Fallout: Take Shelter!

In an alternat reality of 1950s America, a nuclear war devastates the world. Two hundred years later, some survivors live in large, interconnected bomb shelters called vaults.  The residents of vault 33 live their lives in a kind of idyllic wholesome society.  To make sure that inbreeding is not a problem, men from one vault marry women from another with the men moving to the bride’s vault.  Lucy (Ella Purnell), a resident of vault 33 marries a dweller from vault 32, and after consummating their relationship on their wedding night, she discovers that he is a raider from the surface world and that they had killed all the residents of 32.  A massacre ensues and Lucy’s father and leader of Vault 33, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), is taken to the surface.  As the survivors begin to put their world back together, Lucy ventures out into the wasteland that is the surface world.  Simultaneously, Maximus becomes a squire of the Brotherhood of Steel, an organization which seems to be a cross between a religious cult and a military outpost, that finds and collects technology from the past for preservation.  And rounding out the characters is bounty hunter Cooper Howard, who was alive when the original bomb went off and was mutated into a ghoul.  The brotherhood and Cooper are both searching for a man that has valuable technology while Lucy is searching for her father.

Fallout is based off the role-playing video game franchise of the same name created by Interplay Entertainment and now owned by Bethesda Softworks.  It is a black comedy science fiction post-apocalyptic satire and technologically futuristic mixed in with old west and 1950s elements.  The series premiered on April 10^th, 2024, on Prime Video (Amazon) with all episodes being available to stream simultaneously. The show has gotten mostly positive reviews with the production getting praise for feeling like a true extension of the game although not an actual adaptation of the game.

I understand that the series is getting mostly positive reviews and I appreciate that, but I am going to be one of the critics giving it a less than stellar write up. The first detraction for me is that I am so over post-apocalyptic science-fiction shows it’s just a genre I do not particularly enjoy anymore.  I have never played the game and know very little about the source material and because of that, I felt a bit lost through much of the first episode.  Exposition exists, and I think their goal was to give you hints of things yet to come making you want to watch more, but for me, it just wasn’t enough, and I was left confused.  I also didn’t connect with any of the main characters and that is a must for me, if I am going to enjoy the show. That being said, the production value is really good.  The music by Ramin Djawadi was well composed and the scenic design is very well conceived and constructed.  The actors all play their parts very well with the three leads doing a good job providing both drama and the needed comedy to carry the show.  In closing, this is a well done and well-constructed show, which I think will appeal to most people especially fans of the game, but it just isn’t my cup of tea.