Netflix, from 19 February

What would it take to completely destroy our society, and how long would it take? In Netflix’s series Tribes of Europa, the world as we know it has collapsed in a mere 45 years, following a catastrophe in 2029. Writer Philip Koch was inspired to write about the dissolution of Europe following the Brexit vote, and today’s viewers don’t have to look very far to see how much the world can change in a short space of time.

Set in 2074, Tribes of Europa doesn’t give us a full explanation for how its post-apocalyptic world came to be, but alludes to a mysterious collapse of technology known as “Black December” that led to “Lights off and darkness. And that was it. Middle Ages.”

The series was produced by the German team behind the Oscar-winning The Lives of Others, and Netflix’s first original German series, Dark. In this latest dystopian future, the world is divided into a number of distinct factions, or tribes, as referenced in the title.

We follow three young siblings – Kiano, Liv, and Elja – from the forest-dwelling Origine tribe, whose peaceful existence is disrupted when an advanced aircraft is shot from the sky above their village.

Power of the cube

Visiting the crash site, they quickly realize this isn’t technology from “the old world”, but something more modern. The ship’s ailing pilot reveals himself to be from the Atlantian tribe (the only one apparently unaffected by the technology blackout) and he hands a mysterious cube to the young Elja.

The cube holds an important message about coming danger, and Elja is entrusted to bring it to the pilot’s homeland to help them make sense of it. Lured by the promise of answers to his questions about Black December, Elja agrees, but it puts him in danger because the violent Crows tribe is also seeking the cube as a key to power, and will kill anyone who gets in their way.

As the lives of the Origines are threatened, older siblings Kiano and Liv are caught in the crossfire, setting them off on separate paths. Kiano and his father are captured by the Crows, while Liv escapes and tries to find her family by bargaining with another tribe, the militaristic Crimsons, who also seek the cube’s power

The idea of people vying for control of a mysterious powerful object isn’t hugely original, and we aren’t given many unexpected plot twists in the first three episodes, but fantastic world-building and hints of bigger, more exciting puzzles to solve make this a big-budget production that seems worth sticking with.

Technology nightmare

Halfway through the series, plenty of questions remain. How extensive was the historic technology blackout, and why are the otherwise villainous Crows somehow unable to lie?

Having a group of siblings pursuing separate quests in a hyper-violent world evokes Game of Thrones, and the show matches it in cinematic scope, with production designer Julian R. Wagner referencing Blade Runner and Children of Men, and creating an epic, gritty feel, especially in the cut-throat world of the Crows.

It might be a very apt time to release a Brexit-inspired show about the collapse of society. Not only are the effects of the UK’s exit from the European Union starting to become clear, but we are now also living in the shadow of a world-changing pandemic and leaning on technology more than ever.

As socially distanced lives in Europe mean a constant reliance on video calls, streaming and instant messaging to maintain a sense of normality, Tribes of Europa brings us a nightmare future – a world without technology.

Creating a TV show from an artwork is no easy task. With Tales From The Loop, the result is an 8-part series that follows the strange goings-on in a town set atop an experimental physics research facility. It is visually stunning, though at times it leaves you wanting more. The series is available on Amazon Prime Video from 3 April.

The show is inspired by a collection of paintings of the same name by Swedish artist Simon StĂĽlenhag. The original artworks feature primarily rural scenes with a sci-fi twist, such as children playing in a field with a large robot in the background.

As series creator Nathaniel Halpern told New ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´, the producers presented him with StĂĽlenhag’s art as a suggested jumping-off point for the series. “It was obviously a unique situation in that I hadn’t really heard of anyone adapting paintings before… It was that somewhat unique process of just looking at his images and thinking ‘what is this world, what are the stories that pop out of those images to me’, and then I wrote them.”

Each installment of the series stands alone, but they also weave into the larger story of a town and its residents. In the first episode, we meet a girl and her mother, who works as a research scientist at The Loop, the local nickname for the town’s research facility.

Lingering shots of snowy landscapes are set to a backdrop of beautiful music by Philip Glass and Paul Leonard-Morgan. The pace is slow, so you can drink in the calm scenery and ponder the mysteries below the surface.

