Behind the Scenes

01The People

Waldron pitched the look as Mad Men meets Blade Runner. Herron drew on her own time as an office temp, and on Metropolis, Brazil, A Clockwork Orange and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

02Design

• Architecture — Modernist and Brutalist shapes: Frank Lloyd Wright, Marcel Breuer, Mies van der Rohe, Paul Rudolph, Oscar Niemeyer, Pier Luigi Nervi. The Atlanta Marriott Marquis atrium played the TVA.
• Two moods — Cold, monolithic buildings dressed in warm mid-century American colours and patterns, so you can't tell if the TVA is friendly.
• Analogue technology — Analogue kept advancing and digital never came. The chronomonitors were custom screens; the computer font was inspired by Alien.
• The TemPad — Inspired by calculator watches; its screens by the Super Nintendo and Game Boy Camera. It absorbed an earlier prop, the Time Twister.
• The Time Door — Inspired by the shield training in Dune (1984); about 150 designs were tried.
• Season 2 — Older, cruder parts of the TVA modelled on a Cold War bunker, in muted greens. The Loom was studied from kelp forests, yarn and lightning.

03Miss Minutes

Voiced by Tara Strong. Her orientation film was hand-animated by Titmouse, inspired by Mr. DNA from Jurassic Park, 1950s Disney educational films and UPA cartoons. In season 2 she is CG made to look hand-drawn.

04Music

Natalie Holt built the TVA's sound around the theremin, including a 1929 RCA model, with Hardanger fiddle and nyckelharpa, analogue synths and the Budapest Film Orchestra. The TVA theme uses clock sounds and is also Kang's theme, a deliberate hint at who runs the TVA.

05Costumes

• Brown on purpose — a risky colour for science fiction, chosen to make the TVA look harmless.
• Suits — Loki and Mobius wear vintage 1950s sharkskin that reads green or brown in different light. Matching suits strip their identity.
• Minutemen — an op-art harlequin pattern, different on every suit. B-15's helmet carries tally marks.

06Hidden Details

• A paperwork clerk keeps a mug with a photo of their cat; the same clerk appears in young Sylvie's flashback.
• The height of Loki's paperwork stack was worked out from his past MCU dialogue.
• Discontinued 1990s drinks, including Josta, appear around the TVA.
• Season 1 was shot in Atlanta under the working title Architect; season 2 at Pinewood Studios in the UK.
• Farahani won the 2022 Art Directors Guild award for Glorious Purpose.