"Fallout Season 1" Finding That Right Itch

    I'm a bit conflicted on how to feel about this show. On one hand, I think it is an incredibly effective piece of advertising for the entire Fallout series. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm currently playing through all of the Borderlands series, I'd go right now to install a Fallout 4 modpack to reexperience the wasteland. Because goddamnit, this game does such a good job of recreating the vibe and aesthetic of Fallout 4. Sure it isn't the ungodly green of Fallout 3, or the Mojave of Fallout: New Vegas, but it's still darn good, and a part of me now wants to become a vault hunter once more myself. But, then I also have to take a step back and remind myself that, there's a reason it took me so long to finish this show. It certainly wasn't one that I binged, and after watching the first episode months ago, the only reason I finally got around to finishing it was because my friends had told me they had watched it. Even still though, I am of the mind that the show ended strong enough that there is considerable hope for optimism that the second season might shed some of the "look at how different at universe is" episodes, and focus more on the story.

    I think to best illustrate one of my main issues with the show it would be relevant to do an exercise where you chart out the chain of events in the show regarding the main plot. Because to be honest, not much actually happens in the way of the plot. Yes I know "rule number one of the wasteland is you always get sidetracked by some bullshit”, but just because you acknowledge/justify it in-universe, does not magically erase or solve the problem. Sometimes, this show can feel at times as if it is trying more to be a showcase of just how wacky/messed up this universe is compared to ours, than an actual TV show that is trying to follow a solid plot. Am I mostly referring to Vault 4? Absolutely, especially because the show had already started it's own "vault conspiracy" storyline involving Norm, so did we need another one showing viewers just how fucked up the vaults are? I mean it was fine, but by that point it was episode 6/8 and it really did feel like the show was beginning to become too bogged down trying to show off. Luckily, the show recognizes this, and by episode 7/8 it mainly focuses on connecting all of the storylines and focusing on advancing the plot, so it wasn't too irritating, but I think it helps contribute to the absolutely slow pace that the show starts off on.

    Frankly, to be honest, another aspect that also helps kind of bog down the show are the flashbacks. Now don't get me wrong, Coop is one my favourite characters in the show, and he is indeed a badass especially in the end, but there are just so many flashbacks involving his life. Hopefully, viewers don't get as many in season 2 since his backstory is mostly established, but so much of the show is spent looking at the pre-war world through his eyes, which is fine, but you don't really get any sort of satisfaction until the very end of the season, making it a bit of a hard sell. The same could be said for the Brotherhood of Steel storyline, which is in my opinion the weakest out of the 3 "main" storylines for the characters. I mean sure it shows how it functions sort of, but most of the time is spent away from the actual BoS base, and it doesn't do much in terms of explaining how Maximus was a soldier raised for war, or critiquing it. Once again, considering the direction the show goes they could remedy this, but at the moment the BoS storyline felt quite scant compared to all of the other ones.

    

    Now, let's talk about my favourite character in the show, Norm. I'm going to be honest, a lot of the appeal to me was the fact that I had remembered him as Rico from Hannah Montanna, but it was genuinely cool to see him and Chet navigate around the vaults and slowly uncover the truth. That was what I wanted from the BoS storyline, some actual progress. I mean it's not like Norm got very far, at the end of season 1 viewers don't even get to see what happened to him, but it still felt like real progress was being made. I mean part of it was that he was useless, so seeing him finally find something to be invested in was interesting. Of course I already knew that Vault-Tec was evil, after all I played the games, but I was still invested in figuring out what exactly the experiment in Vault's 31-33 were. The same could be said for Coop, because while his flashbacks were a little useless, by the end once he got around to actually discovering how evil his wife was, I was fully hooked. Of course, a part of me was annoyed with how naive Lucy was, but it was only natural considering she was fresh from the vault. I think with her storyline I was mostly fine with it, I thought she might be featured more considering since she is the vault dweller in the story, but since that might mean more romance, I think I was ok with her not having a bigger role.

Final Score: 75/100

    No but seriously, that romance between Maximus and Lucy was so half baked, I hope they either scrap it next season, or find a way for them to actually develop some sort of romantic chemistry/tension between them, because there was absolutely none whatsoever. I want to rate it higher, but I do have to acknowledge that this show ended on a high note, and that the first couple of episodes, frankly you could say the first 5, were quite slow and a big drag, because nothing really was going on and it felt more like a showcase. I will say this, if you watch the show and are a bit iffy on it, especially in the beginning, I do think you should see it through regardless, just to see if the ending redeems it for you sort of like it did for me. Do I think this is the greatest video game to film/TV adaptation of all time? No, but it's a lot better than I thought the show would turn out to be, so credit to the showrunners for that. Why'd you have to kill the NCR though?