So i just finished watching 1st episode amd i cant stop thinking about it. Was she sucked in a black hole? Or absorbed into space? The way adult loretta tells her child self that she doesnt know where her mom is makes me think that the eclipce didnt actually killed her instantly but rather transported her somewhere

I just finished the second episode and I'm pissed of so much. I hate Danny, that selfish prick. I don't think I am able to continue, I look up to what is happening in the further episodes and I pissed of even more. What the hell, there is no way I will be able to enjoy this show anymore. Poor Jacob has no fault, Danny is just a human garbage. Why there is such tragedy in sci-fi, now I must try to get over this story.

Sorry for rant, but I had to get this out of my system.

I just finished watching the series yesterday. It's helped me get through a tough time by having something else to think about. The retro aesthetics are great, such as the colour scheme of Cole's blue jacket in Ep.1 and that robot in the woods. The characters are great. It's fairly easy to get into. I like how it keeps mostly coming back to the same family—was worried there'd be a lack of coherence. It makes you think about life. It's not some action-packed or mindless load of drama. It's isn't a physicist 'look at the amazing equation I just wrote' nerdfest. I liked the banal subtlety of the technological elements. How you'd be looking at an ordinary house and there'd be a sphere or pylon connected to it. And how it's not big battleships in space, it's people's lives. As a big nature-lover I really liked the nature in the show, and how there was a casual juxtaposition between it and the retrofuturistic settlement. You don't seem to get much of a naturey element in the sci-fi I've seen so that was a pleasant change, and it really was a part of the show just like that old America feel, Time, Family, Love, and of course Technology. The area where they shot it reminded me of a woods not so far from myself. It's a woods with a park area and when I went there was almost no one there, which is not what you think of when you think of a park. Well layout-wise, heck even the birch trees, but also vibe-wise, I got a similar feel from the natural setting of this show.

So I think I'll struggle to find a show with all these pleasant elements again! Got my creative juices flowing this has...

I hope they do a Season 2, but from reading around here, perhaps not. Maybe I'll have to look into the book(s). But the books won't have my lovely woody park setting I guess and that was part of the feel.

I just came here to give appreciation for this series. It was crafted with intention, made for those with a persevering spirit. Congrats to the makers.

It really does. Security gets compromised so many times in the show. Just look at the fact that a child...a CHILD was able to open a completely unlocked containment shaft with no alarms or surveillance and then almost compromise the containment itself in like ten minutes. Have they never heard of pentesting? You would think at least one guard would have been fired over this mishap. Do they not have a chief security officer? You think they would notify that guy that a child...once again, A CHILD just breached their containment.

The thing that sent me over the edge was the beginning of episode six. You have one security booth guard and these swathes of people walking in like it's a public library or something. No badge check, no code-in clearance, who needs that nonsense anyway, right? Some of them nod toward the booth, but he's not really paying attention anyway, he's reading a book.

And you can't blame it on the time setting either because we have had top secret high clearance closed areas since like the late nineteenth century. Even if you're cut off point of high clearance is the birth of the CIA, that's still 1947, and this show definitely takes place after that.

As a guy who works everyday in a secure building much like this one, it's just baffling to me that it didn't even occur to anyone to have higher security.

"Tales from the Loop". Amazon Prime.

Ever wondered about a world where there is technological advancement of the highest degree yet the essence of life and nature is not diminished the way it has in reality? Think about a town where robots replace most of human labor but communication still happens via friendly gatherings and old school telephones with no mobile phones anywhere. That's the sort of town Mercer, Ohio is in the new sci-fi quasi anthology series "Tales from the Loop" streaming on Amazon Prime. Based on Swedish avant-garde artist Simon Stålenhag's eponymous art book, Tales from the Loop is a refreshing departure from the repetitive tropes of modern day science fiction storytelling. It has created a world like no one has seen before.

It's rare that you come across a show that projects itself as science fiction but gives you an experience of a deeply emotional story of human relationships and its complexities. The series is based on the lives of the residents of a sleepy town called Mercer in the state of Ohio where an underground science laboratory nicknamed "The Loop" is being run by the government. The entire town and its life revolves around the Loop. Think about the traditional industrial townships where the factory/industrial complex at the center of the town acts as the backbone of the economy, society and its people and you get the idea of what kind of a place Mercer is.

The series consists of eight episodes based on the events and experiences of the inhabitants of the town. The stories have a common thread in the form of the protagonists' experiences that has something to do with the Loop. Each episode has some recurring and some new characters who take the viewer along with them to the fascinating roller coaster ride of their experiences that are greatly influenced by the events related to the experimental facility underground.

