Yes, yes, no one is going to read this, too long, etc. Just vote in the poll please, I'm really curious about rDrama opinions on this.

Fallout TV show (Spoilers).

While I had no interest in watching it, fate had other plans. My parents liked it, invited me for a family rewatch, and me being a Familyman I couldn't say no.

I also was curious why so many people like it.

While I expected it to be bad and heard the cries of old Fallout fans about the lore r*pe, it looked like everyone else liked it. So, going in I expected the show divorced from the games and viewed as a standalone, to be good. Pretty much all criticism was about THE LORE after all.

But it isn't. It's bad on its own.

I guess it's one of those turn your brain off things. But that's not how I heard people describe this show as, and thus watching it was so very disappoining.

I won't be providing a synapsis, if you haven't seen this show, sorry but you will not be given context.

I'll start with:

The Good:

As is with most bad thing reviews I will Begin with positives, as this show couldn't be as well received without having any.

Walton Goggins is great:

That's a summary of most Fallout reviews, and for a reason (he is good). My favourite moment of his is the opening. Just a brief scene, but he almost instantly made my sympathize with and like his character. That opening is also fairly decent at building up tension before the inevitable happens. I'm willing to ignore the ridiculous coincidence of everyone missing the blast, it being very much non-face melting and very slow compared to follow-up explosions because I really like the rest of the scene (mostly Goggins though).

He is good as both the Pre-War actor and the Ghoul. Both characters being distinct and radically different. I wonder what lead to one becoming the other. I guess I need to wait for season 2 for that, how exciting.

Ella Purnell is good:

Both her acting and character are good. Lucy was well written and really likeable. Becoming a more hardened person was done in an appropriate gradual manner. She remained the same person at the core contrasting well with Ghoul being completely different person before and after the war.

Visuals:

Visuals are good (for the most part). While I find the art direction borrowed from FO4 unappealing, that is just my preference. Both the sets and the CGI are well done making the show far more watchable. Power armour looks great, guns look exactly like they do in game, gore looks excellent.

Fight scenes look decent, but sadly in a very superficial way. The choreography is kinda butt most of the time, and the final one where people run around with flags for symbolism felt like a bad Zack Snyder fight. Which in a post Rebel Moon 2 world is probably the most scolding criticism I will give in this review.

Also, a very big + for using real dogs instead of putting a man in green suit on four legs.

Minor good stuff:

I liked the scene of Ghoul confronting scrapper guy and his son. Everyone was quickly characterized to the extent they need to be, the escalation was natural, and unlike other scenes in this show it all was logical (although Ghoul knowing them felt convenient). It is all quite well done. Especially the conclusion of the scene, delivering on the brutality of the wastes and the less than moral character of the Ghoul. All in all, it actually may be my favourite scene in the show.

The Jewish looking gnome, Lucy's brother. I expected him to be played as a joke, but he is an active and likeable character. I like him even though his arc is just going around collecting exposition for the audience and then getting trapped in a fridge. He doesn't feel like a moron unlike many others in the same vault (and show).

Enclave's scientists backstory with the dog was alright, not super original but the sequence is executed well. Although in the same sequence the Enclave is established to be evil by the subtle narrative clue of bring puppies, and culminates in one of the worst action scenes in recent memory with a cannon painting an outline of the scientist and his dog with bullets.

Some jokes landed for me, like identifying the headless corpse by a mugshot and the roomba attacking with a needle.

Maximus and the other guy bonding over time was nice, but where it leads is a completely different story…

The enby pooner being referred in gender neutral terms was hilarious since in Polish it sounds like someone speaking in silesian accent. I cracked jokes with my mother whenever „it” appeared.

Seeing live action vault doors open may be entirely superficial, but it was cool…

Well, that's all the good I could remember. Time to get to…

The Bad:

I'll to start negatives with more of personal gripes, than the „objective” criticism that (hopefully) comes after.

So…

Maximus & the Steel Hood:

I find the Brotherhoods portrayal rather absurd with how internally hostile and broken it is, how little it cares for its people in a depopulated world, and how it allows people like Titus to attain rank. There is never a moment of competence shown from them. They have impressive technology, but that's just raw power they wield like a hammer.

The portrayal is a bit too much, and it would be proper to show them being at least a bit less self-destructive if not somewhat competent. The show acknowledges later that Brotherhood has lost its way, but I don't think it shows it in a believable manner, and with how the rest of this show is I can't help to think some Brotherhood's characterization is unintentional. I doubt the knights forgot flash lights on their helmets in their fight with the Ghoul and it was just some of the shoddy writing that plagues this show evrywhere else.

