【辐射伪典/AI机翻】克里斯·阿瓦隆锐评辐射tv版，第一部分

视奸用小号

今早新鲜出炉，原文地址：Fallout Apocrypha: TV Series Review Part 1

全文Copilot翻译，简单替换了几个术语，未润色（因为正在写自己的锐评，以免看多了被带跑）

原文在二楼：

欢迎！

这是《辐射启示录》的特别版本。它分析了亚马逊Prime上的《辐射》电视剧。

这第一部分为评测奠定了基础，并检视了角色及其发展轨迹。第二部分（一两天内，也在这里）将分析系列中的传说。

“辐射启示录”是《辐射圣经》的延续，如果你想回顾任何内容——它可能有助于回答对贝塞斯达的看法（不，我不讨厌他们，我认识的在《辐射新维加斯》上工作的人也不讨厌他们），我对贝塞斯达之前《辐射》的批评，以及其他《辐射》信息。

此外，网上还有很多其他关于该系列的评论。我鼓励你去看看，以获得更多视角。

例如，蒂姆·凯恩（Tim Cain），《辐射》的核心创作者之一，有一个YouTube频道，不仅值得关注《辐射》，还有很多开发建议——你可以在这里找到：CainOnGames

显然，这篇评论包含剧透——但如果你没有看过这个系列，那么这里的一些反馈可能会让你感到困惑，所以……

……让我们开始吧！

很久以前，当我在推销游戏时，有人告诉我詹姆斯·卡梅隆有一种推销方式——他不愿意听一个糟糕的PPT报告，而是要求看一下被推销电影的海报。

我认为这是天才之举，因为好的电影海报旨在一瞥之间就能概括出节目的特点，并设定观众的期望。在某些方面，它就像游戏盒子封面。你想体验所展示的娱乐内容吗？

话虽如此，《辐射》电视剧的海报是这样的：

……它非常准确，无论是好是坏。

你有什么资格写评论？

好问题。有几点：

我不是微软员工。¹

我曾经收到蒂姆·凯恩的邀请去参与F1的工作，我拒绝了，至今仍然为此懊悔。²

我在Interplay参与了《辐射2》和《范布伦》的工作，然后是《辐射新维加斯》以及大部分《新维加斯》DLC。

蒂姆和我曾在《核子破碎》，即《辐射》的限定系列中“主演”。我的出现尤其令人震惊。

我在Medium上写了《辐射圣经》和《启示录》的章节。

我看过《记忆碎片》和《西部世界》。

可能和你一样，我喜欢《辐射》系列。

最后，我对这个游戏没有任何利害关系。很容易说“哦，你在阿谀奉承，你是粉丝男孩，你嫉妒/苦涩，你讨厌贝塞斯达”，等等。

但真的？我不在乎，如果不是网上的人联系我，责怪我做出了我从未做过的系列选择，我根本不会看这个节目（我不在乎）或写这篇评论。我很乐意在应得的时候称赞一部剧，我在下面也这样做了，因为有些地方我认为这部剧做得不错。

所以，尽管我没有看的欲望，我还是给了它一个机会。我看了它，做了笔记，第二次看的时候又做了更多笔记，然后给托德发了一封祝贺信——不管我怎么看，把《辐射》变成官方系列是一个巨大的成就。这不可能便宜，也不可能容易。

所以，向他们致敬。

[1] 顺便说一句，如果你是微软员工，是时候组建工会了。

[2] 另一方面，这使得《辐射1》的写作工作交给了Interplay的斯科特·贝尼，这很棒，因为斯科特是一个伟大的作家，为《辐射》增添了很多质量。他也是给了我在加利福尼亚的第一个家，他将被怀念。

“嘿，笨蛋，你漏掉了什么或者搞错了X，Y，Z……”

……如果是这样，请随时指出——我肯定有我错过的元素。即使是第二次看这个系列，我仍然觉得我没有完全理解。

为什么要看两遍？嗯，因为做传说研究是工作，但这是值得的工作。

我之所以这么做，是因为如果我批评别人没有做好研究传说的工作，而我自己也不这么做，那就太虚伪了。

贬低这篇评论的理由

让我为那些想要轻松找借口贬低这篇评论的反对者做些工作：

1.     我没有广泛地玩过《辐射4》，除了开头1小时和观看2个结局之外，我决定不再玩了。任何在F4中展示的传说钩子（比如汉考克一夜之间变成了尸鬼）我都一无所知。

2.     我不喜欢执行制片人乔纳森·诺兰之前的作品《西部世界》，除了第一季之外。我看了所有的季节，很遗憾。

提到《西部世界》特别恰当，因为《西部世界》是一个在观看时感觉真实的虚构地点，而《辐射》应该是在现实世界中，但不知何故整个系列感觉非常假——我很好奇，如果他们将现实世界的感觉应用到一些地点、人物和场景上会发生什么——生日派对的开场接近了，而且是一个很棒的场景，但仅此而已。相反，一切都感觉……过于甜蜜。

我认为《辐射》系列和《西部世界》有着相同的问题——有很多角色似乎没人知道该怎么处理。当我意识到诺兰和霍华德有联系后，看到F4和《西部世界》之间的联系变得非常有趣。如果你看过F4和《西部世界》中的合成人浸泡舱，你就会明白我的意思。

《西部世界》的顶部，F4的底部。

如果你认为《西部世界》的整体是有史以来最令人惊叹的电影作品，那么你在接下来的评论中几乎找不到任何喜欢的地方。

• 在许多方面（开始点燃火把，叉子稍后再来），整个系列让我想起了《星际迷航：皮卡德》的最终季。
  

如果你还没有看过，皮卡德的第三季是一个粉丝服务的典范，它给观众提供了他们一直想要的一切，并且非常有趣。

它也是一个大体上糟糕、随机的故事，让我不断地摇头。除了粉丝服务时刻之外，这部剧的精巧感几乎不存在，也不连贯。

如果你认为皮卡德S3是你在这个宇宙或任何其他宇宙中看过的最好的、叙事上最稳固的东西，那么你现在就可以停止阅读这篇评论，因为你不会喜欢我的观点。

• 最后一个理由是因为我们都有权拥有自己的观点。如果你喜欢某样东西，那就是你喜欢它。这一点无可争辩。我无法争辩，也不会——你对某事的感觉是你能有的最真诚的情感之一。
  