The world that the creators tried to build here can be at best termed as "Retro-Futuristic". Quite an oxymoron, yet that's possibly the only way one can explain a place where Giant robots mimic human actions through kinetic body gestures and at the same time people rush through the town in vintage cars and listen to the 50's blues. It's a world where people walk and cycle through the town to meet people and an air of leisurely solitude pervades the atmosphere like a thin misty blanket over the early winter mornings. Amidst all the old world charm, the imposing visage of the giant towers of the Loop lined with neon Blue accents constantly reminds the viewer about the otherworldly nature of the setting.

The longshots, the wide angles and the top shots used by the cinematographer create larger than life imageries scene after scene. Surprisingly the cinematic grandeur doesn't deter the viewer to connect with the characters at an emotional level. The picturesque locations peppered with vast grasslands, dense tree lined roads, meandering highways, cosy wooden homes, countryside street corners, old school pubs and barbershops - all are a treat to the eyes.

The music aptly complements the narrative style by relying on melodious piano riffs, sombre violin and cello pieces to depict various moods of the characters.

The series is headlined by a number of Hollywood heavyweights like Jonathan Pryce, Paul Schneider, Rebecca Hall and Jane Alexander. The character of the young protagonist Cole is brilliantly portrayed by actor Duncan Joiner. All the supporting actors are equally impressive in their respective roles. A special mention for Ato Essandoh for portraying the character of Gaddis, the awkward security guard at the Loop, with such a lucid understanding of human frailties and complexities.

Each story is unique in terms of their themes and execution. It's rare that a sci-fi series delves so deep into the inner world of human beings where they explore the consequences of their choices, the turmoil of their inner demons, the angst of youth, the temporality of love and the complexities and transient nature of human relationships. Surprisingly, the elements of science fiction never leave the storyline. Because, through the lingering presence of the Loop, it is at the core of the stories that twists and turns the space time continuously around the characters and takes the viewer through a joyride of unprecedented excitement and awe.

The languid pacing and deliberate slow burner narrative style along with the deep evocative music and gorgeous cinematography lend the series a gravitas that is hard to ignore. It almost transports the viewer to a state of meditative solitude while experiencing the proceedings on screen. The slow pace may be too niche for a certain group of audience who are habituated with the fast paced storytelling of modern sci-fi cinema. Nevertheless, it can be safely said that once experienced wholly, the show will not disappoint the sharpest of the sceptics.

All in all, a brilliant piece of filmmaking and a path breaking approach to tell the stories of the future set in a world of the past. A worthy watch for sure.

4.5/5 stars.

Hello, new to this subreddit, finished the show literally two minutes ago. I don’t know if this theory exists already, apologies if it does.

May be a bit wild, but I think there was some sort of war (this part is a pretty common theory I assume) and to save the town of Mercer, the world outside was put into stasis. In two episodes, it is shown that the liquid filled glass tubes that power the stasis device in Episode 3, ‘Stasis’, are loaded into something like turrets or watch towers. I think they may generate a kind of stasis field around the town (and presumably the city).

This is supported by the fact that the clouds in the background never move, and neither do most trees, only those in the foreground move in the wind. The clouds do change between cuts, e.g. in episode 7, ‘Enemies’, where the children are talking before going to the island, the camera cuts back and forth between them and the sky changes between these cuts, but while the camera is focused on one of the characters, the clouds are static.

Also in episode 7, George is fiddling with his radio and isn’t receiving any signals or other stations. I’m not knowledgable on radios like this, but shouldn’t he pick up something from outside? The fact that he doesn’t might be a hint at the outside world being gone or frozen.

I’m also thinking (spoilers) that in the last episode where Cole loses decades while moving through the woods could be him getting close to the stasis field, slowing his movement down. Unsure how this fits in with the frozen creek and the shot of his parents finding Jacob’s robo-corpse, so this one is a bit of a reach, admittedly.

Please don’t eviscerate me if I’m wrong or if I blatantly missed something, I just wanted to share my thoughts on this theory and see if anyone else noticed something similar.

Anyone else think there's a correlation between Cole's obsession with pine cones and the eclipse? Both consist of parts that can be broken off and both feature prominently on the show.

Pine cones open and close depending on the weather. Could this be why the river in the forest that Cole and his mother crossed periodically changes? When the eclipse is open people are free to cross the river without issue but when it's closed, the water is frozen and people who cross become trapped/lost in time.

The main function of a pine cone is to protect seeds. So what is the eclipse protecting? Could it be some kind of energy? When you think of the eclipse you automatically think about the natural phenomenon that occurs when the moon's shadow covers the sun. Could the "seed" in the eclipse therefore be comparable to the energy of the sun? Nuclear fusion perhaps?

