by James Coulter
I’m going to start this review with a confession: I have never played any of the Fallout video games. If you’re looking for a review from a diehard Fallout fan explaining how faithful the television show is to the video games, this is not the review for you. I’m simply reviewing this show on its own merits.
Having never played the games before, I know three things about the Fallout games:
1) They’re a first-person shooter that takes place within a post-apocalyptic setting.
2) Its mascot, Vault Boy, has become an iconic video game character alongside Mario and Sonic despite not actually being a playable character in the games.
3) Nuka-Cola looks refreshing and I want to taste it for myself.
Normally, I wouldn’t even watch a show like this. I only managed to do so because someone was nice enough to share their Amazon Prime account with me, and the internet has been raving about this show being an exceptional video game adaptation alongside the Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Last of Us.
So, I was curious and wanted to see what all the hype was about. So, is the Fallout show a great video game adaptation that lives up to the Fallout franchise? Or does this show deserve to be dumped and forgotten in a toxic landfill?
Fallout takes place 200 years after a nuclear war wiped out civilization. Mankind has been separated into two factions: Raiders, who live on the surface and scavenge for resources, and Vaulties, who live in underground Vaults, or fallout shelter communities, where they wait until radiation levels drop to a safe enough level for them to repopulate the world.
The show follows three main characters: Lucy, a Vaultie who sets off for the surface in search of her father, who was captured by Raiders; Maximus, a young soldier part of the Brotherhood of Steel, an organization that seeks out artifacts to help rebuild society; and The Ghoul, an undead bounty hunter who once lived as a famous Hollywood actor before the war.
Each of these characters is searching for a former government scientist who may or may not have secrets concerning the world before the war and the world as it currently exists. What secrets does this man hold? And will the three main characters learn to cooperate to uncover these secrets?
As of this review, I have only watched four of the eight episodes. However, the half of this series I have watched has certainly piqued my interest to want to watch the remaining half. Even as someone who has never played the game, while many references went over my head, I was able to intuit enough about the plot and setting to ascertain what was going on.
The show certainly captures the gritty setting of the Wasteland (as the surface world is called by the characters), as well as the tongue-in-cheek satirical nature of the Vaults, with its residents remaining loyally committed to maintaining the 1950s American way of life. Helping to
accentuate the Cold War-inspired post-apocalyptic setting are the occasional jazz musical cues which add a nice touch.
Each of the three main characters has their own value system that guides their personal character arcs and often makes them butt heads with the other characters whenever their stories do intersect.
Lucy is an all-American girl committed to the all-American values of truth, justice, and the American way, as preserved by the lifestyle within the Vaults; yet despite her commitment to the “Golden Rule”, her experiences in the Wasteland force her to come to terms with her–for lack of a better term, privileged–upbringing and realize the world isn’t as clear cut as she was raised to believe. As such, she has to learn to adapt to her new surroundings to survive and find her father.
Maximus, likewise, is a character groomed into becoming a solider for what he sees as a noble cause; however, through his role as a squire, which has him assuming the role of the knight he had been made to serve after that knight’s life is cut short, he learns the noble warriors he has been trained to serve under are not as noble as he had initially assumed, which makes him question their “noble” cause.
Finally, The Ghoul is a rough-and-tumble bounty hunter who has adapted to the eat-or-be-eaten world of the Wasteland, as he is forced to scavenge for vials to help sustain himself. Through the series, he had flashbacks to his former life before the bombs fell, which offers a glimpse into the past and how the events unfolded that led to the show’s present reality.
Overall, whether or not Fallout is faithful to the video game franchise it is based upon, I honestly cannot tell. However, what little I have seen of the show has certainly piqued my interest in both the show and the games. Fallout has certainly earned its reputation as a “great” video game adaptation, and anyone who loves shows like The Mandalorian and The Last of Us can certainly consider adding this show to their watchlist.