Anyway, what I really don't like is Maximus.

Maximus (reminding me of Finn from Star Wars for some reason), I would say is the most pathetic character in the show. Emotional immature, looses temper like a toddler when his Pooner friend gets promotion over him, breaks down like a b-word during interrogation (good acting though), cries for help to a person he just tried to brutally murder. And best of all constantly falls upwards despite his incompetence. Looking back at his deeds it's hilarious that the old Scribe guy entrusts him as one of the people to build the Brotherhood anew, when Maximus is so r-slurred and unreliable. Credit where credit is due, he, by some miracle, handles the situation with Fiends on the bridge very well. It's kinda out of character…

While it's fairly obvious that Maximus has no idea who he wants to be, it's like the show runners don't know either.

In episode two they really, really want us to be OK with Maximus killing knight Titus by making Titus a parody of an actual character, all just for the same Maximus to later try (with minimal hesitation mind you) to kill „his squire” with whom he actually bonded with, and while still having room for negotiations.

Unrelated, but it's kinda weird that removing the Fusion core traps user in the armour, you would think there is an emergency release in case the battery runs out or malfunctions. But well…

Speaking of Fusion cores, him trying to steal one from the vault's reactor doesn't endear him to me either. All in all. I doubt we are expected to root for one of the main characters to die and to see less of him, but that's all I'm getting from Maximus.

Also, he has annoying plot armour, with someone as capable as the ghoul failing to kill him on both their encounters. In one of them opting not to use his power armour killing move. He forgot apparently. Maximus's (tf do you write this?) final gambit with the head working was also destined to fail with how r-slurred it was, but somehow despite being a proven double liar and a suspect of sabotage that left someone maimed, the supposedly ruthless Brotherhood gives him another Chance. A reward for all his failures I guess…

It certainly does seem inconsistent, which brings me to…

Logical inconsistencies and coincidences, the bread and butter of neurodivergent criticism:

People love to point out things that are illogical and convenient in stories they don't like, as if it's a surfire way to determine if it's bad or not, but It's important to remember that even the best film can have these problems and remain great, it's the amount and magnitude of those that makes the difference. In Fallout, it is quite staggering how many of both happens.

Things go just the way they should have (for the script to work). People run into each other like the Wasteland is some small enclosed playground, they stumble upon what they need when they need it, everything comes together with no effort from both the characters, and the writers.

Trailing a ghoul by his radiation? Surely no other mutants trails or radiation zones are present to interfere. Lost a finger? You get a new one before the same doctor tries to kill you for your organs. Trapped in an armor in some tunnel? Here comes random rescue. On the verge of passing out from radiation in dangerous area? There is some random guy sealed in Power armor, that happens to have radaway with him. Posioned? There is a safe Vault nearby to heal yourself in. It all just works… out, somehow.

It's like a first draft. There are things that writers want to happen and you can see it all being connected with finesse of a drunken cow. It's either caused by them being lazy, or stupid. Personally I lean towards the latter, but I have to admit I'm biased against Jonathan Nolan ever since he shat out that second season of Westworld.

The story at times is coherent in the moment only to turn into complete nonsense in hindsight. Why was Maldover raiding the vault with raiders? I guess she is OK with murder and potential r*pe of innocent people, but why go there personally? Why send raiders when she has her own people? Why set up the bomb for the extra cruelty points? What was that „choose your daughter or the people” thing?

It feels like they wanted a shocking reveal, raiders (G*mers, we know who those are!), early villain establishment, and early brutality to set the tone. All that is delivered with minimal planning, and put together with narrative depth of a bunch of cliff notes laid together on a table. It all doesn't need to make sense in the end apparently. This particular example gets even worse when you know the vaults are monitored from Vault 31, yet apparently overseer of vault 32 was dead for two years, as was everyone else, and no one noticed. Not to mention, no one from vault 33 knew anyone from Vault 32 beforehand, even though they made exchange marriages before.

It appears that for the writers effects matters far more than how they are achieved, to the point that any implications or consequences of choices made by the story are simply ignored in the long run. It is lazy and amateurish. Many such cases here, but attack on vault 33 one was the worst for me.

By the way, unrelated, but do you remember the broken water chip subplot?

No?

…Well…

Moldmother and the Guffin:

Mauldover is a central character for the story despite her small amount of screen time. But who she is really?

She gets introduced as an evil murderer leading raiders to commit atrocities on innocent people to get what she wants, then she is a revered mythical figure the Flame Mother (why she is called that we know not), she is also revealed to have been a brilliant scientist fighting the corpos in the past, then finally she is leader of some NCR remnants and a good friend of Lucy's mother (the same Lucy she almost kills). Do these things contradict themselves? Not necessarily. Do they connect into a coherent whole in this story? Absolutely not.

