Simon Stålenhag - Part 3: Sounds, Sights, Screens and Speakers

Like many other franchises being picked up at the moment, it wouldn't take long for a world such as Stålenhag's so move onto the silver screen, in the form fo Amazon Prime's exclusive mini-series, Tales From The Loop.

The show has an eight episode run, each part ranging from 50-57 minutes in runtime. Each episode, is set in the same town, Mercer, which is the home of a large network of underground labs that are powered by a vast particle accelerator, which surrounds the town and a large area of the surrounding landscapes. Everyone there, calls it, The Loop.

Yet, even though of its pacing and episode and story style, the show is not an anthology series. As Jonathan Pryce's character Russ, director of MCEP (Mercer Centre for Experimental Physics, aka The Loop), says in his opening monologue at the start of Episode One: , " ".

These characters, children, adults, elderly, strangers, families, all revolve in and around The Loop, as if rolling along like a ball inside a circular track, always moving and changing. The people in which we the audience follow across the series, centre in their own stories, each to their own episode and narrative, yet impacting the other characters, places and plots that are featured throughout the remainder of the episodes excluding their own. One of these narratives, which are focused on heavily in some episodes, and gently referenced to in others, is about the Mercer family.

The family is made up of a small group of characters, each very well fleshed out, and interact exceedingly well together, even if it is just for a single moment in one episode. The family is made up of (FYI! SPOILERS DIRECTLY AHEAD!):

• The Grandfather - He runs The Loop, or the official name Mercer Centre for Experimental Physics (MCEP). He oversees the series, delivering a foreword at the start of the first episode, and has a focused narrative about suffering from Alzheimer's and passing away.

• The Mum - She is the daughter of the Grandfather, and takes over The Loop after his death. She is also feature in a strange time paradox narrative in which she connects with a young version of herself, the disappearance of her real mother, and being adopted by the Grandfather into the Mercer family.

• The Father - He lost his arm in an accident with an experimental robot with artificial intelligence, on an island which he was abandoned on by "friends", whilst the robot was abandoned on by the Grandfather for it own safety from humans.

• The Older Son - He accidentally gets his bodied transferred into mates body, but when his mate refuses to switch back when he realises he could have a better life in the Older Son'd body (as he comes from a poor home, but is also not the smartest person), the Older Son gets transferred into a broken robots body and his biological body goes into a coma forever. Later in the series, the Older Son (in robot body) gets killed whilst protecting his younger brother (Younger Son) and the whole story comes out, resulting in the biological body having life support removed.

• The Younger Son - He is just sort of there, but in a good way. The Younger Son stars in almost every episode, but mainly only in the narratives which feature his family members. Compared to his family, he remains the same age throughout the whole series. Even though one of the episode is set over a number of months, whilst the Grandfather's health declines and dies, the Younger Son somehow steps through a strange time thing and misses nearly 15-20 years of his families life. During this time the The Loop expands, the Father dies, the Grandmother dies (not enough of a main character to be featured on this list), and his mother ages into an elderly woman.