Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Tales From The Loop’ On Amazon Prime, A Sci Fi Drama About People From A Town Controlled By A Machine

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a series based on a book of art, but Tales From The Loop is just that, based on a book of paintings and stories by Simon Stålenhag, one of the show’s executive producers. The book was also turned into a role-playing game; it was adapted for television by Nathaniel Halpern (Legion). Does it do a good job of brining Stålenhag’s images to life?

TALES FROM THE LOOP: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An older man says “Good evening… or good morning, depending on where you reside.” He introduces himself as Russ Willard (Jonathan Pryce), the founder of the Mercer Center for Experimental Physics, constructed underneath the town of Mercer, Ohio. It’s nickname locally is “The Loop.”

The Gist: The Loop’s purpose is “to unlock and explore the mysteries of the universe.” Tales From The Loop is an anthology of sorts, where we see stories from different people around the town of Mercer, who are connected to The Loop in one way or another.

We start with a girl named Loretta (Abby Ryder Fortson), who loves exploring around where she lives with her mother Alma (Elektra Kilbey). She’s a smart kid, but her mind often wanders. Her curiosity often leads her to finding and hearing things that other kids just don’t notice, like the grinding noise she hears when she puts her ears to a dock on the local lake. When she comes home, she overhears someone arguing with her mother over a piece of equipment she took from the MCEP, where she works. Alma tells Loretta that she wanted it for an experiment. But that experiment not only shuts off the power, but breaks a window when it flies out.

Later the next day, she sees that rock outside her house. When she touches it, though, she sees Alma in the distance… then she’s gone. She roams the woods looking for her and encounters a kid named Cole (Duncan Joiner), throwing snowballs at a huge robot. She takes him to a cabin that seems to be dissolving in front of her eyes. They also go to where her house is supposed to be, and that’s missing, too. When she tells Cole that her mother worked “underground,” he knows that his family can help.

We meet his mother, also named Loretta (Rebecca Hall), who just happens to be the daughter-in-law of Russ Willard, who also lives with them. His father George (Paul Schneider) has a weird robot arm, and his older brother Jakob (Daniel Zolghadri) does older brother stuff. When Cole and Loretta go to the MCEP looking for Alma, the guard says she doesn’t work there, but ends up giving the older Loretta a call about it, sending her into an emotional spiral.

When the young Loretta and the older Loretta run into each other, they both realize they have an unusual connection. And that connection inevitably is involved with both Alma and The Eclipse, the seemingly sentient machine that runs The Loop.

Our Take: Halpern takes a deliberate pace when telling the stories of the people in Mercer, Ohio. What we’re afraid of is that the pace is a little too deliberate, even if the stories themselves have the potential to be compelling under different circumstances.

There is intrigue to the story of young Loretta trying to find her mother, and the weird connection she has with the woman whose name she shares. But the presentation is so slow that our interest in seeing it waned as the episode went along. The story isn’t exactly one with a lot of twists and turns, or one that has some big surprising moment that will shake a viewer to their core. It’s a somewhat surreal story about time and mothers and cosmic connections, all brought together by the Loop. It could have been told very effectively in about 40 minutes.

Yet the first episode was 54 minutes. What did Halperin do with the extra 14 minutes? Move scenes along very slowly, that’s what. Young Loretta staring into space. People walking around looking for things. In once scene, we literally see Loretta’s hand moving in slow motion. Instead of evoking contemplation and stillness, however, the slow pace of the episode evokes an air of pretentiousness that may or may not have been intentional. This is so important that we’re going to take our time seems to be the message that Halpern is giving with the pacing of the first episode, and that’s the wrong message to give right now, when people would rather watch escapism like Tiger King than something that deems itself to be Important TV.

We know we’ll see more of Russ, Loretta and her family through the episodes, even though each episode will focus on a different resident of Mercer. Remember, everyone in town is connected to The Loop, and Russ and his family are the keepers of The Eclipse, so it follows that they’ll be heavily involved in each story. That’s a good thing, of course; watching Pryce in any role is worthwhile, and Hall does a good job as the older Loretta. We’re just not sure we want to watch a show that we’re going to have to drink a pot of coffee to get through.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: Cole asks Loretta whether the girl will ever find her mother, and she tells him about what Alma did and why she disappeared. She tells him “I’ll always be there for you.” They hug, and we pan up from their window to the dark, cloudy sky above.

Sleeper Star: It’s been many years since Paul Schneider played Mark Brendanawicz on Parks and Recreation, but it still surprises us when he pops up somewhere else. George is Russ’ son, and we bet he has more of a role in the MCEP than we’ve seen so far.

Most Pilot-y Line: Not sure why, but the set and costume design, which seems to evoke a “1950s-1980s Soviet/Eastern Europe” vibe felt off-putting to us. It’s drab enough seeing the long line of people trudging into the bunker that is MCEP like it’s a factory in Gdańsk. But the clothes and old TVs and old cars just add to the show’s drabness and pretentiousness.

Our Call: SKIP IT. To us, Tales From The Loop feels like something that should be hung on a wall, admired and interpreted rather than a show that a viewer can lean in, watch, and get involved in. TV can be art, but this isn’t what we had in mind.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Tales From The Loop On Prime Video