There are countless reasons the story of Stranger Things works so well, but one of the most vital is Hawkins itself. The idea of an ordinary American town unknowingly sitting atop a facility responsible for some extraordinary science-fiction phenomena is incredibly fertile creative ground. Hawkins National Laboratory making the impossible part of everyday life made crafting a gripping story about a town’s residents encountering everything from psychic experiments to interdimensional monsters incredibly easy.

The Duffer Brothers masterfully used this premise to create the definitive sci-fi saga of the streaming age. Yet, Hawkins always felt capable of supporting more stories than Stranger Things could tell. One narrative within its borders simply didn’t seem enough for a town where ordinary people could so easily stumble into the extraordinary and inexplicable. Fortunately, Prime Video has an eight-part sci-fi series that scratches this exact itch: Tales from the Loop.

Released in 2020, Tales from the Loop is inspired by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag’s acclaimed narrative art book of the same name. The series follows the interconnected residents of Mercer, Ohio, where an underground experimental research facility known as the Loop makes impossible technology almost mundane. For anyone who wanted Stranger Things to explore stories of Hawkins with the variety of Black Mirror, Tales from the Loop is a must-watch.

Tales From The Loops Brings Anthology Sci-Fi To Small Town America

For all the satisfaction Stranger Things provides, limiting Hawkins to one overarching narrative feels restrictive when considering the setting’s potential. A secret scientific facility operating beneath an unsuspecting American town could easily support dozens of stories about ordinary residents encountering something inexplicable. The Hawkins lab affects the same central characters repeatedly, whereas the basic concept could have led to encounters with the weird and inexplicable for dozens of the town’s residents.

Prime’s Tales from the Loop is essentially what that could look like. The town of Mercer is built above the Loop, an underground research facility created to explore the mysteries of the universe. Instead of focusing exclusively on one group, however, the series moves between different interconnected residents. Each episode focuses on a different character becoming involved with a different strange technology or phenomena that emerges from this extraordinary place.

This anthology format means that Tales from the Loop feels like what would happen if Black Mirror met Stranger Things. It takes the anthology-style variety that defines Black Mirror and places it inside a small-town science-fiction setting reminiscent of Hawkins. What’s more, Tales from the Loop isn’t a conventional anthology. It may take a Black Mirror-style approach, but it doesn’t lose a key component of Stranger Things by doing so.

Just like in Stranger Things, characters and consequences carry between episodes of Tales from the Loop, only this time the wider narrative is told through individual experiences rather than the single experience of one group of friends. That combination gives Mercer the same sense of place that made Hawkins as central to the appeal of Stranger Things as it was to its story. However, in Tales from the Loop, the Loop isn’t merely the source of one grand adventure. It’s the engine for multiple smaller stories about how extraordinary science can reshape ordinary lives.

It May Have Similarities To Other Shows, But Tales From The Loop Is A Unique Series

The prospect of Black Mirror-style storytelling inside a Stranger Things-esque setting is immediately appealing, but expecting Tales from the Loop to imitate either series would be a mistake. While there’s a lot of overlap when it comes to narrative premise and structure, there’s a huge difference when it comes to tone and atmosphere. Stranger Things combines nostalgic adventure with horror, while Black Mirror centers on cautionary tales of technoparanoia. Tales from the Loop is quieter, slower, and considerably more contemplative.

There’s plenty of sci-fi spectacle in Tales from the Loop, but it isn’t used primarily to frighten or amaze. Instead, impossible machines become ways of examining profoundly ordinary experiences. Themes like grief, loneliness, love, aging, regret, and the passage of time are explored through a lens of futuristic tech. The show’s retrofuturistic world also gives it a distinctive visual identity, faithfully translating Stålenhag’s juxtaposition of enormous futuristic machinery with subdued rural landscapes into live action.

That approach means that, in terms of tone, Tales from the Loop is more of a collection of melancholic short stories than a conventional streaming sci-fi thriller like Stranger Things or Black Mirror. Even its biggest concepts are presented with restraint. Rather than constantly escalating toward another monster, mystery, or shocking technological revelation, the Prime Video series remains interested in how extraordinary discoveries change individual people.

This difference is exactly why Tales from the Loop remains such refreshing viewing. It offers the imaginative variety associated with Black Mirror and the small-town sci-fi mystery that helped make Stranger Things compelling, yet develops an identity entirely its own. Eight episodes are enough to make Mercer feel like a place filled with untold possibilities, making Tales from the Loop one of Prime Video’s most bingeable sci-fi shows.

Release Date

2020 – 2020

Network

Prime Video

Directors

Andrew Stanton, Dearbhla Walsh, Jodie Foster, So Yong Kim, Charlie McDowell, Ti West

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  Robert Nahum Allen

  Logan the Bartender