When she gets the macguffin power source at the end, it's not a satisfying end to a character that wants to do good like the show frames it, it's more of an end of a horrible person that I was told wants to do good. Not sure what good really. Also, she got that cold Fusion working 200 years too late, the bombs already fell. A bit late.

Talking about our macguffin (I know it's a misnomer, but I will use it here anyway), an Infinite power source. Quite lame, I'm not gonna lie. But the bigger problem is that it kinda doesn't lead anywhere other than somehow lighting up a bunch of empty (and destroyed) skyscrapers. On its own it doesn't matter that much, but this thing was made such a big deal, with Brotherhoods elder scribe guy saying that whoever controls it controls the wasteland (which is r-slurred, the whole planet is wasteland, what Wasteland are you talking about you old fart?). Well, I guess Brotherhood controls the wasteland now. What are they going to do with it? Use it to charge Liberty Prime again? This is obviously setup for season 2, but for how much importance that power source has, it has extremely disappointing and lame conclusion in this season. If I were to guess Enclave will come for it in season 2 and will want to use it to charge some super weapon. Exciting.

The setting and show's relation to the games when it comes to that setting:

And so, we get to the Setting. Something that matters for me more than most people I assume. When judging media I put it just after story and characters. Here the story is let down by extremely weak writing, characters are a mixed bag with a few rising far above the rest and others being nonsensical and even worse annoying.

The setting is bland. But that's true only until we get to talk games, then it hits a nerve in me.

I praised visuals and I mention them here again, it all looks good. That being said, it also feels dead and empty. And not in the it's an empty desert kind of way, but in there should be something here but it's missing kinda way. This is a world that was nuked 1/5 of a millennium ago. There are no meaningful factions or bigger groups, there is only Brotherhood and Muldovar's group. The one singular very unimpressive „city” we see is crowded by seemingly dozens of visitors, but outside it there is no one, just a house. It all feels very artificial, like I'm looking at a theatre stage where I can see actors enter on cue from backstage, and the story goes between points of interests placed there by the almighty hand of the scriptwriter, connected by wast nothingness that this show fails to hide. With all this, when people talk about controlling wasteland I wonder what they are talking about. The sand? The radroaches? There are plenty of those roaming around, but not much else of anything.

I'll admit that this is somewhat a subjective complaint and one that is exaggerated by my knowledge of the games. Still, I will say it sucks even if you don't know the games.

And, talking about games, we get to the point where I think it's time to mention them properly. I intentionally avoided this as long as I could to not go into The Lore complaints that oversaturated the discourse. But this is an adaptation after all.

Fallouts 3 & 4 are set in a wasteland not too different from the one in the show. Devoid of civilization for the most part, and more of a collection of points of interest than a believable world. Very much like the show (but still somehow less empty). Now, with games it felt quite uninspired and driven by intentions of mass appeal with a classic postapocalyptic world. With the show however, it is the embodiment of un-creativity.

Why?

Well, for those not aware non-bethesda fallouts are actually not set in a generic wasteland despite being inspired by works that use such a setting. While Fallout one is the closes to being set in one but has its very own grim character that makes it stand out more than the show ever does. Fallout 2 and NV on the other hand are more of a post post apocalypse. They may be cynical when it comes to many aspects of humanity, but never deny its drive to survive and improve. New world rises on the ashes of the old one and by the time of New Vegas major factions like NCR and Legion are like small countries. Much of the wasteland is connected by trade and settled. It is still mostly wild, but very far from being a desert devoid human civilization we see in the show.

Fallouts 3 & 4 had a convenient excuse for generic wasteland that never changed in it's 200 years of history by setting it on the east coast, and claiming that people there are more stupid. That claim was easily proven by Bethesda themselves being from the East coast.

The show on the other hand is set not only on the west coast, it's set in the location of Fallouts 1 & 2. And instead of building on what came before, it erases it for an easy Cart Blanche. Apparently a bomb blew one city and the hole that took its place sucked in all traces of civilization in the region turning it back into a wilderness with a handful of backward humans living in a bunch of shacks.

My problem here is not that it's not lore accurate (I mean it is a problem but a lesser one), it is that they had an interesting and decently complex setting that they replaced with an empty, boring and generic postapo wasteland. I don't think it's possible for me to properly express my contempt for that decision. So let me just say: f u c k these uncreative hacks.

