Well, Vault Dwellers, the time has come. Fallout is here at last; this time, it’s on Prime Video as a TV series. This adaptation of the beloved video game franchise comes courtesy of mystery-boxers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, the creative minds who took Michael Crichton’s not-so-memorable Westworld (and elements of its even more forgettable sequel, Futureworld) and turned it into a must-watch HBO series loaded with more twists than a bag of pretzels in a yoga studio. With Fallout, however, the stakes are much higher; taking a forgettable Yul Brynner film from 1973 never had the challenge of meeting fan expectations.
Created by Interplay Entertainment, Fallout was taken over by Bethesda Softworks (who have a hand in Nolan and Joy’s adaptation) in 2008, starting with the series’ third installment. The game was unanimously praised for its open structure and tongue-in-cheek humor. As far as video game interactivity goes, few games offer the same level of immersion — from signage to detritus to conversations with various Wastelanders — the sheer number of options is enough to clock some serious screen time. As with all mega-successes, more sequels had to be pumped out, with some games outsourced to other companies, like Obsidian Entertainment, whose 2010 entry, Fallout: New Vegas, is widely considered to be the best in the series — although there are plenty who would say the title goes to Fallout 4, or Fallout 3, for that matter.
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Whichever game fans glom onto for role-playing their post-apocalyptic fantasies, Fallout can exist in perpetuity because its setup has less to do with one relatively satisfying, hand-holding narrative and more with the pleasure of discovery. Pangs of recognition abound as the player happens upon retro-futuristic technologies, crackpot survivalists, and mutant aberrations that infest every corner of the cornerless map. Needless to say, Fallout is necessarily a video game because it has to be; no other medium could encompass so much and offer the exact mechanics of exploration.
So, we arrive at the TV show, which has its own rules of play. We begin with the end. Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins), a former Western star, is relegated to plying his trade at children’s birthday parties, namely, lassoing things and letting the kids pet the pretty horsey. We meet him at one such event while the parents scoff, referring to Howard as a “pinko.” If not for the brief glimpse of a robot and a chrome-cluttered skyline, this would seem like a story set in the 50s. But this is actually the World of Tomorrow as envisioned by the sci-fi writers of yesteryear, whose fantastic inventions could stoke readers’ imaginations but would often remain firmly affixed to countless other qualities inextricable from their era. Then, the big one hits — actually, several big ones.
219 years later, we’re in the Vaults, literal vaults, big round locked doors and all, where humanity has managed to piece together a pretty decent living comprised of agricultural simplicity, projections to simulate the long-lost outdoors, and “cousin stuff.” Here in these underground dwellings, young people come of age under artificial lighting and learn the necessities of extrafamilial breeding. One fertile specimen ready for inter-Vault relations is Lucy MacLean (Yellowjacket‘s severely, albeit understandably, underutilized Ella Parnell), daughter of Vault 33’s leader, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan). Lucy will meet her match, a member from another Vault, with whom she will start a family.
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Meanwhile, above ground, a young man named Maximus (Aaron Moten) is getting the snot kicked out of him. He’s one of several recruits who have to push well past their physical and psychological limits to join the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel, a sect of zealots whose religion is weaponized justice. Throughout the Wasteland, the Brotherhood enacts its brutal brand of frontier justice. To aid them in their self-righteous quest, the elite rank don suits of mechanized armor that drop the voice several octaves (providing additional intimidation on top of heavy-duty armaments). As it turns out, Maximus finds himself in the fortunate position of becoming a squire, a glorified caddy for one of the armored knights.
Meanwhile, once more, a trio of bounty hunters raids a compound housing a grave with IV bags connected to it. Awakening the buried figure, they find a noseless man with skin like a Slim Jim, aptly referred to as the Ghoul, a former Cooper Howard who survived the world-ending incident all those years ago and became a mutant of ill repute. The other bounty hunters let the Ghoul know there’s a major cash reward for finding a scientist who’s gone AWOL from the Enclave. So, this third journey across the Wasteland begins.
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What do these disparate characters have to do with each other? In the closest approximation to the experience of playing an open-world game, characters, both primary and lesser — like the gentleman who doffs his hat and defiles livestock — cross paths repeatedly throughout, adding new layers to each other’s stories, providing new opportunities for alliance and betrayal, ultimately pushing the plot toward the terminus. As Lucy, Maximus, and the Ghoul each progress in their respective quests, further fragments of this world come to light. Fallout might not provide the viewer with the same level of control as in-game decision-making, but the panoramic storytelling still offers plenty of surprises to keep things fresh — despite being based on a long-running series of video games with a well-worn familiarity to those who are the series’ primary audience.
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Regarding that nagging yet highly crave-able sensation of emotional investment, Fallout spends most of its runtime with its tongue so deeply embedded in its cheek that it would have to be surgically removed before the subject of feelings can enter the equation. As for the basic math, there’s probably a perfect ratio of satire and sentiment that could integrate seamlessly, but the whirligig nature of Fallout moves too fast to provoke serious thought, and that’s just fine. The series is best viewed as a volatile blend of genres, where anything goes, and often, the gag takes precedence over the saccharine detail that will wring rote feelings from the viewer. It might be impossible to adapt a property from another medium without losing something intrinsic to its original form, but Fallout feels distinctly like an adaptation for fans by fans. Nolan and Joy prioritize recombining the material and adding to the world rather than just imbuing what’s already there with an ingredient somewhat alien to its experience.
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Fans of video games can rest assured that the rest of the 8-episode season features plenty of nudges, nods, winks, callbacks, twists, turns, lore, laughs, reveals, revelations, and more to keep them comfy for the duration — and, notably, does so with only minor hiccups to interrupt its near-relentless pace. That’s not including the peripheral details of interest to diehard fans, which would require multiple viewings to spot every tucked-away touch that must’ve been a production team’s absolute pleasure or a total nightmare. For those who have never played the Fallout series, especially those of the time-strapped ilk who can’t just pour hundreds of hours into a game, they should give Prime Video’s Fallout a go. It’s like catching up on several pop cultural properties at once, in a fraction of the time, condensing everything from trash like The Asylum’s DTV output to the most head-spinning qualities of Season 1 of Westworld. It’s an unruly hunk of TV made of blood and steel, and it’s nothing if not interesting.
Fallout
In a future, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles brought about by nuclear decimation, citizens must live in underground bunkers to protect themselves from radiation, mutants and bandits.
- Release Date
- April 10, 2024
- Creator(s)
- Geneva Robertson-Dworet
- Cast
- Moises Arias , Johnny Pemberton , Walton Goggins , Kyle MacLachlan , Xelia Mendes-Jones , Aaron Moten , Ella Purnell
- Main Genre
- Sci-Fi
- Seasons
- 1
- Production Company
- Amazon Studios, Kilter Films, Bethesda Game Studios
- Writers
- Geneva Robertson-Dworet
- Number of Episodes
- 8
- Directors
- Jonathan Nolan
- Ridiculously violent comedy that pushes the limits of good taste
- Fallout takes a detail-rich video game and finds a fresh way to engage the material
- Fallout isn’t entirely engaging on an emotional level