My theory is that the eclipse is man made and was possibly designed by a future version of Cole from a parallel world. We already know that parallel worlds exist based on the episode with the security guard and that at least one person has crossed over. The power of nuclear fusion has allowed future parallel Cole to manipulate time and shift into other realities. Perhaps future Cole created the eclipse (which was partly based on his childhood obsession with pine cones) but through experimentation, accidentally sends it to earth A... the earth the show is set in.

Maybe the missing guy in the world-shifting tractor was trying to locate the eclipse at the request of future Cole and his team at the Loop? You could even take it one step further and say that future Cole's parallel grandma (the woman in the first episode who stole a piece of the eclipse and disappeared) accidentally landed in parallel earth and gave future Cole and the Loop team the knowledge to create the eclipse in the first place essentially creating a paradox. Maybe she always intended on coming back but didn't have the piece so gave parallel Loop Team the knowledge to create the eclipse from scratch?

Another interesting thing is that the actor they used for adult Cole in the final episode is renowned in the sci-fi world for writing, directing and starring in Primer. In Primer, his character creates a time machine that leads to all sorts of problems. Perhaps a subtle nod from creators of the show?

Well that's all I've got. It's an insane nonsensical theory but you never know with weird sci-fi. Lemme know what you think.

I really enjoyed the series overall. Some were a bit slow but always captivated me.

The episode where the robot was banished to the island by its creator crushed me. It waved back as it slowly sailed to the island with that cute doggy cape on its back. And at the end it still had the tattered cape on its back. It must have clung to that as a reminder of its creator. Like I said, crushing.

The episode about the guy that enters the alternate reality and meets the guy from the picture was a high point to. Great storytelling. It’s so easy to fantasize about something else while missing what is it in front of us, or building expectation to a impossible level.

The Jacob story was sad to especially how it ended for him. Great thought provoking show. Will hit you in the feels.

Just binged watched this show.

What a beautiful thought provoking series!!

Any word on a second season?

As a fan of the artwork, I was glad to see the show, but was disappointing to see such a lackluster effort. I'm assuming there were budget concerns, but other teams have still managed to produce a solid shows with budgets in their range. Let's run down the list:

• The directory of photography or whichever Game of Thrones season 8 fan that thought that the correct amount of lighting in most scenes was when the viewer could detect that a cast member was in frame needs to apologize to everyone in the production, their efforts made the show almost unwatchable. There was scene after scene where I thought, man this is some emotional stuff, shame I can't see the actor reacting to it as their face is 80% shrouded in shadows. It got to the point that some shots had multiple light bulbs on and in frame, yet still the shot is deep shadow.
• I get that Sweden is a scary nation full of tall blonde folks, but the Loop is a research mecca, they could have made do, or at least chose somewhere that didn't leave the audience wondering why Ohio is suddenly full of pine forests.
• Several of the episodes didn't even need the Loop to work. In a 26 episode season, sure take a few episodes away from the many thrust of your story, but with only 8 episodes you really shouldn't need to invent age determining spheres and dimensional holes to make sure the audience doesn't forget the premise of the show.

Did something go wrong behind the scenes that made the show such a mixed bag? I saw they went with a director-of-the-week approach, so I'm sure that didn't help, but was there something specific that happened?

Can anyone tell me what Beth (deaf sister) is watching on the TV 44:56-45:03 in episode 2, Transpose? Looks like it could be partly claymation. Would love a title of the animation.

https://preview.redd.it/zf887qp03vs61.png?width=184&format=png&auto=webp&s=3dd7067af0a595ab84b6d668a8c2dd082b0aa955

https://preview.redd.it/lxm14rp03vs61.png?width=170&format=png&auto=webp&s=d522774f205ddd4ac613f8a4df5f7a97312deaad

https://preview.redd.it/c3ihvqp03vs61.png?width=174&format=png&auto=webp&s=bebf16eafe45914cbbf34e348f9113b23ee39acc

i watched it all like a year ago and i like it but after one year whenever my spotify shuffle decides to go on Walk to School (one of TFTL theme songs) i feel very deep emotions and sometimes even cry. i don't even know why. this show...

This is a trope I really love personally, as long as it is done with taste.

Basically, I get the sense that society had gotten really far along with technology, and then hard times caused the development to die out. Everything was abandoned, and standards of life regressed. Then after many decades of hardship, the discovery of the Eclipse sparks a renaissance of sorts, with technological development finally able to resume?

