Fallout: Season 1 (2024) - Post Apocalyptic TV Show Review

The Fallout TV show really enjoyed a moment of being a cultural phenomenon earlier this year when it came out to critical acclaim. I did my usual thing of taking ages to get through the show, with little reason other than I never wanted to commit to an entire hour to watch an episode. I've finally gotten through it, though my stop-start approach means I may be a bit hazy on some of the details. If all that sounds like I disliked the show then you would be mistaken, as this was a darn good adaptation that did the franchise proud.

The show doesn't adapt one of the many games, but it does put itself into a canonical position, taking place roughly fifteen years after Fallout 4. This mainly takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, several hundred years after nuclear war devastated that world. Luckily, Vault-Tec had a plan, they created hundreds of self-sustaining underground vaults that people could live in for countless generations until the surface world was once again inhabitable. Lucy (Ella Purnell - Army of the Dead) is the daughter of the overseer of California based Vault 33 (Hank MacLean played by Kyle MacLachlan - Twin Peaks) who lives a naïve and idyllic life. An arranged marriage has been planned between Lucy and someone from the neighbouring Vault 32, and one day the inhabitants of that vault travel to 33 for the wedding ceremony. It isn't long before it is revealed that the group, led by a woman named Lee Moldaver (Saria Choudhury - Jessica Jones TV show, Homeland TV show) are actually bandits from the surface world, they attack the vault dwellers and kidnap Hank. Going against the wishes of her people, Lucy sets out into the wasteland to try and track down her father.
Meanwhile, Maximus (Aaron Moten), a member of a religious group of old technology worshipping knights called The Brotherhood of Steel is made the squire of one of the powerful armoured knights, and sets out with the man on an important mission.
Elsewhere, a bounty hunter zombie-like ghoul (who in his former life before the bombs dropped had been a well known actor), Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins - Ant-Man and the Wasp, Predators) is also hired for an important mission.
Over the course of the eight episodes, these three characters end up repeatedly crossing paths with each other, with it revealed that they are all essentially going after the same thing.

I have always liked the Fallout series of games, but thinking back on them for this review it was only really Fallout 3 that I would say I loved. People rave about Fallout: New Vegas but personally I disliked the faction system, Fallout 4 was good at the time, but it wasn't the most exciting game, while I own Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout: Tactics, and Fallout 76 but haven't actually ever gotten around to playing them. It was a good decision to make this a canonical and new entry in the timeline rather than trying to make one of the previous games into a show. As good as The Last of Us show was, it was very low on surprises due to me being so familiar with the game. This show builds upon what made the games so cool, and features plenty of easter eggs for those familiar. The set design is mostly fantastic with a variety of locations visited. One of my favourite parts was a sub-plot set back in Vault 33, with Lucy's brother Norm (Moises Arias) discovering the hidden dark side to the vault and the real reason it was set-up the way it was.

The three main storylines meant that there was something new always going on, and I enjoyed the way that the characters would occasionally meet up. The three protagonists also had differing personality types. Lucy is wonderfully innocent when she first travels to the surface, making for some amusing scenes. The show charts her transition into a powerful character in her own right, though never losing her sense of goodness. In the middle is Maximus, a morally grey character who wants more than anything to become a knight of The Brotherhood of Steel and get his own power armour. He is shown to be severely uneducated, giving him an innocence all of his own, though he is far more inclined to make selfish decisions without thinking of the consequences. While he might be low intelligence, he is an endearing and likeable character. Then there is Cooper, the most complex and least noble. His storyline features a lot of flashbacks to his time pre-war, and with around a quarter of Fallout set in that time period, he was integral to showing what transpired. It was interesting how his past-self was almost the polar opposite to his present day self - someone cold and calculating who sees existence as the survival of the fittest.

With the show switching between the three protagonists, the subplot back at the vault, and frequent lengthy flashbacks to pre-war, this did a good balancing act, never making it feel like one storyline was more important than the others. Of course, Lucy herself is the prime protagonist, but her and the others quests always felt like enough time and attention was being paid to them. It captures the kooky darkly humorous vibe of the games wonderfully, and also features a couple of stand-out action sequences. The first time that Cooper, Lucy, and Maximus met was perhaps my favourite of these, though the show also ends in a large action sequence. It didn't help that due to taking so long to watch the show, I had pretty much every story-beat spoiled from the internet. For the next season I will definitely be watching it sharpish!

I loved Fallout, I thought it was very well written, featured fantastic characters, and they got the humour spot-on. We may live in a dark and scary world, but I'm so glad we also live in a time when such great video game adaptations are being made.

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