Review: Tales from the Loop

“Tales from the Loop” is a brilliant show. A televised work of fantastic fiction, to be precise; Amazon's latest series. Kids are involved. And weird conspiracies they don’t understand. That said, it’s not “Stranger Things.” It tries very hard not to be “Stranger Things.” That’s what’s wrong with it. And why it falls short of genius. Based on the first episode, anyway.

The teleplay was born as visual art. The “wondrous paintings” of Simon Stålenhag, according to Wikipedia. Cool idea, eh? Like weaving a story around the paintings of Renee Magritte. “The giant eye floated in the air …” Why not? I’ll tell you why …

If you build a show around the paintings of Magritte or Stålenhag, the result will be cool visuals. And not necessarily a cool story.

The opening episode involves a little girl living in a weirdass community in Dakota, Sweden, or someplace. Snowy, dig? Inside the homes, the design scheme is late ‘70s, early ‘80s. The phone on the wall has a dial; the PC is early Radio Shack. But there are robots. And dudes with prosthetic arms. Outside the homes, there are no powerlines. But there are bizarre, glowing towers that look like angry faces. And more robots. As our story begins, a Little Girl’s Mom has stolen Something Important from “Underground.” Mom speaks and sings in a foreign language. Mom disappears. The house disappears. The Little Girl goes looking for her. In the place where the house used to be, she finds a weird artifact, presumably stolen by Mom. She also finds a Little Boy who ignores all her insults and helps her. Telekinetic incidents ensue. Water drips up, a house falls into the sky, piece by piece. But the lLittle Girl keeps looking. The little boy tags along. The dude at the gateway to Underground denies all knowledge—then makes a phone call. The game is afoot. Hi-ho.

After that, I won't spoil it. But here are my observations for now. Good news first. Then bad.

As noted, the story unfolds on Stephen King territory. Conspiracy of scientists, check. Kids on the outside looking in, check. A mystery to solve, check. It's been done to death, but the show gets away with it by changing the look and feel.

Mood is everything. Despite the scary situation, the mood is rarely scary. Reflecting its painterly source material, the show is arty, evocative, haunting, and downright pretty. "Stranger Things," with art direction by Andrew Wyeth.

It works, brilliantly. The look-and-feel sucked me in. I wanted to love this show. At best I could only sorta like it. Because it's style isn't matched by substance.

The show bent over backwards to find a new style. In the process, they forgot about character. Specifically, the central character. Simply put ...

The central character has no character.

The Little Girl has no agency. (Abby, to finally give her a name.) In the screenplay, she functions as a chess piece moving dutifully across a plot-point chessboard. Pawn to Queen Four: Mom has an argument. Bishop to King’s Rook Six: Mom is missing. Abby's words are all on point. Bullshit. Real kids don’t talk like that! Even in weirdass fantasy realms! The screenwriter closely studied Stålenhag's paintings. But have they ever observed a real kid?

Behind the words, there's no sense of Abby's mind at work. The intelligence behind her eyes. Her point of view. You’re never in the slippery now of her awareness. The sloppiness of life ain’t there. But it sure is pretty. 

Pretty does not a story make. Especially in the realm of fantastic fiction.

Fantasy works when it's grounded in reality. It's great to get Tesla's theories right—but forgivable if you get them wrong. The reality of character matters most. Get it right, and the reader/viewer will believe in hobbits. Get it wrong, and nothing else matters. No matter how pretty it is.

To be fair, I guess I'll watch the rest of the series.