And speaking of which:

Generall creativity and CAPITALISM:

Lack of creativity is more of a meta complain, than a concrete problem. So I hope I'll manage to express it properly here. I'm no talking about using tropes, fish out of water and a macguffin chase are popular story elements but done right can be good for the millionth time. (Only one of those is good in this show btw.)

I'm talking about the plethora of specific choices done while creating this show. The world being streamlined and stripped of identity being the most egregious example of this.

Most of those decisions appear to be driven by the desire for mass appeal, but I belive some of thme are done because people making this show are stupid, and yes I'm reiterating what I've said before but I feel it needs to emphasized. Anyway, some of the choices:

• Ghouls that were mutants looking like zombies, are now actual zombies. They need to take some Zombex© not to turn, a human can become one by simply snorting ghoul juice (whatever it is). Ghouls regenerate, but also Decay so they look like actual zombies (and they always lose their noses because ghouls in games don't have noses). They can be shot in the body and not die like zombies, (until they get shot in the body and die in a different scene because it's convenient).

• The music. The show plays hard into the retro (futuristic) setting with period music yet it hardly, or pretty much never, uses the (great) ambiance from games. It relies on the contrast between upbeat music and drab setting almost screaming „look how weird and goofy this world is”, instead of allowing itself to be earnest for a moment and use a soundtrack that will accentuate the soberness of the dead world. Also, the songs are often just slapped on the scene and don't mesh well, even in the intended contrast. The constant yodelling whenever ghoul appears reminded me of Wonder Woman chants from Zack Snyder's Justice league, which brings us up to 2/5 Zack's in this review. I hope this sinks in for anyone claiming this is a good show.

• Enclave is back (back again x2). It's the big bad US government. It's the Star Wars Empire, it has to come back because anything else is not marketable enough. nI this case it's not even necessarily marketability, but inability to come up with something new.

I get that the show uses pre-war factions as villains, in form of Vault-Tec and other big corpos. Having the Enclave would make sense if not the fact that they have been destroyed three fricking Times already, and both New Vegas and 4 (until the recent patch apparently) say it's dead. Get new material.

The aforementioned corporations and problem of low creativity actually come together in the show, in form of the not so rare in today's world critique of KKKapitalism (sponsored by Amazon). While it is very much present in the games, which are anything but kind to the big corpos or the pre-war government, the show goes further than they ever did by making the corporations into a council of evil, scheming to destroy the world for profit. Its Outer Worlds r-slurred satire of capitalism that pretty much boils down to: capitalists are greedy and stupid, they will destroy everything. The not so serious setting cannot save this plot point from being completely r-slurred, when the plan to end war and factionalism entails creating a set of competing social experiments designed to create new world order after the war, without consideration for what happens if more than one of them succeeds. If it was only Vault-Tec I would be more forgiving, but all the big corporations scheming together as a council of evil is just going too far into the ridiculous territory, especially with them almost instantly starting to pitch in ideas for vault experiments. It's one of stupidest moments in a stupid show.

Also, my personal gripe with this is that the bombs are dropped for something this idiotic, the ambiguity that was present in the games was so much better at reinforcing the point of war never changing. No matter who dropped them, in the end it was human nature. Now it's just a bunch of rich buttholes realizing their r-slurred master plans. Capitalism dropped the bombs.

But you know… that's just my opinion.

I don't think the writers are commies like some accuse them of being. Champagne socialist at worst. Political mainstream enjoyers most likely.

Kinda weird they never namedrop China as the enemy in the show though...

And so we arrive at the last bigger point, and one that's probably least important to tackle…

THE LORE CHANGES and Shills™:

Before I dive into this let me say that I don't for general audience liking this show. If you are enjoying it, it's whatever. Someone may make an argument that allowing bad media to be uncontested for their badness erodes the general media landscape, but with shows like this being actually above average compared to everything else releasing right now, I think the damage is too severe to be mended anyway.

So, after this show released Godd Howard said it's cannon. Obvious marketing thing to try to merge the audience of both the TV show and the games. Thing is, it's seemingly cannon only to the Bethesda Fallout's, and event then not completly.

Some things I mentioned like the Enclave being back, or Ghouls working differently are mildly contradictory.

Vaults are apparently for rich and privileged now, even though in the games they have people chosen for the experiments. It's obviously done to hammer home the wealth inequality message.

And looping to my biggest complaint that is the wiping slate clean for the region.

Shady Sands explodes, and NCR is gone from LA even though it's just one city in a rather civilized region. With the HUB and Boneyard.

But there is more to that:

Shady Sands in the games is not in the ruins of LA, the aforementioned Boneyard is.