When the scientist and her home later goes missing, her daughter is helped by another child in the town, whose mother Loretta also works at The Loop. We are presented with an intriguing mystery: did they simply disappear? If so, how? And could this have something to do with black holes?

Unfortunately, this is where the show starts to wane. A twist diffuses the suspense built up so far, which leaves an unsatisfying series of questions as to what actually happened that don’t really get answered.

The second episode I saw, which is the fourth in the series, continues on this theme. It follows Loretta’s father-in-law, who runs The Loop, as he confronts a life-threatening illness. He takes his grandson to see a curious and hollow metal structure, which can somehow predict how long your life will be. Here, they discuss life and death and… not a lot else happens.

The difficulties of adapting an art collection for the small screen are evident in Tales from the Loop. We are confronted with interesting artefacts and objects in the town’s landscape, such as huge retro-looking robots, that are either half-explained or just ignored. This works well for a painting, as you aren’t awaiting the full story, instead expecting to ponder it on your own time. Yet with a TV series, it feels like something is missing.

This is a show I really wanted to enjoy: the set-up was intriguing and the visuals are wonderful. Halpern’s quest to create a sci-fi programme rooted in the ideas of The Twilight Zone andĚýwhat he calls “empathy for the human condition” is a noble one. Unfortunately, this isn’t quite achieved.

Podcast

WHAT mysteries await in the unexplored depths of the ocean? Down, a 24-part sci-fi podcast, poses this question as it follows a small crew on a submarine mission to explore a newly discovered ocean trench in the Antarctic.

“The bottomless pit”, as it is rather unimaginatively named, is a “gaping hole on the surface of the Earth” revealed by climate change. Initial explorations by probes have gone further than the deepest depths plumbed to date – Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, about 11,000 metres. Now a crewed mission will go deeper still.

Our protagonist is Marion Straker, a famous marine biologist who is trying to throw herself back into work after a family tragedy. The rest of the crew consists of a curmudgeonly sea captain, a chilled-out ship’s engineer, a chirpy lab assistant and the anxious ship’s doctor.

Their hugely expensive Virgil submarine is paid for by the massive energy corporate Advantage, in a move arousing some suspicion among the crew, although they also wonder at the cutting-edge design of the sub with its own artificial intelligence. The corporate rep who directs the crew from dry land is a perfectly pitched super-keen mouthpiece for the energy company, from “geeking out” about having Straker on board to encouraging the crew to “keep it bouncy, yeah?”

The sound design is immersive enough to draw you in to the world of the show, and while the dialogue can be cheesy, knowing references to “red shirts” (crew members thought most likely to die in Star Trek were the ones wearing red) let us know that the show’s creators aren’t taking themselves too seriously.

The podcast zips along, with 10 to 15-minute episodes, and drops enough hints to keep you hooked. The characters’ occasionally meandering conversations about what to have for breakfast also contain clues to keep us guessing.

Is the captain right that the real purpose of the expedition is for Advantage to figure out the effects of such a mission on the crew? What happened to Straker’s brother? Will the “adaptive AI” become more of a sinister force? So far the only adapting it has done is to move from calling the captain “Charlie” to “Captain Charlie”.

Four episodes in, as we are finally confronted with what could be our first mysterious creature from the deep, comes the biggest question of all: what’s really down there?

Brexit is the hot topic for many UK voters in this week’s EU elections, with political parties defining themselves by where they stand on the decision to leave the EU. But whether the UK leaves the EU or not, climate change remains a problem we all need to face. ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s agree that urgent action is needed to prevent the worst outcomes of climate change and avert future disaster. But the topic still isn’t at the forefront of the political discourse.

So who do you vote for if you really care about climate change? We read and rounded up the facts on which parties have the strongest plans of action on the climate. Here, in alphabetical order, is what they say about the biggest issue facing humanity today.