如果我喜欢某样东西，那就是我喜欢它，这很好——因为我们俩都有权拥有自己的观点。

所以请继续阅读！

娱乐与精巧

我在评估电影时有两个类别：娱乐和精巧（质量）。1

之所以这样，是因为有些我知道很糟糕的电影我却很喜欢（《生化危机1》），还有一些虽然制作精良但我不喜欢看的好电影（《天生杀人狂》）。³

这也适用于更现代的科幻片——我会说《硅谷》和《基地》是质量更高的节目，但它们没有《辐射》所具有的原始娱乐价值。

那么，《辐射》在娱乐与精巧方面是如何表现的呢？

《辐射》有趣吗？

是的。

《辐射》系列是一个娱乐性的奇观，作为当前《辐射》特许经营状态的预告片效果很好。

这一点很重要，因为没有什么比玩家对错误期望更愤怒的了，因此，《辐射》电视剧是一个适当的引导，对于那些只将该剧作为教程的人来说，几乎没有什么让人失望的地方。

这意味着如果你看了这个系列，然后玩《辐射4》或《辐射76》，你很可能会感到宾至如归。

我会争辩说，如果这个系列感觉像是一个更严肃的《辐射1》故事，然后你尝试玩《辐射4》，你不会很高兴，会想，“这是什么鬼？”（这是我不玩F4或76的原因之一。）

在精巧上——《辐射》是一个好的、深思熟虑的、节奏良好的系列，其情节尊重自己的内部传说、自己的戏剧性回报，并有效地使用电影和叙事的预示吗？

不。

我稍后会讨论一些最大的例子。我甚至没有费心去对比F1和F2，因为那太容易了（我们已经知道从新旧避难所的位置接近程度、尸鬼的起源等方面，就可以看出两者之间有很大的不同），不幸的是，这些对比并不重要。我知道我这么说可能会激怒那些喜欢原作的人，但这是事实——那些《辐射》已经消失了。

相反，我认为更有效的比较是深入研究这个节目是如何尝试构建自己的内部传说，并看看他们的尝试是如何成功和失败的。

我将在第二部分的评论中讨论的大问题是避难所、尸鬼的本质、废土的字面电力基础设施，以及一些主要主题，如资本主义（尽管你可能认为，但资本主义等同于邪恶从来不是原始《辐射》前提的一部分——资本主义等同于邪恶是一个非常现代的话题，不足为奇的是好莱坞会依靠这个话题来进行大揭露）。

再次强调，这并不意味着我不喜欢看它。我喜欢看很多糟糕的节目和电影，有些我可以反复观看而永远不会厌倦。虽然《辐射》并没有达到这个水平，但它绝对比好玩多了。

这个节目感觉不平衡吗？

是的。

我对此并没有问题，除了它引起了人们对浪费时间的场景的关注，而这些场景本可以用来解答传说问题/展示更多世界的基础。

尽管尸鬼在一幕中抱怨被岔开了，并且你可以对他抱怨支线任务感到好笑，但问题是编剧对电视剧情有更多的控制权，而不是游戏情节，所以他们应该利用它，而不是拥抱游戏的混乱。我的意思是，利用每一集的质量，这并不难。保持节奏的一致性，保持焦点的指向——这是电视的亮点，你可以真正地强迫观众只看你想让他们看的东西，不像视频游戏。

我的感觉是，从第5集开始，问题开始变得严重，问题也越来越大。我认为这是自然的，因为开场集中更多地关注眼前的困境，但随着系列和世界的展开，演员阵容的完整动机变得更加明显，更大的问题开始出现，而这些问题没有好的答案。

游戏传说与改编： 我认为，在一个设计师做足了功课的完美世界里，根本不需要对传说进行修正。 如果你过去设计过传说，你通常不需要对任何事情进行修正，你只需要更多解释或找到一种方法，“从之前的路线图出发，达到你想要的传说去向”。 以Jet为例，这本可以很容易做到。对于《辐射1》或《辐射2》的任何传说点，与其简单地忽略它们，不如找到方法去解释它们。

我确实认为，如果贝塞斯达采纳了这种做法，他们会在很大程度上减少玩家的挫折感，但这确实需要进行研究和工作才能做好——我承认，做这种级别的研究并不有趣（这是来自一个为《星球大战：旧共和国武士II》吸收了所有他能找到的《星球大战》资料的人，包括《星球大战》圣诞特辑），但这样做的回报对开发者和玩家都是有利的。这使得玩家在之前游戏中的体验更有价值，而不是被贬低。

那么现在让我问一个你可能会感到惊讶的问题……

早期的《辐射》是否更好？ 对于那些坚持早期《辐射》的人，我确实想讨论一下“哇，早期的《辐射》要好得多”的潜在盲点。

我的意思是，《辐射1》确实很好。它非常棒。那个配音阵容！哇。

然而，《辐射2》和随后的家用机游戏《钢铁兄弟会》就没那么好了。我认为它们对该系列造成的伤害比人们对《辐射3》、《辐射4》和《辐射76》的“责备”要大得多。

这一点很重要，因为我认为外界有种幻觉，认为Interplay的《辐射》进展得非常顺利，保持了该系列的“正轨”。

事实绝对不是这样，它确实经历了与粉丝们对更近期的《辐射》提出的同样的传说破坏和不一致性。

那时候的一切并不是那么美好，我只是认为有时人们会这么认为。所以我确实想指出这一点，以便对比——没有什么可以证明，如果Interplay继续推出《辐射》（甚至是《范布伦》），《辐射》的世界就会变得很棒。

事实上，如果贝塞斯达没有购买《辐射》，我严重怀疑是否会有另一部《辐射》，更不用说像《辐射3》、《辐射4》、衍生作品、Target的T恤衫和电视剧这样的规模了。虽然很容易对这些东西表示不屑，但这证明了一个系列在正确的营销手中可以发展成为我们当初都没有预料到的东西……因为在Interplay的最后阶段，没有人相信那种程度的流行会发生，而不是公司倒闭。

电视剧是否体现了早期《辐射》的核心叙事？ 忽略对破损水芯片的提及，这在很大程度上既令人困惑又尴尬，我指的是《辐射1》的核心叙事主题——不是水芯片，不是对抗主宰，而是这样一个观点：在你的玩家角色不断牺牲，包括冒着生命危险拯救13号避难所之后，结果你为之奋斗的那些人——避难所居民——决定你已经变得太多，无法回到避难所的生活中，他们把你赶了出去。

在你做了所有这些事情并冒了所有风险之后……你再也回不到家了。

这个概念体现在《辐射1》结束时，避难所居民走进废土。这本质上是一个苦乐参半的“你再也回不到家了”的叙事。对许多人来说，包括我在内，这是游戏中最有力的时刻之一，甚至比击败主宰还要打动人心。

现在，电视剧是否接近于展示角色的变化，可能会导致他们以后被自己的人所排斥？（露西显然是最重要的一个，尽管诺曼也有影响。）

到目前为止，答案是肯定的。露西、食尸鬼、马克西姆斯在系列结束时都发生了变化——对于露西和马克西姆斯来说，问题是他们在各自的派系中是否被接受。即使是次要角色，如诺曼和伯特……呃，切特，也经历了相当大的变化。

