Review: Fallout TV Series

Video games are the source of some of the best stories I’ve ever encountered, and yet the list of successful movie and TV show adaptations is embarrassingly short. Well, you can add Amazon Prime’s Fallout to that list. Indeed, you can elevate it right to the top.

Full disclosure: I’ve never played a Fallout game, so I can’t speak to how faithful it is to the source material. Based on a bit of research—OK, 30 minutes of reading background material I found through Google—the Fallout TV series lands chronologically after all the games and is, by all accounts, representative of them. What I can tell you is that this series—season one consists of 8 episodes of approximately one hour each—is emblematic of the paradox I described in Rewatchable (Premium): It’s so good, and on so many levels, that it almost poisons the pot for whatever you’ll watch next.

To be clear, Fallout isn’t for everyone. It’s shockingly adult and violent at times, so much so that my wife asked me whether we’d even continue watching the show after two episodes. And science fiction of this kind can be off-putting to non-fans: If you’re not comfortable with mutated, crocodile-sized salamanders, noseless ghouls, and post-apocalyptic wastelands, you might believe this show to be a non-starter.

But don’t be that small-minded: Like all good science fiction, this world and its inhabitants are just a vehicle for story and message, and you’ll be surprised by the richness of each if you give it a chance. The world of Fallout is as familiar and compelling as any end-of-the-world scenario, but its unique blend of goofy humor, terrific actors, and realistic production puts it over the top and makes it feel strangely plausible, even real.

Like The Walking Dead, Fallout presents a post-apocalyptic world, introduces the main characters and their intersecting storylines, and then fills in their respective backstories as it goes. But unlike The Walking Dead, Fallout hasn’t yet overstayed its welcome. There are far fewer characters to keep track of, and their stories can still surprise and delight as we learn more about them and the history of how the world ended up as it did. There’s a mystery, and a payoff, and then a nice nod to what we now know will be a second season.

Fallout further diverges from The Walking Dead and most other post-apocalyptic stories, from The Planet of the Apes to the Terminator movies and everything in between, by also presenting an alternative past. In this world, civilization is frozen in a post-World War II era of vacuum tubes, bulbous TV displays, and mechanical computing devices. It’s a fun, steampunk Cuba, but in a reimagined Los Angeles that is destroyed by a nuclear holocaust.

The cast is a perfect blend of unfamiliar and familiar, with Walton Goggins of Justified fame and Kyle MacLachlan anchoring newcomers Ella Purnell and Aaron Moten. They’re all terrific. As is the supporting cast, from Sarita Choudhury (who I still think of as Saul’s wife from Homeland) to Chris Parnell (Archer, 30 Rock), Michael Emerson (Lost, Person of Interest), and the immediately recognizable voice of Matt Berry (The IT Crowd). Each delivers a wry, almost tongue-in-cheek cheerfulness that stands in sharp contrast to their characters’ struggles in the truly dangerous world they inhabit. The Walking Dead would benefit greatly from the humor and happiness that underlay this show.

In Fallout, a worldwide nuclear war has ravaged the planet and destroyed civilization, dividing it into the radiation-mutated surface dwellers and the stuck-in-the-1950s descendants of those who escaped the destruction by entombing themselves in nuclear fallout bunkers. The surface dwellers have simply adapted to the world as it is, while the vault-dwellers, as they’re called, live in isolated ignorance, believing that it’s their duty to come to the surface at some appointed time and reintroduce civilization to the wasteland. Each is, for the most part, blissfully unaware of the other.

Except that it’s more nuanced than that, of course, and the interactions between the two groups can be as funny as they are violent. But there’s no reason to spoil the fun. As Fallout unfolds over its 8 episodes, you learn more about the history that led us to this point, and about a more recent mystery that sets off the show’s central plot. Characters interact, humor and violence are exchanged, and things move along at a nice clip. Unlike some modern streaming series that seem to pad their stories with superfluous extra episodes that don’t advance the plot or character arcs at all, the story in Fallout season one is given exactly the time it needs.

Fallout is so successful that I expect it to inspire further video game adaptations. My greatest hope is for a series based on Half-Life, and there are moments in Fallout that triggered immediate visceral memories of specific instances in Half-Life 2, in particular. Perhaps this will help move us past the sad world of comic book adaptions: There are some terrific stories waiting to be told.

Unfortunately, there are also some hurdles to clear, and it doesn’t help that most video game adaptations to date land somewhere between truly terrible and just middling. The first Resident Evil movie is notably rewatchable and a personal favorite. But the other movies in that series are almost unwatchable dreck, and none capture the gothic horror vibes of the games that inspired them in the slightest. And I guess all three Tomb Raider movies are at least a bit north of decent. But that’s about it.

The list of TV shows is even less inspiring. Aside from Fallout, I rank The Last of Us very highly, despite it being yet another post-apocalyptic zombie pandemic story. And … that’s the only other show worth discussing. Halo is nothing but a lost opportunity, and the Resident Evil TV series was OK, but also a classic example of Netflix-era TV, a show that is well-made with a great cast and yet utterly forgettable.

So here’s to what I hope is a golden age of video game-inspired movies and TV shows. Fallout proves that it’s possible. And unlike The Last of Us, it demonstrates that storylines can simply exist in an established world alongside the games and don’t have to be straight-to-the-screen adaptations. These worlds are rich enough to support their own cinematic universes, and they deserve our attention.

Whatever happens, Fallout is terrific, and I recommend it highly. Just know what you’re getting into: There is adult content and tons of violence. It’s a bit like Game of Thrones in that way, but with a unique and welcome sense of humor that makes it truly special and unique.