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The Animal Welfare Party

This UK party is standing in a group of 11 European parties that aims to gain “greater political representation for animals in the European Parliament”. Their outlines their plan to improve animal welfare, stop overfishing, and ban hunting and hazardous pesticides. One of the points does specifically address climate change, albeit with an animal welfare-angle – they hope to “combat climate change by supporting a shift towards a plant-based lifestyle, implementing a CO2 tax for companies and speeding up efforts to realise a complete switch to renewable energy”. They also have plans for better public transport “as an alternative to air travel”.

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The Brexit Party

Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party has not published an election manifesto, and when asked about this at , Farage said, “As far as the manifesto is concerned, we are fighting the 23rd of May on the issue of democracy.” He added: “we are fighting and campaigning to make sure that we can be a free, independent, self-governing, democratic nation.” The party website makes no mention of any policies related to climate change.

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Change UK

Subtitled ‘The Independent Group’ this party was recently formed by a number of defectors from Labour and the Conservative party, and firmly sets out its stall out as a remain party. Although the introduction to says division over Brexit has prevented action on “the real challenges we need to solve”, climate change isn’t mentioned until page five, where the party states “we are in a climate emergency”. It suggests that remaining in the EU is the best way to advocate for action on climate change, and sets out a list of six things its MEPs will push for, including “[arguing for] reaching carbon ‘net zero’ emissions at least by 2050”, phasing out single-use plastics and developing renewable energy sources.

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Conservative and Unionist party

The Conservative party hasn’t issued a manifesto for the EU elections () and its focuses solely on Brexit, with no mention of climate change. The most recent relevant document is the 2017 General Election manifesto which has “Five giant challenges”, of which climate change is not one. On page 25, it refers to our “global commitments on climate change” and it later mentions the party “helped to frame” the Climate Change Act which passed in 2008.

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The English Democrats

This party , believes in the devolution of power, and favours “recognition of traditional counties, which would include the reunification of Yorkshire”. The words “climate change” are not used in its 37-page manifesto, however it does devote a 370-word section to “ecology and environment”, with the stated aim to “support initiatives which aim to guide us to a low carbon economy” including “zero-pollution hydrogen fuel-cell power”, Ěýand an increased focus on renewables. The manifesto also includes a 418-word section on the subject of “political correctness”.

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Green Party

As you may expect given its environmental focus, the Green Party immediately, saying in the introduction to its manifesto that it aims “to stop climate change before it is too late”. On the following page it adds “there is a Climate Emergency and we must be Carbon Neutral by 2030”. It talks about the need to “deliver a renewables revolution” across Europe to fight climate change while also meeting energy needs and creating jobs. Its climate action plan also includes an EU carbon budget and a carbon tax, phasing out fossil fuels and transforming transport to “overcome our dependency on polluting cars”. It advocates for taxes on air travel, and a “Green New Deal” that would mean fundamental lifestyle changes which would create jobs through investment in sustainable infrastructure.

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Independent Network

This group of independent MEP candidates brings together . Though it starts its manifesto by mentioning climate protests, none of the candidates address the topic directly in their brief policy outlines. One candidate does mention work to “improve our environment”, but no further detail is given.

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Labour

The Labour party devotes of its manifesto to “tackling climate change and protecting our planet” – although this does come in the third main section of the document, after it outlines its achievements to date and its economic plans. With a firm line that “we cannot afford to put off the action needed to mitigate the threat of climate change”, the party states its commitment to the Paris agreement, and says it will “demand” that the EU follows its pledge “to commit to 60% of the UK’s energy supply from renewable or low-carbon sources by 2030, and net zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest”. In addition, it commits to banning fracking, investing in green industry and introducing a new clean air act to tackle air pollution.

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Liberal Democrats

The first page of the says “Stop Brexit”, and its introduction firmly connects this to global warming as a neglected issue: “Instead of letting Brexit consume the next decade, let’s focus on tackling climate change”. Later, climate change appears on a list of “profound challenges”, after “youth unemployment” and “the revolutionary impact of… Artificial Intelligence”. The “climate emergency” is addressed more fully on page 13, when it commits to working collaboratively with the EU to achieve the climate targets set out in the Paris Agreement. Furthermore, it calls for “a zero-carbon Britain” by 2045, by concentrating on “accelerating the deployment of low-emission technologies, infrastructure, vehicles and products”, and encouraging trade in green energy. The manifesto also outlines plans to ban fracking, reduce the use of plastics, and address deforestation.