露西肯定与她的大部分避难所相比发生了变化，足以最终被驱逐出去……但请看我下面的小点（我会在每个标题的末尾包括任何小点或注释，但请认识到它们是次要的）。

小点：超越上述观点并推测未来，我还认为，在露西的情况下，为了使“《辐射1》叙事”（避难所居民不再被接受回家）成立，这将要求诺曼在最后还活着，否则这个故事就行不通。

唯一诺曼的意见才重要的原因是，33号避难所的其他居民都是小丑、白痴或坏人，观众不会在乎他们的意见。你不会在乎其他避难所居民、贝蒂、斯蒂芬妮、切特或伍迪把你赶出去，因为他们不是你尊重的人，甚至不站在你这边。

然而，由于诺曼是露西的兄弟，是33号避难所唯一看起来很积极的人，他是唯一可以有效发挥这个情节的人。如果你不明白这一点，请在网上联系我，我会尽力解释得更清楚。

电视剧是否体现了后来的《辐射》（3、4）的核心叙事？

是的，一旦露西说：“我需要找到我爸爸。”这已经成为了贝塞斯达《辐射》的情节，所以……是的。

:: 哦，我的邪恶爸爸去哪儿了，他在哪里呢 ::

托德/埃米尔，请换个唱片，我们懂了。你们想念你们的家人。但这必须是每个人的问题吗？⁴

实话说，我们在黑岛工作室也有一个类似的套路，那就是“被杀死，从死亡中醒来”，这确实出现在了《新维加斯》中，所以我们也有我们自己的陈词滥调，所以不要以为我在这里高高在上（或者高高在上的布拉明牛）。

现在我们已经讨论了所有的历史和与游戏的比较，让我们深入探讨一下节目的制作工艺。

[4] 我是在开玩笑。呃，我希望如此。

音乐

首先，音乐很棒，非常符合《辐射》的风格。

更好的是，歌词强调了场景中正在发生的事情，这非常高级。

好评，10/10。

暴力/血腥

这部剧非常暴力和血腥，这对于旧版《辐射》来说是真实的，我对他们如此深入地表现这一点感到惊讶。

当然，有些部分我认为是不必要的，有时候除了机械效应之外似乎没有任何意义。例如，威尔齐格的机器人腿同时杀死了他，这感觉不必要地血腥，以一种让人觉得不太可能的方式，但却适用于移除威尔齐格角色的不太有趣的选择。#JusticeForWilzig1

编辑更正：这是错误的。（感谢 Timur 和 Voidy）我忘记了是氰化物药丸杀死了威尔齐格。感谢社区的指出。:)

角色！

食尸鬼（沃尔顿·戈金斯）

我认为库珀·霍华德/食尸鬼的表现最好，尽管他有一些浪费的场景，似乎是他在一个房间里，房间里交换威胁，然后他杀死了房间里的一些或所有人。重复这个过程。

我非常喜欢沃尔顿·戈金斯这位演员，我担心他会被边缘化或被赋予一个肤浅的角色。该系列让我惊讶的是，他们以一种对我来说合理的方式，使他成为Vault-Tec崛起的基础。这样做强调了当时世界正在发生的斗争，以及库珀正在经历的内心斗争——“大、丑、有尊严”是食尸鬼面临的挑战。这一切都回到了库珀的角色在泥土中向一个手无寸铁的恶棍开枪的时候——所有这些都很棒，我认为他们做得很好。⁵

这是超级市场遭遇战的好事之一——我喜欢食尸鬼的尊严检查的回调，然后在电视上看到他第一次被描绘成“杀人犯”而不忠于自己的电影——感觉就像库珀在看电视节目时回忆起他过去的自己，这很棒，而且这一切都没有一句话。完美。

另外，以一种非讽刺的方式称某人为“食尸鬼”在一个充满食尸鬼的世界里是有问题的。

食尸鬼药物/野性问题已经在网上讨论过了，我也会在第二部分的评论中更详细地讨论，因为这是一团糟。现在，我将指出所有与食尸鬼特别相关的问题：

·      食尸鬼是一个化学狂人（在他的实际角色卡上），所以我猜这就是为什么他会摄入他能找到的每一种药物。这里有两个问题——一是，这最终使反野性药物的摄入变得混乱，因为很难确定是那种药物让他保持理智，而不是其他药物。第二个问题是，他体内所有这些药物的存在让我想知道，如果露西的镇静剂飞镖对他不起作用（第2集），那么为什么抗野性药物会起作用，如果他是如此“巨大的药物桶”？

·      更明确地说，上述问题甚至与化学狂人特权不符——那个特权使药物的持续时间更长，而不是像节目中所暗示的那样，他的身体更容易接受药物，而不是像镇静剂飞镖那样与它们作斗争。⁶

·      他也是一个食人族，这也混淆了关于野性药物问题的问题（其他人在网上猜测，通过他消费其他食尸鬼，他变得更理智，因为他们的肉中可能含有抗野性血清？但……罗伯特是野性的，对吧？）。总的来说，这不起作用。

·      在不到15分钟内就能将人变成食尸鬼并治愈他们所有伤口的药物的想法感觉不合适，绝对不符合F1和F2。这不是节目的错。

·      食尸鬼突然揭示动力装甲有一个缺陷，保证即时杀死是有问题的，基于第2集的枪战。他在第2集的枪战中没有利用装甲的弱点，当马克西姆斯似乎占据上风时，这在回顾中是……令人困惑的。除了在第8集中制造一个戏剧性时刻之外，大多数观众不会记得第2集，除非像我一样重新观看系列，并提出问题。⁷

小问题：此外，说到那场战斗，马克西穆斯的超级腿被地板板条卡住，感觉非常牵强——我几乎为编舞感到尴尬，因为它没有用场景和道具来销售它。

关于尸鬼的积极评价：在重新观看系列时，我确实喜欢贯穿整个系列的对鸡的回调——例如，库珀和他妻子在热水浴缸中，库珀说他多么希望在贝克斯菲尔德的牧场上养鸡（然后记得鸡是尸鬼测试）。这也是一个不错的回调，因为《辐射1》中的12号避难所就在贝克斯菲尔德，那是尸鬼首次出现的地方。:) 我希望这是有意为之的。

[5] 我对Goggins有偏见，因为我们曾在《Prey》上一起工作过，那是一次非常棒的经历。非常感谢RaphaelColantonio推动我参与其中，我喜欢在《Prey》上的工作。

[6] 在你说“嗯，镇静剂飞镖对食尸鬼没用是因为他是食尸鬼”之前，那并不是食尸鬼给出的解释。他明确表示镇静剂飞镖不起作用是因为他体内有大量的药物。

[7] 可能是因为钢化衬里，但如果是这样，你需要在第8集的血腥屠杀之后明确地说出来，这本可以通过食尸鬼在屠杀士兵之前说一句话来解决，“我总是说过钢化衬里可以帮助解决那个缺陷——但你们都没在穿上装备之前想过，对吧？”

