Fallout (series): One of the better ones as of late

There are a couple of series that I have really enjoyed lately. One of them was Shogun and this is the other one. There were others in there that were better than average but honestly, Netflix and others have set the bar so low in the past 2 years that this isn't saying much.

As a fan of one of the games (only played one of them), certain aspects of this series were familiar to me but I remembered very little of it. Some people feel as though when a videogame adaptation is released that knowledge of the game is necessary in order to enjoy the show. Since I am kind of middle-of-the-road as far as this is concerned, I think I am correct when I say that you don't have to even know what the Fallout games were all about in order to enjoy this series.

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Anytime that Amazon is involved with the production of anything I get a little concerned from the outset. Rings of Power took this to an absurd level as far as the diversity quota and girl-power was concerned and while there is forced diversity in this series as well, they don't take it as stupidly far as they have done with other projects of theirs. Don't get the wrong idea, there is still plenty of DEI in this but so far we haven't been subjected to gay makeout sessions that have nothing to do with the storyline. Perhaps they are learning that people shy away from that sort of thing, right Halo?

Anyway, that's all I am going to say about that because even though it is definitely a part of this series, it is kept in the background where it belongs and doesn't interfere with the story. Fallout is a story about how nuclear war has devastated the world and now people either live underground in bunkers or they have managed to scrape by on the surface albeit with some very serious problems such as not having access to clean water, lack of any sort of infrastructure, and dangerous creatures that have evolved due to high radiation levels.

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it's difficult to say who the main character is in this series but there are two that come to mind right away. The main, and coolest one, is likely Walton Goggins as "Cooper Howard" and his story is told from a point of view of his life before the bombs dropped and afterwards. You are likely going to go back and forth about how you feel about this guy and this roller-coaster of emotion is intentional and beautifully executed.

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The other is Lucy MacLean that again, is wonderfully played by Ella Purnell, who is someone that I have never heard of before now.

Their character arcs are very different. Lucy has always lived underground in a bunker so she is extremely naïve about the outside world and wouldn't dream of going there had her hand not been forced. Cooper Howard on the other hand is a grizzled and radiation affected "ghoul" who is very well-versed in survival above ground. His story is told in two ways and how he is very connected to why the world ended up in the dismal state it is in, in the first place. These things are laid out to us slowly, but not so slowly as to invoke boredom. I know I stayed entertained throughout the obligatory 8 episode first season and it ends on a high note that has me upset with myself that I watched it so quickly since now I have to wait presumably a year before I can have any more.

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The series is set something like 200 years in the future and the tech that we see is just like it was in the games. Some of it doesn't make a lot of sense because it has a sort of 1950's feel to it yet other things such as the Knight's battlesuit or whatever it is called is far more advanced than anything we have like it today. I had to look up why that was and found an interesting tidbit of information. The tech seems antiquated in some instances because Fallout is based on an alternate timeline in history where the semi-conductor was never invented. Therefore any digital tech is massive and seems old-timey because the human race was never able to make things smaller... or something like that.

They do a magnificent job with their scenes and I say this because it can't be easy to recreate a dystopian world including blown out cities. This is achieved I would imagine largely through green screen technology and at no point in time, even when the CGI monsters are scuttling all around, does it ever appear fake.

According to the show's producers, Fallout was shot in New York and New Jersey (Jersey is a wise move since it is pretty close to a zombie style place already), New York, Utah, and parts of it went all the way over to Namibia. I have no idea how much it must have cost to make this, but they certainly didn't try to save money while doing it.

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Structures had to be built from scrap for filming, and this alone would have cost a pretty penny to accomplish.

One thing to note about Fallout is that the show, although very morose in nature, has constant elements of intentional comedy. For anyone that played the videogames you will recognize this very specific type of humor and for me and I believe anyone else that played the games, it is appreciated.

There are various characters that you will recognize from the games and in particular any sort of robotic something or other that appears brings about a feeling of nostalgia from the games.

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Fans of the games are really going to appreciate the appearance of "Mr. Handy" although I believe he is called "Snip Snip" the first time we encounter him. He/she/it is just wonderful.

The series moves on pretty quickly and I want to take a moment to talk about something that irritates me about almost any series that has ever been made. I refer to it as "filler" and what I mean by that is when they put a bunch of extra stuff or side-missions into the main story that don't really have any bearing on the overall mission/story. This is done because someone decided that the series needs a certain number of episodes before they even have a story and the writers fill up that time with garbage. Many a series has been ruined by this inclusion although I will say that it is increasingly rare now that most series never air on traditional cable TV anyway. They can have as many or as few episodes as they want so there isn't much incentive to include useless scenes and dialogue.

I really enjoyed this aspect of Fallout because virtually everything that happens is directly related to the overall story and everything that happens has a purpose. Well done Amazon!

Should I watch it?

That teaser trailer does a wonderful job showing you a bit of everything that you are in store for without spoiling any of the story.

Fallout is a rather extraordinary production that has been in the world for several decades. Bethesda, the owner / creators of the games, was reluctant to allow production of the series in the past because they didn't believe it would do justice to their iconic games. When approached by a big studio with big names associated with it, they finally allowed it.

As someone who played the games I can say that they definitely did it justice and even though I was a fan of the games, I do not think you need to even be aware that is was a game in order to like this. This series has just about everything and is one of the better productions that I have seen in years. So yeah, I recommend it.

_{Fallout can only be legally obtained with an Amazon Prime membership}