Somehow it’s based on paintings. Episode 1 was average, might try #2. It’s Sci Fi, more info here .
I’m 5 episodes in, Black Mirror meets Twilight Zone. Some interesting premises, although it is not action packed thus far.
I enjoyed the first two, but the rest have been a snore-fest. I think I still have two episodes left.
I’m 6 episodes in. It’s definitely Amazon’s answer to Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone (with a bit of Stranger Things nostalgia thrown in).
Top-notch visuals. The show is based on the “dystopia with a heart” paintings of Simon Stålenhag.
The cast is great. I like that a minor character from one story can be the main in the next. The history is internally consistent, with little nods to what has gone before.
The acting is good. I especially liked Jonathan Pryce (the High Sparrow from GoT). The episode that focused on his character was the best of them that I’ve seen so far.
The storylines are tropey. Time travel, a device that stops time for everybody else, two people switch bodies, and so on. But Loop brings a bit of freshness in the reactions to the tropes.
The pacing could use some work. It drags. I’ve twice checked the time on an episode, convinced that I was watching an hour-and-a-half or a two-hour show. Nope. Fifty-someodd minutes.
The drama, likewise, could use some work. Parents seem to almost forget about their hospitalized child and best friends seem not to miss each other when one goes missing. The characters all have an almost whatever happens happens attitude.
There are a couple of logical points that took me out of the story. One was
dismantling the sphere that switched consciousnesses just after a kid got hurt using it. I mean, if that caused the problem–which they obviously thought it did since they dismantled it at night–mightn’t they want to keep it around as a potential cure?
Four episodes in and I love it.
Any word on a second season?
Three episodes in I’ve enjoyed it a lot, but it’s slow and fairly tragic. Which is great when you’re in the mood for that sort of thing. The look and feel are top-notch.
Just finished last night, your assessment is spot on. I’d watch a second season if for no other reason than to see some more character development.
I’m digging it. It’s a slow burn for me, both in the shows themselves and my gradually growing appreciation for the series.
First up, the show’s aesthetic is incredible. It’s a beautifully realized vision. Small Ohio(?) town, but in an alternative reality with this really melancholy Soviet / East German vibe. It looks great.
I’ll admit that at first the really slow pace combined with the somewhat unoriginal plot devices (body swap, time stands still, meeting yourself in a parallel world, etc.) put me off. It was a show that I looked at in the background on my personal laptop while I caught up with some work in the evening. Basically just because it looked so good.
But the pacing and character focus has grown on me. The reactions and character motivations seem very grounded, and this show avoids any false ramping up of drama. While the individual plot conceits aren’t exactly original I think the way they’re explored in terms of characters and their emotional responses is pretty fresh.
The last episode I watched was a good example of all of this. The one where the security guard visits a parallel version of himself. That they’re both cordial and wanting to be friends yet struggling with the situation was nice. I also loved how the Loop is such a background accepted thing in the every day life of these characters. To the extent that ending up in a parallel universe is a little bit freaky, but a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw given the world they know. The deadpan “yes, that seems like the most likely explanation” style comment as they figured it out was a pretty funny touch.
And having each episode be a self contained story, but still connected to the world and characters of the series as a whole is a nice touch. It really makes the world feel real and lived in even though we’re focused on a small subset of characters at a time.
I loved the aesthetic. I saw a lot of possibility in the premise.
I abso-fucking-lutely hate the sound track.
The stories were really too depressing for me. It would be nice if they had mixed up the mood just a tad.
I thought Phillip K Dick’s Electric Dreams was Amazon’s answer to Black Mirror.
I’m about 3 episodes in. I feel like I enjoy the atmosphere more than actually being able to sit through entire episodes. It definitely does have a “tragic” feel about it. Makes Black Mirror almost cheery by comparison. I mean it has Rebecca Hall in it. She’s always type cast as “tragically sad woman” in everything I’ve seen her in.
A couple of additional thoughts.
One, it kind of reminds me of a sad “Eureka”. You know, that show about the town full of DARPA geniuses that was on SciFy about ten years ago.
Two, they seem to leave a lot of dangerous experimental tech just sort of lying around for no other purpose than driving the story.
I had the same problem, started strong with the first 2 and then 3-5 were so slow the show lost me.
I haven’t seen the show; I didn’t even realize there was a show until this thread.
But I popped in to say that there is a three year old Role Playing Game that was based on the same artwork that inspired the show. Here is the wikipedia page. I figured that if you guys like the show, I’d point out that there is some other material out there for you.
Here is the setting page from RPGGeek (a sister site to BoardGameGeek)
I think this is the core book page from RPGG.
I have never played it or any Year Zero engine RPGs. I do own such a game called Forbidden Lands, but I haven’t gotten it to the table, yet.
We’re 4 or 5 shows in, I’ve lost count. The episodes themselves are uneven. If you’re going to have continuity with the characters, then the stand-alone episodes stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. Either do one or the other, IMO.
I agree with the drag factor. I get that the aesthetic is supposed to be a slow unfold, but sometimes it’s just too…slow… I’ve dozed off more than once.
I like the premise. If it’s renewed, it could be a great show with a few tuneups.
I finished watching this recently. I wouldn’t say I “binged” it; it wasn’t the type of show that had me saying “just one more episode, just one more episode…” but I thought it was fairly interesting. I particularly appreciated that the episodes didn’t necessarily end with a “Twilight Zone”/“Black Mirror”-style ironic twist ending (or maybe that the twist was that there was no twist).
My favourite episodes were “Transpose” (body switch) and “Parallel” (parallel universe). My least favourites were “Echo Sphere” (old person dies) and “Control” (guy buys a gun for protection – did I say gun? I meant robot).
I wouldn’t mind another series based on Stalenhag’s other book Electric State, which AFAIK is unconnected to the other stories, but has the same aesthetic.