Dogmeat

“Dogmeat”（CX404）在所有角色中最为不幸。

她以不太合适的方式断断续续地出现，她的背景故事令人困惑，而且因为MichaelEmerson（Wilzig，Enclave科学家）非常擅长扮演操纵性、聪明和邪恶的角色，我很难相信他真的关心Dogmeat……但显然他确实如此。

我也无法摆脱Emerson准备走私冷聚变的事实，但我不确定他是否为狗制定了真正的逃跑计划。当事情变得紧急时，他显然没有为自己逃跑制定任何计划，这很奇怪，如果他打算逃离Enclave——我会期望一个聪明的科学家在给自己脖子注射之后就已经有一个逃跑计划。⁸

相反，Emerson所做的一切让我觉得他是在为Dogmeat设置一个实验，而不是他们在建立情感联系。我的意思是，他在Enclave工作，该死的。

在那之后，Dogmeat被传来传去，她的名字被改变，她被放进了一个Nuka Cola储物柜，而且基本上被忽视了。1

更糟糕的是，他们没有关注食尸鬼和Dogmeat之间最好的叙事联系，基于Roosevelt（Cooper Howard以前的狗）和不允许狗进入避难所——这本可以以积极的方式加强，但感觉没有足够的后续发展。

所有爱狗人士都感到失望。

[8] 事实上，看到他在那之后的逃跑计划展开对他的角色来说会比他随机的混乱逃跑要好得多。

Lucy (Ella Purnell)

Lucy表现得很好，我认为EllaPurnell在一个有问题的剧本中做得很好，一个避难所居民的认真态度表现得很好。

我喜欢Lucy的很多时刻，但我特别喜欢的是，在第2集中，当The Ghoul在Filly中对所有人大打出手时，Lucy只需要看一眼Vault Boy摇头娃娃，就会想起她的精英主义避难所和“做正确的事”，这促使她介入。我喜欢在节目中看到这样的时刻，因为它是不言而喻的，它依赖于观众去联系，赋予它意义——在这个节目中，这样的时刻有点罕见。

同样在第2集中，Lucy向Ma June解释避难所的目的的情节我认为很棒。这是一个完美的例子，展示了那些实际上必须在地面上生存和生存200多年的人们的观点，与一个突然出现并宣扬他们来拯救所有人的避难所居民相比。Lucy在那个场景中的观点，即使她的角色并不是故意的，也做得很好——避难所居民无意的傲慢感觉起来很痛苦，我很欣赏那里暴露出来的主题。

次要点：（再次强调，这些“次要”点非常非常小）。有一件事困扰着我：Lucy显然不显得愚蠢——所以我不明白为什么Lucy开始追踪从避难所33出来的坏人，当他们明显是从避难所32离开的，而避难所32的入口不可能远——避难所肯定没有伪装他们的存在。⁹

我喜欢Lucy不知道如何持刀战斗的事实，在第1集中，她发现持有袭击者的刀作为武器很奇怪。我喜欢这样的小细节。

[9] 避难所如此暴露和容易找到，也不觉得适合这个系列，稍后会有更多讨论。

Maximus (Aaron Moten)

Maximus的行为和动机在大部分系列中都令人困惑，我发现我无法深入了解Maximus，除了一个巨大的“？”

有一种叫做“面部表演”的表演类型，我认为Maximus不是很擅长，或者导演指导得不好，这在许多关键场景中本可以有所帮助。（Norman也有时候不清楚他在反应什么或为什么，所以不仅仅是Maximus。）

例如，我真的无法分辨Maximus在避难所4中的序列是快乐还是被药物影响——结果是，他只是对拥有一个实际“家”的现代陷阱感到高兴，但整个避难所4的阴险神秘感，有点模糊了问题。当你试图读懂他在被问及谋杀或其他罪行时的表情时，这变得更糟。

我会说，在第一次观看节目时意识到真相后，然后再次观看节目，了解Maximus做了什么/没做什么，这使他的角色和动机变得不那么模糊，我认为节目可以从更好的设定中受益。

Maximus与Shady Sands的联系很好，但那里的兄弟会角度（拯救他的士兵）使这个联系变得复杂。是兄弟会在Hank的敦促下做了些什么吗？这似乎不合适。还是说兄弟会之后出现的？令人困惑，如果能有更多的清晰度会很好。

我确实认为Maximus面临的冲突正是你在荒野中可能必须做出的艰难道德决定。Maximus面对Knight Titus的可怕选择是一个好选择——你出于一个非常好的理由（杀死一个讨厌你的混蛋，以防止被处决）做了一件非常糟糕的事情。

我从一位微软员工那里得到了关于Titus场景的另一种看法，他（正确地）指出这个剧本感觉非常生硬。它基本上是在用力敲打你的头，以确保你意识到Maximus别无选择，以至于让Knight Titus反复威胁Maximus，以防观众不“明白”。因此在这方面，对话的工艺性很差（我可以理解这种观点），而场景的布置感觉不那么令人信服。尽管如此，我仍然欣赏Maximus面临的选择。

此外，Maximus在避难所4中不得不在吃爆米花和救Lucy之间做出选择，这是他的角色和系列中的低点之一。

次要点：看到Titus从熊那里逃跑真是太搞笑了。

Wilzig（迈克尔·爱默生）

系列中没有提供足够的背景来描述他的角色，我希望他能出现得更多。我发现自己在抗拒将爱默生在《迷失》和《邪恶》中的典型角色定型到Wilzig身上，然后不得不质疑这些假设与他的动机之间的关系。

迈克尔·爱默生和露西在营火旁的第一场戏，我认为是为系列主题画上句号的绝佳布局——我认为这对第一季即将到来的内容和可能在第二季出现的内容都很棒。爱默生在很大程度上支撑了这一幕，所以我在他的部分而不是露西的部分提到它。

次要点：如果Wilzig看到危险废物桶，却得出现在是停下来，把屁股正好坐在上面的结论（第2集），那他不可能是一个很好的科学家。或者他的感知力很低，但我对此表示怀疑。

[10] 为了解释，在《迷失》和《邪恶》中，爱默生扮演了一个高智商的操纵者反派角色，并且表演得非常出色。因此，很难忽视这些演技/角色，因为《辐射》系列仍然利用了90%相同的神态，然后增加了10%的“我关心狗”和“我走私冷聚变出去可能有（？）道德上的好理由。”（这一点根本没有回答。）

其他演员

像克里斯·帕内尔这样的演员不应该因为糟糕的剧本而受苦。克里斯·帕内尔非常非常有趣，但剧本在这里没有帮助到他。

我很喜欢看到马特·贝瑞在系列中作为好莱坞的配音演员亲自出现，我认为他作为Mr. Handy的声音表现得很棒。我也喜欢看到他不仅仅是配音演员，在电视剧中的Vault-Tec派对上与戈金斯有一场戏。

接下来：故事背景，敬请期待！ 这些是对角色的评价，在第二部分中，我将关注内部故事背景的不一致性。我会在接下来的一两天内在这里发布。

评分？我会留到最后再给，主要是因为如果评分给得太早，有时候人们就不会停下来剖析评分的原因，而这些原因你可能不同意。

再次强调，如果你发现我错过了什么或者事实有误，请随时在这里、社交媒体或其他地方评论——可能有我错过的东西，如果观众发现了我没有看到的东西，我很乐意进行修正。然而，我想避免的是任何推测性的回答（“嗯，我想象的是……”）或者“他们可能会在第二季解决”，因为我在之前询问关于这个系列的问题时，这两个说法听得太多了。

很快见，感谢阅读。

视奸用小号

Welcome!

