Created by Graham Wagner & Geneva Robertson-Dworet
Based on Fallout by Bethesda Softworks
Showrunners Graham Wagner & Geneva Robertson-Dworet
Starring
Ella Purnell as Lucy MacLean, a young Vault Dweller
Luciana VanDette portrays young Lucy MacLean
Aaron Moten as Maximus, a squire of the Brotherhood of Steel who becomes an ally to Lucy
Amir Carr portrays young Maximus
Kyle MacLachlan as Hank MacLean, Lucy’s father and the Overseer of Vault 33, who originates from Vault 31
Moisés Arias as Norm MacLean, a Vault 33 resident, and Lucy’s brother
Xelia Mendes-Jones as Dane, a scribe of the Brotherhood of Steel and Maximus’s closest friend
Walton Goggins as The Ghoul / Cooper Howard, a once famous Hollywood actor and Vault-Tec ambassador who mutated into a ghoul after the bombs fell and now makes a living as a gunslinger and bounty hunter
Composer Ramin Djawadi
Release April 10, 2024 No. of episodes 8 Running time 45–74 minutes
Production
Executive producers Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Graham Wagner, Athena Wickham, Todd Howard, James Altman, Margot Lulick, James W. Skotchdopole
Producers Crystal Whelan, Halle Phillips, Gursimran Sandhu
Cinematography Stuart Dryburgh, Teodoro Maniaci
Editor Ali Comperchio
Production companies Kilter Films, Big Indie Pictures, Bethesda Game Studios, Amazon MGM Studios
Original release Network Amazon Prime Video
Fallout isn’t going to knock The Last of Us off its perch as best television adaptation of a computer game, but what it lacks in plot depth it makes up for with engaging world building and a sly, satirical sense of humor that makes it a whole lot of fun to watch.
A nuclear exchange in the early twenty-seventies has destroyed nearly all civilization on the surface of Earth. (The opening fifteen minutes of the series shows this in an unforgettable sequence.) However, a major American corporation, Vault-Tec, has foreseen this and built a series of underground vaults where favored select citizens can live in relative peace and prosperity for the 200 years or so it will take for the radiation to die down. It is now 2293 and while a horrible dystopia, Earth at least can console itself that Donald Trump is dead.
Questions arise fairly rapidly. The war supposedly took place in 2077, so how come life in the vaults looks like 1963? All the music is from the 40s and 50s. Social attitudes are identical to the days when parents were appalled and frightened by those Liverpool mop-tops. Where are they getting their power? They’re growing crops to feed hundreds of people underground and have a facsimile sky with a sun-like object in it. Everything, including their 1960s style computers, runs on electricity.
Why did a neighboring vault fail catastrophically and why don’t the residents of Vault 33 know much of anything about it?
There’s people on the surface, including some individuals who were alive in 2077. The Ghoul, for example, was a television cowboy star when the bombs dropped. (In that opening sequence, he applies ‘the thumb test’ to the first explosion, he sees from the Hollywood hills over downtown LA. He was told to hold his arm out at arms’ length and put his thumb in line of sight with the detonation. If the mushroom cloud is bigger than his thumb, run! This particular mushroom cloud fills about a quarter of the sky. Mordant touches like that abound in this often hilarious series.)
While it makes sense that vault-dwellers and surface dwellers might detest and fear one another, there’s something more to the animus here that extends beyond the haves and have-nots.
The characters, even the baddies, are engaging, and their efforts at coping with this retro-sinister world which might be Harlan Ellison’s idea of light entertainment make for a hell of a lot of fun. As I said, The Boys, with isotopes.
Now on Amazon Prime.