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Plaid Cymru, party of Wales

A Green New Deal is one of that open the Plaid Cymru manifesto. Its stated aim is to become “100% self-sufficient in renewable electricity by 2035 and [roll] out a £3 billion home energy efficiency programme”. Later, it addresses an “environmental crisis” that includes the collapse of biodiversity, soil erosion and pollution. It echoes those calling for “recognition of the global climate emergency” and suggests “new action in the form of a Green New Deal”. To address what it calls “the defining challenge of our time”, Plaid Cymru wants to invest in green energy, campaign for an EU climate law to make carbon reduction targets binding, and ban fracking. In addition, it outlines the need to fight deadly air pollution and tackle plastic waste.

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Scottish Greens

The Scottish Greens starts its manifesto with its , bring in a “Green New Deal for Europe”, improve green transport links, and fight pollution. The proposed Green New Deal will hope to “deliver 100% of Europe’s electricity from renewables”, as well as creating millions of jobs in the green economy, ending the use of coal in Europe by 2030 and campaigning to end subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy. The party also wants a Europe-wide “net-zero emissions target” and supports “climate-friendly farming that allows biodiversity to flourish.”

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Scottish National Party (SNP)

The introduction to makes the case that remaining in the EU will make tackling climate change and building a low carbon economy easier to achieve. Addressing climate change is not one of the parties stated ‘priorities’ on page two, but later on page 12, it runs through how it hopes to handle “the climate emergency”. It mentions proposed new legislation in Scotland that will commit to “reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 at the latest, and being carbon neutral by 2040”. It suggests climate policy needs to go further than the current EU goals, and puts forward its support for “a European-wide Green New Deal that recognises the scale of the climate emergency we face”. This includes a focus on renewables to bring down energy costs.

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The Socialist Party of Great Britain

The SPGB does not appear to have a manifesto, or easily available literature setting out its policies for voters in the forthcoming EU elections. On its , it states that it is “solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism… not a reformist party with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism”. Its site does host some , the thrust of which seem to be that we cannot address global warming under the current political model: “It is looking highly unlikely, if capitalism continues, that the rise in average global temperature this century is going to be held to this limit [of a 1°C]”.

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UK European Union Party (UKEUP)

According to its website, this party has “one aim: to stop Brexit”. states that remaining in the EU is best for the UK for a number of reasons, including the fact that as it will help tackle climate change. It supports “the efforts of the EU to address climate change”, and briefly outlines its own plan for action to address this “major issue of our time”. Among the “radical” measures it suggests are: supporting the use of green energy and discouraging the use of fossil fuels “in whatever ways possible”. It also highlights a need to address “our ‘disposable Culture’” by imposing “eco-design rules” to prolong products’ lifespans and reduce waste.

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UK Independence Party UKIP

UKIP’s two-page manifesto outlines , and it fails to mention climate change at all.

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Women’s Equality Party

About half-way through its manifesto, the party tackles climate change under the heading “”. Given its feminist focus, the Women’s Equality Party highlights the impact that the “global climate emergency” will have on women. It says: “Women are twice as likely as men to be among the poorest of any population and are as a result most affected by climate-related disasters”. It aims to assist women who have already been affected by climate change by making sure that development funding reaches the communities where it is needed. The party also says it will “urgently work with European Green MEPs and climate change scientists on the actions needed to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030”.

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The Yorkshire Party

This regional party aims to “speak up” for the 5 million people living in the English county of Yorkshire. Halfway into its manifesto, it , and sets out the need to protect the county’s countryside and coastline. This includes a “responsibility under the Paris Agreement to think globally but act locally”. Measures it proposes include a focus on wind farming and emerging green technologies to reduce the country’s carbon footprint and create more skilled jobs. Among its “pledges” that close the manifesto is the “protection of our greenbelt and a green Yorkshire”.