This is a special version of the Fallout Apocrypha. It breaks down the Fallout TV series on Amazon Prime.

This first installment lays out a foundation for the review and examines the characters and their arcs. The second installment (in a day or two, also here) will break down the lore in the series.

The “Fallout Apocrypha” is a continuation of the Fallout Bible, and you can find installments in my Medium gallery if you want to review any of it — it may help answer feelings on Bethesda (no, I don’t hate them, nobody I know on Fallout New Vegas does), my critiques of Bethesda’s previous Fallouts, and other Fallout information.

Also, there are plenty of other reviews of the series on the net. I encourage you to check them out to get a range of perspectives.

Tim Cain, for example, one of the core creators of Fallout has a YouTube channel that’s worth checking out not just for Fallout, but for a whole range of development advice — you can find it here: CainOnGames

Obviously, this review has spoilers — but some of the feedback here won’t make sense unless you’ve watched the series, so…

…let’s get started!

Long ago when I was pitching games, I was told that James Cameron had an approach for pitching — rather than listening to a horrible droning PPT, he apparently asked to see what the movie poster for the film being pitched would be.

I thought this was genius, because a good movie poster is intended to encapsulate the qualities of the show and set viewer expectations at a glance. It’s like a game box cover in some respects. Do you want to experience the entertainment being shown?

That being said, the poster for the Fallout TV series is this:

…and it’s spot on, both good and bad.

What makes *you* qualified to write a review?

Good question. A few things:

I am not a Microsoft employee.¹

I once got an offer to work on F1 from Tim Cain, which I refused and still kick myself about to this day.²

I worked on Fallout 2 and Van Buren at Interplay, then Fallout New Vegas and most of the New Vegas DLCs after that.

Tim and I did “star” in Nuka-Break, the Fallout limited series, way back when. My appearance is especially egregious.

I wrote installments of the Fallout Bible and the Apocrypha here on Medium.

I have watched Memento and Westworld.

Probably like you, I like the Fallout franchise.

Lastly, I have no skin in this game. It can be very tempting to say “oh, you’re pandering, you’re a fan boy, you’re envious/bitter, you hate Bethesda,” blah blah.

But really? I don’t give a shit, and never would have watched the show (I didn’t care) or written this if people online hadn’t pinged me “blaming” me for the series’ choices which I never made. I’m more than happy to give a show praise when it’s deserved, and I do for some points below because there are some things I think the show does well.

So regardless of my lack of desire to see it, I gave it a chance. I watched it, took notes, watched it a second time with more notes, then sent a letter of congratulations to Todd — regardless of my opinion, it’s a huge achievement to see Fallout as an official series. It can’t have been cheap, and it can’t have been easy.

So kudos to them.

[1] BTW, if you are a Microsoft employee, it’s time to unionize.

[2] On the plus side, the writing for Fallout 1 went to Scott Bennie at Interplay instead, which was great because Scott was a great writer and added a lot of quality to Fallout. He also was the one who gave me my first home in California, and he will be missed.

“Hey, dummy, you missed something or got X, Y, Z wrong…”

…and if so, feel free to point it out — I’m sure there’s elements I missed. Even watching the series a second time, I still didn’t feel as if I had gotten everything.

Why watch it twice? Well, because lore research is work, but it’s worthwhile work.

I also did this because it would be hypocritical of me to be critiquing someone not putting in the work to research the lore if I don’t do the same.

Reasons to Discount This Review

Let me do some work out there for the naysayers who want easy excuses to discount this review:

1. I did not play Fallout 4 extensively beyond 1 hour of the opening and watching 2 of the endings before deciding I wouldn’t play any more of it. Any lore hooks shown in F4 (like Hancock turning into a ghoul overnight) I am blissfully unaware of.

2. I didn’t like the executive producer Jonathan Nolan’s previous work, Westworld, beyond Season 1. I have watched all the seasons, to my regret.

The mention of Westworld is especially apt, because Westworld is a fictional locale that feels real when you watch it, while Fallout is supposed to be in the real world but somehow feels incredibly fake throughout — and I’m curious what would have happened if they’d applied the real world sensibility to some locales, people, and scenes — the birthday party at the outset comes close, and it’s a great scene, but that’s about it. Instead, everything feels… sugary.

I do feel that the Fallout series has the same problem Westworld does — there’s a lot of characters that no one seems to know what to do with. And it was very amusing to see connections between F4 and Westworld, now that I realized that Nolan and Howard were in touch. If you’ve seen the synth dunking chambers in both F4 and Westworld, you know what I mean.

Westworld Top, F4 Bottom.

If you love Westworld in its entirety and feel it’s the most amazing piece of cinema ever, then you will find very little to like in the following review.

3. In many ways (start lighting torches, pitchforks come later), this whole series reminded me of the final season of Star Trek’s Picard.

If you haven’t seen it, Season 3 of Picard is a masterclass in fan service, gives the audience arguably everything they’ve ever wanted, and is wildly entertaining.

It is also a largely terrible, random story that had me smh repeatedly. The craftsmanship outside of fan service moments felt non-existent and non-cohesive.

If you think Picard S3 was the best, narratively solid thing you ever saw in this universe or any other, then you can stop reading this review right now because you’re not going to like my takes.

4. Annnnnd the last reason to discount this review is because we’re both entitled to an opinion. If you like something, you like it. You can’t argue with that. I can’t argue with that, and I wouldn’t — the way you feel about something is one of the most honest emotions you can have.

And if I like something, I like it, and that’s fine — because it’s fine for both of us to have an opinion.

So read on!

Entertaining and Craftsmanship

I have two categories when evaluating movies: Entertainment and Craftsmanship (Quality).

The reason for this is there are bad movies I love even though I know they are bad (Resident Evil 1), and there are good movies I don’t enjoy watching, even if well-crafted (Natural Born Killers).³

It also applies to more modern sci-fi — I’d argue that Silo and Foundation are much higher quality shows, but they didn’t carry the same raw entertainment value that Fallout does.

So how does Entertaining vs. Craftsmanship play out in Fallout?

