With the coming of a series based on Fallout, I'll admit to being somewhat sceptical. Okay, I was a straight up hater- but can you really blame me? The custodians of the franchise have exhibited all the tale-tail signs of dementia, steadily regressing in their craft from a masterpiece factory to a bit of a limp joke, the show runner was going to be the same guy who launched the intriguing Westworld, that was then dragged into the ground with an stretched-out plot that dragged on for years- there wasn't actually a lot of good reasons to be an optimist. Not to mention the source material of Fallout can be extremely hit or miss on a narrative front. Sure, sometimes you get Fallout New Vegas blowing you away with its layers of converging convictions clashing in seismic political tension, but then you also get the Institute from Fallout 4 with their, lets be frank, largely limp wider plans for the world. This was no 'The Last of Us'.
But now that the series is out it won't be any great surprise to hear me say that I was wrong, the show is actually pretty good and the Avatar effect was largely avoided. Which in hindsight is starting to make me believe that the Avatar franchise is just legitimately haunted- no one can seem to get a good adaptation or addendum to that original series for the life of them. (I really hope this new movie is going to be good but... well... with their policy about voice actors sharing the fictional nationalities of their characters- there's a good chance they recast Azula which is... frankly unacceptable.) Where was I? Oh yeah! So Fallout could very well have fallen into the same traps of it's fellows if it followed those footsteps, but instead the series did the one thing it could have done without ruining the past- it went forward.
Using the established world of Fallout as a spine from which to grow a new narrative is of course the optimal way to handle a video game adaptation, relieving you from the ridiculous responsibility of carrying the entire hundreds of hours of game on your back trying to squeeze that into a coherent show. And though there are very clear parallels to Fallout game narratives tucked not so neatly into this show, not least of all the lamentable revival of Bethesda's most annoying Fallout story trope- the missing family member- there's scatterings of new story too which has proven... intriguing thus far. And that is perhaps the strongest praise I can leverage upon the show at this point. (I'm watching it slowly, I'll admit. I don't want to rush through the thing.)
Needless to belabour, the visuals of the show are obviously incredible. The team looked towards the sensible redesigns of Fallout 4 and copied that style perfectly in their live action recreation of the game assets- bringing the game to startling life. It's quite insane to see assets replicated to such popping perfection, and I'm certain there were onset prop craftsmen scratching their heads at some of the weirder design choices, but whether it was Nolan's exacting eye, or Bethesda's insistence- no expense was seemingly spared. Hell, they even brought the Fallout 4 version of Power Armour to life with insane precision! And executed Stimpacks flawlessly! With the exact same sound byte from the games! Love letter indeed!
However, this isn't to say that I think the show is a 'masterpiece' by any stretch of the imagination. In actuality, looking past the copious heapings of fan service- I have found the early season to be a little bit messy. The second episode in particular seemed to take some interesting directions with it's action choreography that felt a little... cheap, shall we say? Watching someone get punched by a man in power armour, and then seeing them pulled weightlessly by obvious wires, is kind of CW level stunt work. Of course, those cheaper shortcomings are supposed to be drowned underneath the violence which is effective and fittingly gory- and yet... both action scenes I've seen so far seem to linger on for a couple of minutes past their prime effectiveness. The first episode wanted to play around with Lucy's perspective of sudden violence in a place that has always represented safety, so I understand the directing choice even if I don't agree with it. The standoff in the second episode, however? The longer it went on the cheaper everything looked, there really needed to be someone on set yelling 'cut' more. Seriously.
Another aspect of the show I absolutely did not expect to be critiquing was the tone but- yeah, we're there. It's not egregiously off, I must insist- but there are times when the black humour slips into farcical in a way that undermines the weight of the scene. I get that the sudden suicide in Episode 2 isn't supposed to be some emotional send-off to someone we just met- but Fallout doesn't usually make light of the finality of a death, unless we're talking about an exceptionally hilarious or ironic end. Death is supposed to gnaw at it's emptiness, hence why it lingers on the corpses of the world you travel and the locations you visit. It's a spectre hanging over anyone who wanders the wasteland, that is rarely shrugged off. But again, I'm still on the first half of the season- maybe I'm just over analysing the blinking hours of the show. Even as I wonder if this tone doesn't perhaps better fit a Borderlands adaptation over a Fallout one. (Maybe that's going a little far on my part.)
As for pacing- it varies. I would not call this show impeccably paced, but I wouldn't call it a rush job either. Time actually is a commodity spent and it's often spent well- effectively, even. Letting us settle into these worlds they've built is exactly what you want out of a TV show all about this iconic world, and I really hope we keep up this sort of environmental focus as Lucy delves into the urban destruction of the Wasteland. My problem is fleeting. Literally. The odd scene flies by a little too quickly. A man and his dog slip out from a shooting turret in the blink of an eye, before any tension or threat can be built. Is that more of a tone issue? I'd conflate the two. There's intention behind these decisions, I just don't know if I agree with these intentions a lot of the time.
And for the good? I think the cast is solid. Great actors given fine material. Nothing too complicated I've noticed, which I know this showrunner doesn't shy away from, and so I suspect was another intentional choice in order not to distract from the copious amounts of subtle world building this first season needs to establish. I like all three leads and want to know about all their individual stories, and I like the fact this show seems to remember that Fallout isn't a world of heroes and villians, just the jaded and the naïve. Even among our leads there's apparent flaws and humanity with them all, which makes me sadly reflect on the absolute lack of that in the Avatar show. (God, Netflix really screwed that show up. It makes me so sad!)
Now already the show has been deemed enough of a hit for a Season 2 to be announced, which does actually get me excited for whatever is planned next. Not knowing where this season ends I could not possibly speculate, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume our three leads end up on something of the same team- given how chummy they look on the poster. What I would personally hope for would be a smattering of anthology stories told from season to season- with new casts crossing over with previous season casts as the grand story of the true main character of this show, The Wasteland, is unravelled. But something tells me that is a fat chance in hell because shows like this need marketable faces. At least I hope the fight scenes get better funding now that this show is considered profitable!
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