The End

Greetings from Lithuania.

"The End", the first episode of "Fallout", an adaptation of a very popular video games franchise was everything I was hoped for it to be. I've played every game in the series except for first two, and I really liked them very much. Earlier last year "The Last of Us" adaptation set the bar high for games turned into TV, and this time "Fallout" with it's opening knocked out of the park. It's a fantastic opening.

I loved the world building, sets, main characters and storytelling in first episode very much. It's an opening that gets you hooked, and I will definitely going to watch remaining episodes of season 1.

129 years after a nuclear war devastated the Earth, the descendants of the survivors are living in underground complexes - "Vaults" - and not venturing to the surface. Lucy is an inhabitant of Vault 33 and is about to marry a man from Vault 32. Her life is about to get turned upside down.

Knowing this series is based on a video game I was quite hesitant to watch it. Video game-based series tend to rely on die-hard fans of the game as viewers and so pander to them, assuming that viewers have prior knowledge of the plot and characters and generally ignoring us who know nothing about the game and just want to watch an entertaining series.

This doesn't apply to Fallout. Based on the first episode the show doesn't rely on the video game for support and stands on its own two feet. The plot is interesting and the characters are engaging.

Looking forward to the remainder of the series.

We're certainly entering a new era of video game adaptations finding a home on television. A lot of years have gone by with adaptations on the big screen and most of them have been quite poor, which resulted in a popular expectation that they would all just fail if they were adapted. However, "The Last of Us" came out and surprised everyone with its quality, and now, it's up to "Fallout" to continue that goodwill and show us that it wasn't just a one-time fluke. And if the first episode is to be taken by its word, it seems like we might continue the streak.

The episode opens with a powerful depiction of the end of the world. It's a big and gutsy way of opening your show, and it sets up the world beautifully for people who don't have any prior knowledge of the games (like me). Afterwards, the show goes into the overall expansion of the world, cutting between three different stories that are meant to set up different aspects of the world. The three things work very separately, but it makes for some clunky editing choices throughout the episode and it feels a little disjointed at times. However, the information is conveyed with the precision that it needs to be and it keeps the audience along with the show and its mythology. The design of the episode is very beautiful and it feels like the kind of world that would remind a post-apocalyptic society of a better time. I've also been told that the design is very reminiscent of the game, so the fact that they keep it real for the fans of the games is also very special and commendable. Jonathan Nolan directs this episode and he is a very versatile director, because the look of this doesn't resemble that of "Westworld" at all, but the style is definitely the same, so his ability to adapt himself to the environment that he's in is very interesting, and he certainly works his butt of in this episode. The performances are also very good, but I'll need a bit more time to get into the characters for real.

"The End" is a good way to start this show off and it immediately tells the non-video game fans what they need to know. It sets up the world in three interesting, although disjointed segments that sell the world and the environment very well, and sets up a very interesting show to follow along with.

Never quite catched eye with the Fallout franchise until I heard about the existence of this show and managing to properly watch it was the best way to fortified my investment with the franchise and its story. I was pretty impressed, as an outsider from the games, how well established the world of Fallout is, from the atomic nukes, to the wacky aspects of this universe that I still hope to see more of, speaking about the episode itself, such a raw experience for just a first episode, it's edgy enough to not make me bored during its development, so many cool uses of practical effects, likeable characters, well directed set designs.

What a terrific premiere episode. Between this and The Last of Us, it looks like video games are a great source for series, with so much smart (and in this case, satirical) worldbuilding and visual style already done.

The look of Fallout is both familiar and fresh. We've seen this retro-grunge routine before, such as in Apple's Silo. But they've amped it up for Fallout beyond all expectations. I can only compare this with Amazon's The Man in the High Castle for both creativity and sheer volume of gorgeous and fun details to look at.

They waste no time in getting right to the series' premise, while also finding time to introduce side characters. I expected Walton Goggins' Ghoul to be intriguing but I'm also interested in Lucy's father, brother and cousin. They whipped up a whole family circus there in just a few scenes of one action-packed episode.