Was Fallout entertaining?

Yes.

The Fallout series is an entertaining spectacle that works well as a trailer for the current state of the Fallout franchise.

This is important because there’s nothing angrier than a player with a false expectation, and as such, the Fallout TV series is an appropriate on-ramp to the current state of Fallout with little to disappoint those who have only the show as a tutorial.

This means if you watch the series and play Fallout 4 or 76, chances are, you’ll feel right at home.

I’d argue if the series felt like a more serious Fallout 1 story, then you tried to play Fallout 4, you wouldn’t be very happy and would be like, “what the hell is this?” (This is one of the reasons why I don’t play F4 or 76.)

On Craftsmanship — is Fallout a good, thoughtful, well-paced series whose plot respects its own internal lore, its own dramatic payoffs, and uses foreshadowing effectively cinematically and narratively?

Nope.

I’ll address some of the biggest examples later. I didn’t even bother with most F1 and F2 contrasts because that was too easy (we already know there’s leagues of difference there just from the proximity of the new vaults’ placement to the original vaults, origin of ghouls, etc.) and unfortunately, those contrasts are not important. I know that me saying that will likely anger those who love the originals, but it’s true — those Fallouts are gone.

Instead, I believe it’s a more valid comparison to drill down on how the show tried to craft its own internal lore, and see how their attempts succeeded and failed.

The big ones I’ll address later on in Part 2 of the Review are the Vaults, the nature of Ghouls, the literal Power infrastructure in the wasteland, and some major themes like capitalism (which was never part of the original Fallout premise despite what you may think — capitalism equaling evil is a very modern shout topic, and it’s not surprising that Hollywood leans on that for a big reveal).

Again, this doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy watching it. I like watching a lot of bad shows and movies and there are some I could watch repeatedly and never get tired of it. While Fallout doesn’t quite hit this level, it’s definitely more entertaining than good.

Did the show feel uneven?

Yes.

I didn’t have a problem with this except that it called attention to scenes that felt like a waste of time vs. could have been answering lore problems/showing more of the foundation of the world.

While The Ghoul calls out the irritation of being sidetracked in one scene and you can hyuk-hyuk about him complaining about side quests, the issue is the writers have more control over a TV plot than a game plot, so they should use it, not embrace the game’s chaos. I mean, use every episode in a quality manner, that’s not so hard. Keep the pace consistent, keep the focus going where it needs to — that’s where TV shines, you can literally force the viewer to only look at what you want to see, unlike a video game.

My feeling was, starting with Episode 5, things started going downhill and the problems grew. I think this is natural because the opening episodes focused more on immediate predicaments, but as the series and world opens up and the full motivations for the cast become more apparent, the larger questions start showing up, and those don’t have good answers.

Now, I’m going to talk a little about lore, retcons, and older Fallouts vs. the series, and these don’t have good answers, either — and may be answers you don’t want to hear.

[3] I call bad movies I find entertaining “popcorn movies” because I can watch them anytime, anywhere, and still enjoy them even as bad as they are. You probably have a list, too, but I think we’d be the same in that we would never recommend these movies to anyone as cinematic tours de force. The Fallout series doesn’t quite hit that bar of being infinitely rewatchable.

Lore and Retcons

My belief is, in a perfect world where designers do their research, retcons aren’t necessary.

If you’ve designed lore in the past, you often don’t need to retcon anything, you just need to explain more or find a way to “get to where you want the lore to go” from the previous roadmap.

It would have been easy to do with Jet. It would have been easy to do with any Fallout 1 or 2 lore point vs. simply ignoring it.

I do think if Bethesda did embrace this practice, they’d do a lot to reduce some frustration from players, but it does require research and work to do properly — and I admit, doing that level of research isn’t fun (this is coming from the guy who absorbed everything he could about Star Wars for Knights of the Old Republic II, including the Star Wars Christmas Special), but the rewards pay off for both the developer and the player. It makes the player’s experience in previous games more valued vs. discounted.

So now for a question you may be surprised to hear me ask…

*Were* the older Fallouts better?

For those of you who swear by the older Fallouts, I did want to address some potential horse blinder aspects of “oh wow, the older Fallouts were so much better.”

I mean Fallout 1 was. It was pretty damn good. And that voice cast! Dammmmn.

However, Fallout 2 and what followed — the console game Brotherhood of Steel — weren’t as good. I’d argue they hurt the franchise more than people “blame” Fallout 3, 4, and 76 for doing.

This is important to point out because I think there’s some kind of illusion out there that Fallout at Interplay was going amazingly well and keeping the franchise “on track”.

It absolutely wasn’t, and it was definitely experiencing the same lore breaks and inconsistencies that fans bring up about more recent Fallouts.

Everything back then wasn’t rosy, I just think sometimes people think it was. So I did want to point that out for the sake of contrast — there’s nothing to prove that had Interplay kept going with Fallout (even Van Buren) that things would have been awesome in the world of Fallout.

In fact, if Bethesda hadn’t bought Fallout, I seriously doubt there would have been another Fallout, let alone at the scale of F3, F4, spinoffs, T-shirts at Target, and the TV series. While it’s easy to give that stuff the finger, it’s testament that a franchise in the right marketing hands can grow to something none of us would have expected… because at the last stages of Interplay, there was no confidence that that level of popularity would ever happen vs. the company going out of business.

Does the series embody the core narratives of the early Fallouts?

Ignoring the broken water chip nod, which was mostly confusing and embarrassing, what I’m referring to here is the core narrative theme of Fallout 1 — not the water chip, not the fight against the Master, but the idea that after your player character’s constant sacrifices, including risking your life to save Vault 13, it turns out the very ones you fought to save — the Vault Dwellers — decide that you’ve changed too much to return to life in the Vault, and they cast you out.

After all you’ve done, and all you’ve risked… you can’t go home again.

This concept is embodied by the Vault Dweller walking off into the wastes at the end of Fallout 1. It’s essentially the bittersweet “you can’t go home again” narrative. For many, me included, that was one of the most powerful moments in the game, and it hit even harder than defeating the Master.

Now, does the TV series come close in showing change in characters that may cause them to be ostracized by their own later on? (Lucy obviously being the most important one, although Norman factors in.)

So far, easily yes. Lucy, the Ghoul, Maximus have all changed by the end of the series — for Lucy and Maximus, it’s the question of acceptance within their faction. Even minor characters, like Norman and Bert… er, Chet, go through considerable changes.

Lucy definitely has changed compared to most of her Vault, and certainly enough to be eventually cast out… but read my minor point below (I’ll include any minor quibbles or notes at the end of each header, but recognize they are minor points).

Minor Point: Going beyond the points above and speculating for the future, I also argue that in Lucy’s case, for the “Fallout 1 narrative” to work (Vault Dweller no longer being accepted home) this would require Norman being alive by the end or this story can’t work.