Look at how all the machinery and stuff is really old and worn. I feel like the colors and stuff on a lot of the machines are very 70's while the show takes place in the 80', too, but I might be reading too much into it.

I see a lot of people talking about the abandoned junked machines as if it was abandoned by The Loop scientists, but I feel like it might be from way before that.

Alternatively, The Loop may have been barely surviving through the hard times, finally making a discovery that could keep them going.

This is a world where jobs are scarce and nobody's rich, still.

Reminder: Cole found robotic Jakob in the woods and on their way back to the city they encounter a random hostile robot, which attacks Jakob and ultimately fatally wounds him before being defeated.

I'm obviously wondering about why the robot opposed Jakob and Cole, so any thoughts? Its form was even more irritating, as it had an arachnic layout, grapple arms (which it used as an attack mechanism), and traffic-cone-like cement blocks shielding its body.

Without giving away spoilers, I'm pissed at IMDB far right trolls, who have a network, that rates shows/episodes zero if they feature: interracial relationship, strong black or female characters, or homosexuality. This has occurred in numerous cases. Black Panther and Catwoman are classic examples.

Episode 6 is the lowest rated episode of the series but I think it was maybe my favorite. The concept is starkly original, and the acting of the two main characters is amazing. But b/c the show doesn't have many viewers or ratings, these overabundant zero votes bring the episode rating down compared to other episodes.

If you rate, maybe try to offset the scores of these pathetic losers.

I've been getting the DEBRIS trailer in my feed lately; perhaps the social media algorithms have already figured out I'm a TFTL fan. If you haven't seen it yet, here it is:

https://youtu.be/c5IdgmHRLxU

Not sure what to expect, being network TV, but you never know. Anyways, did anyone else get some Loopian vibes from the mysterious anti-gravity matter, objects "stuck" in time, and that floating chick (she actually made me kinda laugh at the possibilities)? Reminded me a lot of E1. I'm not expecting DEBRIS to be anywhere near the ambiance and nature of TFTL, but I'll give it a shot. Thoughts?

Like the flair says, thar be spoilers in the below!

I liked The Loop. I liked the pacing of it. I liked scenery. I like the random things one would see in the background or the something the size of a thermos could stop time.

The last episode, "Home", was a disaster. It was... as if someone who had no idea how to tell a story got to tell a story.

• Danny's bizarre, random confession to Cole. Well, ok, I guess they need to wrap up that plot line, but it was just so... badly done.
• Cole goes to The Loop and asks for his Mom, who's in 'the city'. He doesn't then ask for his Dad. No, that would make sense. He doesn't go to any other adult. No...
• Cole then decides he must walk to "the city". So, he and robot Jacob head off to find his Mom in the city and even spends a night out in the woods. How dumb is this? Cole seemed like a relatively intelligent person, but.... walking to this city? If Mom was staying the night in the city, you'd think he'd know -- that she would have told him. The most likely outcome is: they make it to the city, they can't find her as cities are kinda big and no cell phones.... so they need to walk back home? Or find a police officer? Or... I don't know what? One just walks to the city and says, "have you seen my Mom?" I guess so...
• Of course, the walk in the woods is to setup the robot fight and damage Jacob. Never before have we seen robots be so aggressive. The attacking robot seems to want Cole, at least by how Jacob moves to protect him. So, this world is ok with such aggressive machines out wandering in the woods? I know, the whole point of the encounter is for Jacob to be a hero and save Danny while getting inquired. Jacob even does the trope thing by 'saying' he's not hurt when he really is. The hero always hides the wound.... meh.
• They finally get to see the City and it's a pretty big city. Makes all the 1970's style cars and things in town seem... even more weird. Makes the lack of cell phones or any sort communication device.. even more weird. It's a very modern looking city. Makes the idea to walk there even dumber, even more absurd.
• Of course, Cole doesn't actually go into the city, no... he finds out Jacob is mortally wounded and heads back to the one place he knows he can get help -- home. Where, you know, his Mom is most likely to be. The absurdity is that they were on a trip to the city to get help for Jacob, but now he's running back to town to get get help.
• Side note: I love the randomness of the stream being frozen/went/frozen... it messing with time somehow.

And.. the rest of the story is whatever. By far the worst episode of series. Sure, it ties up the Jacob/Danny story. It shows the leap from 'the first' to 'the teacher'... but just terrible.

I enjoyed watching different people with their own story that each were interconnected in some way around a mysterious theme. Kind of like Cloud Atlas I guess. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and would like to explore more stuff like it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I collect enamel pins to remind me of the art that has affected me and I was wondering if anyone knows it any were made for Tales From The Loop. Any help is appreciated!