nathaniel Halpern’s Tales from the Loop is a strange addition to the sci-fi genre that may have flown under most audiences' radar. The Amazon prime original, based on the paintings by Simon Stålenhag, is a wonderfully slow-paced science fiction drama that finds itself sitting comfortably in a world slightly adjacent to our own. It follows the Stranger Things not quite 80s vibe, all while doing something remarkably unique. The program is a beautiful and heartfelt character-centric drama that uses the stage of science fiction in an unfamiliar and exciting way.
The sci-fi elements take the form of wandering robots, strange metallic relics, and mythical creatures, that all seem to be mysterious consequences of ‘The Loop,’ an underground facility in Mersa Ohio, which is devoted to the study of a strange artifact - a giant floating rock formation that seems to have a heartbeat. The mysteries of what this thing is, and how it is affecting the small town seem not only insignificant to the citizens, strangely complacent in the oddness surrounding them, but also to the writers. The strange and fantastical science fiction act as an almost throwaway backdrop for what the program is really about: people.
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The program is an anthology, each episode focusing on a different character, similar to the style of Mike Flannagan's projects. What’s refreshing about this is that the protagonist of one story has often been a minor character in another, constantly self-referencing and linking the lives of the townspeople. Switching between protagonists like that, all while keeping the faces audiences have grown to know in the sidelines, keeps the show exciting, constantly encouraging
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