The reason only Norman’s opinion matters is because everyone else in the Vaults is a clown, an idiot, or a bad guy whose opinion no viewer would care about. You wouldn’t care if the other Vault dwellers, Betty, Stephanie, Chet, or Woody cast you out because they aren’t people you respect or even on your side.

However, with Norman being the brother of Lucy and being the only one in 33 who seems to be proactive, he’s the only one that plot point could effectively play off of. If you don’t understand this, ping me online and I’ll try and explain it better.

Does the series embody the core narratives of later Fallouts (3, 4)?

Yep, as soon as Lucy says, “I need to find my Dad.” Which has been the plot of most of the Bethesda Fallouts, so… yeah.

:: Wherre oh where has my evil Dad gone, where oh where can he beee ::

Todd/Emil, please change the record, we get it. You miss your families. But does it have to be everybody’s problem?⁴

For the record, we used to have a similar trope at Black Isle which was “get killed, wake up from the dead,” which did make it into FNV, so we had our share of tired tropes, too, so don’t think I’m getting on my high horse here (or high Brahmin).

Now that we’ve covered all the history and comparisons to the games, let’s dig into the craftsmanship of the show.

[4] Am teasing. Uh, I hope.

Music

So just to get it out of the way, the music’s great and very much in keeping with Fallout.

Even better, the lyrics emphasize what’s transpiring in the scene, and that’s pretty classy.

Bravo, 10/10.

Violence/Gore

This show is very violent and gory, and that’s true to the old Fallouts, and I was surprised by how much they leaned into it.

Granted, there were parts I thought were unnecessary and sometimes didn’t make sense except for deus ex machina. As an example, Wilzig’s robot leg that simultaneously kills him felt unnecessarily gory in a way that made it seem implausible but worked for the not-quite-so-interesting choice of removing Wilzig’s character. #JusticeForWilzig

Edit Correction: This is wrong. (Thx Timur and Voidy) I had forgotten it’s the cyanide pill that kills Wilzig. Thanks to the community for pointing it out. : )

CHARACTERS!

The Ghoul (Walton Goggins)

Thought Cooper Howard/The Ghoul came out the best, although he has a bunch of wasted scenes that seem to be him in a room, threats in the room are traded, then he kills either some or all people in that room. Rinse and repeat.

Walton Goggins I like a lot as an actor, and I was worried he would be sidelined or given a shallow role in the series. The series surprised me by making him part of the foundation of the rise of Vault-Tec. This was done in a way that felt plausible to me, emphasized the struggle going on in the world at the time, and also the internal struggle that Cooper was going through — the whole theme of being “big, ugly, and having dignity” is the challenge that The Ghoul faces. It’s all tied back to when Cooper’s character felt beholden to a movie script and shot an unarmed villain as he lay in the dirt — all that was great, imo, and I thought they did that well.⁵

This was one of the good things about the Super Duper Mart encounter — I liked the callbacks for the dignity check for The Ghoul and then seeing on the TV the very movie where he was first depicted as a “murderer” and not true to himself — it feels like Cooper’s remembering who he used to be while watching the TV show, which is great, and this happens without a word. Perfect.

On a minor note, calling someone “the ghoul” in a world of ghouls in a non-ironic way is problematic.

The ghoul drug/feral problems have been discussed online already and I’ll also cover it more extensively in Part 2, since it’s a mess. Right now, I’ll point to all the problems that make this worse tied to the Ghoul specifically:

- The Ghoul is a Chem Fiend (on his actual character sheet), so I’m guessing this is why he ingests every drug he can find. There are two problems with this — one, it ends up confusing the anti-feral drug he consumes as it’s hard to isolate that it’s THAT drug that’s keeping him sane vs. other drugs. The second thing is the presence of all these drugs in his system makes me wonder, well, if Lucy’s tranq dart won’t work on him (Ep 2), why would an anti-feral drug if he’s such a “huge bucket of drugs”?

- And more explicitly, the questions above don’t even work with the Chem Fiend Perk — that perk makes the duration of drugs last longer vs. what’s displayed in the show, which implies his body is more accepting of drugs, not fighting them like with the tranq dart.⁶

- The fact he’s a Cannibal, too, also confused the issue about the feral drug issue (other people online were speculating that by him consuming other ghouls he got more sane because they might have anti-feral serum in their flesh? But… Robert was feral, right?). Overall, this doesn’t work.

- The idea that there’s a drug that turns people into ghouls in less than 15 minutes and heals all their wounds feels out of place and definitely doesn’t mesh with F1 and F2. This isn’t the show’s fault.

- The Ghoul suddenly revealing that the Power Armor has a flaw that guarantees insta-kills is problematic based on the gunfight in episode 2. The fact he didn’t exploit the armor’s weakness when Maximus seemed to have the upper hand in Episode 2’s shoot out was… confusing in retrospect. There wasn’t really any explanation for why not use his knowledge there vs. later beyond crafting a dramatic moment in episode 8— at which point, most watchers aren’t going to remember episode 2 unless like me, you rewatch the series and questions come up.⁷

Minor point: Also, speaking of that fight, Maximus getting his superpowered leg stuck in floorboards felt flimsy as fuck — I was almost embarrassed for the choreographer because it didn’t sell it with the scene and props.

On a positive note related to the Ghoul — while rewatching the series, I did like the callbacks to chickens that seemed to permeate the series — as an example with Cooper and his wife in the hot tub, and Cooper saying how much he’d like chickens on the ranch in Bakersfield (then remembering chickens were a feral ghoul test). It’s also a nice callback because Vault 12 in Fallout 1 was in Bakersfield, and that was where ghouls first appeared. : ) I hope that was intentional.

[5] I’m biased about Goggins because we got to work with him on Prey, and that was a blast. Many thanks to Raphael Colantonio for pushing for my involvement, I loved working on Prey.

[6] And before you say, “well, the tranq dart doesn’t work on The Ghoul because he’s a ghoul,” that’s not the explanation The Ghoul gives. He explicitly says the dart doesn’t work because there’s a huge amount of drugs in his system.

[7] It might be possible it’s the tempered lining, but if so, you need to explicitly say that after the bloodbath in Episode 8, which could have been fixed by the Ghoul saying a single line before slaughtering the soldiers, “always said tempered lining could have helped with that flaw — but you all didn’t think before you suited up, did you?”

Dogmeat

“Dogmeat,” (CX404) of all the characters, gets the short end of the stick.

She shows up intermittently in ways that don’t quite work, her backstory is confusing, and it’s harder because Michael Emerson (Wilzig, Enclave scientist) is soooooo good at playing manipulative, smart, and evil characters, it was very hard for me to shake that he genuinely cared about Dogmeat… which apparently he did.

