Tales from the Loop: Season 1

Inspired by Simon Stålenhag's artwork, Nathaniel Halpern uses science-fiction twists to address personal turning points in simple, touching episodic stories.

It’s a show that is fascinating to look at — with episodes directed by top-flight talent including Mark Romanek, Andrew Stanton, and Charlie McDowell — even if its narrative is more conceptually interesting than moment-to-moment engaging.

It’s a moving, determinedly solemn adaptation of Swedish author/artist Simon Stålenhag’s lavishly illustrated book, published in 2014 after his retro-futurist visions of a 1980s Sweden became an online sensation.

Considering that none of the episodes are all that surprising in their various twists and turns, their apparent aim is not to wow us but to break our heart, as suggested by the gorgeous swells of Philip Glass and Paul Leonard-Morgan’s score (which is easily my favorite thing about the show thus far).

On a spectrum of current sci-fi television tackling the nature of existence, the series is almost a polar opposite to the exposition-heavy, laid-bare mechanics of HBO's Westworld, with Devs (FX on Hulu) floating somewhere in the middle, spelled out yet blurry.

If anything, Tales From The Loop feels more reminiscent of the somber and more considered tone of Netflix’s other sci-fi thriller, the oft-forgotten series Dark, emphasizing the personal stories and arcs of its assorted characters instead of a barrage of throwbacks and visual nods to the sci-fi films of yesteryear.