Alex Miller

When I first saw the teasers, I was certainly concerned after being burned by The Witcher and not expecting Fallout to live up to The Last Of Us. I was wrong on both counts. The Fallout tv adaptation captures the style, atmosphere, action, and message of the games near flawlessly while also avoiding retreading old ground and offering enough twists and turns to keep things fresh and interesting. The atmosphere is incredible, perfectly bringing to life crumbling ruins, shanty towns, vast desert wastes, pristine vaults and retrofuturist pre-war America. While sets are sometimes revisited or reused, they all look interestingand are a treat to fans of the games and anyone who enjoys a post-apocolyptic setting. The action is great, featuring small scale shootouts to large battles with monsterous abominations. The violence and gore is often over-the-top, bordering on cartoonish, but that is more loyal to the games than anything else. There were only one or two scenes that I felt went too far. Most are kept brief and served to push the narrative of the wasteland corrupting those exposed to it. Speaking of the story, this was my main concern, and oh my god. Fallout's story is incredible, managing to bring new, complex characters into a beloved world and makes them feel interesting and representative of all sides of the game. Lucy serves as your typical "good" protagonish within a Fallout setting, The Ghoul is a more evil approach, and Maximus threads the needle between both while delivering some of the best laughs. Overall, the story touches on beloved aspects of the franchise and adds to them. The Brotherhood of Steel, Vault Tec, and the NCR all make appearances in the story, though they do not define it. The flashbacks to Pre-war America were a choice I questioned at first, but came to love in the end. It was a brilliant way to fit Fallout's consistant anti-corporate message that was present in every game into the show in a new, dynamic way while also connecting back to the main plot (only slightly undercut by the fact that Amazon of all companies is making the show). And the MUSIC! Fallout is largely defined by its soundtrack: a blend of popular music from anywhere between 1910 and 1960. Cole Porter, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and many others have all had songs appear on the in-game radio stations and the tv show does an excellent job of bringing multiple tracks into every episode, often contrasting intense violence or desolate wastes with fun mid-20th centrury music. They also manage to work in several original tracks and sound effects from the games and it truly makes the series truly feel like Fallout. Overall, Fallout managed to thread the needle perfectly, creating a story that stands on its own while also connecting enough references to the games to keep fans watching closely. They chose to fully embrace the world of Fallout from it's silliest aspects to its darkest and never shied away from the source material. I cannot wait to see where this series goes next, but in the meantime, I'm gonna watch this show again!