I also couldn’t escape the fact that Emerson was ready to smuggle cold fusion out, but I wasn’t sure if he’d made actual plans for the dog to escape. He certainly didn’t have any plans established for escaping himself when push came to shove, which was weird if he was planning to flee the Enclave — I’d expect a smart scientist to already have an escape plan in place as soon as he injected himself in the neck.⁸

Instead, everything Emerson was doing made me feel he was setting Dogmeat up for an experiment, not that they were bonding. I mean, he works at the Enclave, ffs.

After that, Dogmeat gets passed around, her name gets changed, she’s put in a Nuka Cola locker, and largely ignored.

Worse, they don’t focus on one of the best narrative ties between The Ghoul and Dogmeat based on Roosevelt (Cooper Howard’s former dog) and not allowing dogs into the vault — that could have all been strengthened in a positive way, but there felt like there was not enough follow through on that theme.

Disappointed, as are all dog lovers everywhere.

[8] In fact, seeing his escape plan play out after that would have been great for his character rather than his random chaotic fleeing.

Lucy (Ella Purnell)

Lucy was great, I thought Ella Purnell did a good job with a questionable script, and the earnestness of a Vault Dweller came through well.

There were a lot of moments I liked with Lucy, but one thing I especially liked is when The Ghoul is kicking the hell out of everyone in Filly in Episode 2, it only takes Lucy to look at the Vault Boy bobble head to remind her of her meritocracy vault and “doing the right thing” that causes her to intervene. I love seeing moments like that in shows because it’s unspoken, and it relies on the audience to draw the connection to give it meaning — and in this show, moments like this are a bit rare.

Also in Episode 2, the sequence where Lucy explains to Ma June about the purpose of the vaults I thought was great. It was a perfect example of the view of people who actually had to live and survive for 200+ years on the surface vs. a Vault Dweller suddenly showing up and preaching about how they’re coming to save everyone. The condescension of Lucy’s viewpoint in that scene, even if her character doesn’t mean to, was well done — the unintended arrogance of the Vault dwellers comes across as painful, and I appreciated that theme being exposed there.

Minor Points: (Again, these “minor” points are very, very minor). One thing that bothered me: Lucy certainly didn’t seem dumb — so I didn’t understand why Lucy started tracking the bad guys from Vault 33 when they clearly left from Vault 32, the entrance of which can’t have been far — and the Vaults certainly weren’t disguising their presence.⁹

I liked the fact that Lucy didn’t know how to knife fight, and she found holding the raider’s knife as a weapon strange in Episode 1. I love little touches like that.

[9] The fact the Vaults are so exposed and easy to find also didn’t feel appropriate for the series, more on this later.

Maximus (Aaron Moten)

Maximus’ behavior and the reasons for it were so confusing for much of the series, I found I couldn’t dig much into Maximus beyond a giant “?”

There’s a type of acting called “facial acting” that I don’t think Maximus is very good at or was given poor direction for, and it would have helped in a lot of critical scenes. (Norman also has moments where it’s not clear what he’s reacting to or why, so it’s not just Maximus.)

As an example, I honestly can’t tell if Maximus is happy or drugged during his sequence in Vault 4 — it turns out, he’s just happy to having the modern trappings of an actual “home”, but with the whole sinister mystery of Vault 4, kind of clouds the issue. This becomes worse when you’re trying to read his expression when he’s being questioned about murder or other crimes.

I will say that after becoming aware of truths while first watching the show, then rewatching it with the knowledge of what Maximus had/hadn’t done, it made his characters and his motivations less cloudy, which I think the show could have benefited from setting up better.

It was good that Maximus has a tie back to Shady Sands, but the Brotherhood angle there (the soldier who saves him) confuses that. Was it the Brotherhood who did it somehow at Hank’s urging? That doesn’t seem to fit. Or did the Brotherhood come after? Confusing, and some clarity there would have been nice.

I did think that the conflicts Maximus faced were exactly the difficult moral decisions you may have to make in the wasteland. The awful choice Maximus faces with Knight Titus was a good one — you do a very bad thing for arguably a very good reason (kill a dickhead who hates you to prevent being executed).

I did get an alternate take on the Titus scene from a Microsoft employee who (correctly) pointed out that the script for this feels really forced. It’s basically hammering you over the head to make sure you realize that Maximus has no choice, to the point of having Knight Titus repeatedly threaten Maximus just in case the audience doesn’t “get it”. So in that respect the craftsmanship of the dialogue is poor (I can see that perspective) and the staging of the scene feels a little less convincing. I still appreciated the choice Maximus faced, though.

Also, the fact Maximus had to choose between eating popcorn and saving Lucy in Vault 4 was one of the low points for his character and the series.

Minor Point: It was hilarious to see Titus running from the Bear.

Wilzig (Michael Emerson)

Not enough was provided to give context to his character in the series, I wish he’d been in it more. I did find myself fighting against typecasting Emerson’s normal roles to Wilzig,¹⁰ and then having to question the assumptions there in relation to his motivations.

Michael Emerson and Lucy’s first scene around the campfire I thought was a great setup for bookending the themes of the series — I thought it was great for what was to come in Season 1 and what might come later in Season 2. Emerson largely carries that scene, so I’m mentioning it in his section vs. Lucy’s.

Minor Point: Wilzig cannot be a very good scientist if he sees hazardous waste barrels and concludes that now is the right time to stop and plant his ass square on top of it (Ep 2). Or maybe he has low Perception, but I doubt it.

[10] To explain, in both Lost and Evil, Emerson plays a highly intelligent manipulator antagonist, and he does it damn well. As such, it was hard to ignore those acting chops/roles since the Fallout series was still leveraging 90% of this same demeanor and then added 10% “I care about dogs” and “there might be a morally good (?) reason why I’m smuggling cold fusion out.” (Which isn’t answered at all.)

Other Cast Members

Actors like Chris Parnell don’t deserve to suffer for a bad script. Chris Parnell is very, very funny, but the script didn’t help him here.

I loved seeing Matt Berry physically present in the series as a voice actor in Hollywood, and thought he was great as the voice for Mr. Handy. I also liked seeing him outside of just voice acting to have a scene with Goggins at the Vault-Tec party in the TV series.

Next: Lore, Stay Tuned!

So these are the reviews of characters, in Part 2, I’ll focus on the internal lore inconsistencies. I’ll post it here in the next day or two.

The score? That I’m going to leave until the very end, mostly because if a score is given too soon, sometimes no one stops to dissect the reasons for the score, and they may be reasons you don’t agree with.

Again, if you see anything I missed or facts got wrong, feel free to comment on it here, social media, or wherever — there may be stuff I missed, and I’m happy to course correct if a viewer saw something I didn’t. What I’d like to avoid, however, is anything that’s a speculative answer (“Well, what I imagined was…”) or “well, they’ll probably solve it in Season 2,” because I heard those two refrains waaaaay too often when asking questions about the series earlier.

See you soon, and thanks for reading.