Butler's Cinema Scene

“TALES FROM THE LOOP” My rating: B+ (Amazon Prime)

Television has had no shortage of sci-fi/fantasy anthologies (going as far back as the original “Twilight Zone” and continuing today with streaming hits like “Black Mirror”), so when you find an example of the genre that feels fresh and invigorating you’ve got to pay attention.

“Tales from the Loop” on Amazon Plus is a surprisingly potent blend of technological pipe dream and essential human longing for connections.  Though it debuted in April, I’d heard almost nothing about it until stumbling across it while web surfing. This one sticks with you.

Inspired by the paintings of Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag, the series’ superb art direction mixes small-town Americana with futuristic (actually retro futuristic) trappings.

The Ohio burg in which the show is set looks utterly normal…except that a field outside town is dominated by three huge concrete silos, the only visible part of The Loop, a massive underground research facility (the circular corridors suggest a particle accelerator) that is the region’s biggest employer.

An old red barn is pierced by a crescent-shaped metal superstructure (it looks a bit like the wrecked spaceship in “Alien”) and some homes are outfitted with tentacle-like ductwork (shades of Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil”). Moreover, the nearby woods and fields are littered with the fantastic carcasses of decaying machines, Loop experiments that apparently didn’t work out and were left to rust. (As we soon discover, many are still functional, though their original purposes remains a mystery.)

In fact, pinning down just when “Tales from the Loop” takes place is problematical.  The setting is pre-digital…no cell phones or flat screens.  Home phones are of the rotary variety; computers still use floppy discs.  The costumes and set dressings have a timeless quality…if I had to guess I’d say it all happens in the late ’70s, though that’s really not important.

What is important is how the  scripts (by show runner Nathaniel Halpern and Stalenhag) create an all-inclusive world and a sustained mood.  Like Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (clearly an inspiration), “…Loop” presents us with numerous characters who move in and out of each other’s stories, taking the lead in one, serving as an extra in others. Each episode examines the interaction of residents with the Loop’s abandoned detritus.

In one instance, teenage boys  (Daniel Zoighadri, Tyler Barnhardt) find a rusting bathysphere-like globe which allows them to inhabit each other’s bodies.  What could go wrong?

Jonathan Pryce, Duncan Joiner

In another a lonely Loop employee (Ato Essandoh) finds that a sort of abandoned harvesting machine transports him to another reality where he encounters a vastly more satisfied version of himself.

Teen lovers (Danny Kang, Nicole Law) stumble across a  contraption that allows them to stop time.  With the rest of town petrified like so many department store mannequins, the two decide to  take advantage of this absolute lack of adult supervision by joyriding on a stolen motorcycle and having sex in the middle of main street, surrounded by freeze-framed traffic and pedestrians.

But the sci-fi aspects of these situations are merely tipping points for examinations of love (romantic and familial) and loss. “Tales from the Loop” is a prolonged study in melancholy and yearning. Several times I was moved to tears, especially an episode in which a youngster (Duncan Joiner) must deal with the death of his beloved grandfather (Jonathan Pryce), the Loop’s creator.

The usual questions of whether technology is good or bad — not to mention its applications in a Cold War setting — are raised only tangentially or simply ignored. The Loop seems to be a benign operation…it is protected by a sole unarmed security guard stationed in a booth outside the elevator that takes employees to their subterranean jobs.

The show largely avoids topicality, save for one episode in which a  father and Loop employee (Dan Bakkedahl), fearful of neighborhood break-ins, buys a repurposed robot to patrol his front yard throughout the night. The neighbors feel threatened  by this imposing sentinel. Think of it as a Second Amendment parable.

The cast is terrific (among the players are Rebecca Hall, Paul Scheider and Jane Alexander) and the direction subtle and measured (Jodie Foster helms  the final episode, a true heartbreaker). Even the musical credits are impressive: Philip Glass and Paul Leonard-Morgan’s piano-heavy musical score, with its recurring passages of melodic minimalism, hugely enhances “The Loop’s” emotional palette.

“Tales from the Loop” may be a bit too cerebral for some viewers. The emphasis here is not on big drama but on small moments; like I said, the sci-fi trappings are here merely as the gateway to examining human feelings. But I cannot stop thinking about this one.

| Robert W. Butler