Boneyard that contains things like NCR reserve and Followers University, but it's not in the show at all.

What's more, is that before NCR, the same Boneyard was where Master had his headquarters from which he raided vaults to obtain people for his experiments. And now it appears he somehow missed the totally exposed vault 33…

Nothing aligns at all with the games, and thing is, the show actually doesn't get that many chances to contradict the lore anyway, having wiped the area clean.

I honestly don't care that much, I care that the show is bad. If it was good, breaking the lore would be a minor issue, worth mentioning but not one that makes it bad. It's not like the games are perfect in that regard, Shady Sands moved onece already, just not in such major way.

What annoys me is people claiming it doesn't contradict the games or, is somehow faithful to them.

I called this section Shills just to insult them, not because it's a true descriptor of what thye are. I don't believe most people soying over this show got any benefits from Amazon, and they genuinely like it.

If someone only played the sloppy slop of Fallout 4, this is a perfect adaptation. But, if someone played previous games and actually cares, I would love them to explain what they mean by saying it gets Fallout.

It is much more goofy and less erious than most games, Fallout 3 included. It ignores Fallout 1 & 2 pretty much completly, and sideshits on New Vegas on few occasions.

What it has:

• Power armor!

• Enclave!

• Ghouls!

• Familiar sound effects!

• Dogmeat! Sorry… CX404!

• Vault experiments name-dropped!

All the superficial bullshit. And not even treated with any reverence, or respect (not that they necessarily need to be treated as such).

Ranger armour is worn by some dirty scrappers, shady sands is nuked by some guy throwing a tantrum that his wife left him, power armour is easily dealt with in pretty much all fights when it's not worn by Maximus.

And the iconic(TM) War, war never changes.

I always read the lines as pertaining to human nature driving us towards conflict, but when used here it feels more geared towards war specifically, the character saying it believes they can end human conflict through societal control. It doesn't fit right.

Also, the theatrics during that line's delivery were absurd, obviously geared towards people soying out in the audience.

Best of all Ghoul drops that line later in more appropriate situation, with people killing each other for power (literally in this case), like they used before the Great War. That one was not only more thematically fitting, but better delivered. It almost felt like they thought the first time was not good enough and did a do-over.

Anyway, I just wonder if people in Fallout community like this show because they like Fallout as superficially as it is referenced by the show, or they just go with the flow.

Minor issues:

Vault 33 fat soy face guy, he ruined every scene he was in by his presence alone. I wished death upon him and was left disappointed.

The humour is hit or miss, but gets more cringe in the later episodes. Aforementioned vault 4 and that Radio guy were astoundingly unfunny and cringe.

Also, Maximus doesn't know what masturbation is. Lol.

Conclusion:

It's bad, mostly due to the plot being riddled by nonsense. While it certainly flies somewhat above the absolute sewage that big studios unleashed upon us in recent years, good actors and visuals feel absolutely wasted within a shoddy script and a sea of wasted opportunities.

I would say it's on the level of fallout 4, writing wise, and that had bad writing for a video game. This being a TV show, well… make of that what you will.

And season 2 is already confirmed. No surprise at all, the show was a success. No matter how much Obsidian fanboys complain, most people liked it.

Where will it go? Well, the ending teases us with a barren and dead New Vegas, seemingly to tease fans of New Vegas with personalized r*pe. The city may be teeming with life come season two though, after all, this show doesn't know the meaning of the word consistent.

Will season two be better?

Mr. Nolan's last major work was Westworld. That show followed first season (which apparently was good, personally I liked only the first episode), with some of the worst television ever created. So... no, it won't be.

I may or may not watch it, not that it really should matter for anyone. That being said, I do await it with excitement because I don't expect nothing but vindication when it finally comes out.

Final Verdict:

The Good:

• Some Characters (mostly Ghoul and Lucy)

• Visuals, both scenography and shots

• A few scenes are good overall

The Bad:

• Contrived, inconsistent and generally just stupid

• Lame and uninspired when it comes to setting and plot

• Some characters (especially Maximus and Maldeveer)

• That fat guy in vault 33

• That fat guy again, because he couldn't fit in one bullet point

• Poor use of music and soundtrack

• A lot of the jokes fell flat or were straight up trash

Final rating:

5/10. - 3/10 if viewed in context of the games.

Honestly I'm not entirely happy with how this review ended up, not much of a funny bone in it and some points could be more ironed out, but I can't be bothered to redraft this whole thing again so I'm posting as is, sunk cost fallacy and all that...

@Aevann I hope this has enough words to count as an effort post. While I like writing, I like arbitrary internet points even more.

That's all. Byyyye.