If you have not noticed, each vault have a different social experiment.... For vault 31,32 and 33, this is the only interlinked vaults in the Fallout world (that we know about), and that is exacatly the social experiment done here - to have 2 sepearet but linked societies that have to work together (Vault 31 only have frozen bodies which gets 'defrosted' when needed).

So if it helps you, you can think of vault 31, 32 and 33 as a single vault, with an expreiment a bit similar to vault 19, but instead of two societies competing within a vault, there is two linked and seperat societies that must cooperate

That makes sense. I guess numbering them separately just threw me off - I didn't think of that as the experiment, because I was looking for each to have their own experiment, and assumed this to just be a change the show made to the vaults.

As someone who doesn't care about lore or continuity matching with the games (Bethesda or Interplay or Obsidian), and doesn't care the least about Fallout lore (Played through 3 and NV, and started 1 and 2 several times), how is the show as a piece of media on its own?

Anyone know for sure if this will have a bluray version or is it online crapola only?

There are some clear hints to this in the vaults themselves, especially the posters on the walls that depict the three vaults within a triangle, each vault a point in the triangle, so together they creare a single unit. (with 31 as the top, and 32 and 33 as the base)

As far as I noticed, most often people like the show for anything but characters or story. One of the creators of the first Fallout game, Tim Cain, liked the show for its decorations. Some people consider one of the main characters, vault dweller Lucy, as a Mary Sue. I wouldn't call her like that, but she definitely has a solid plot armor. Other than that this show is pretty much an ordinary Amazon show.

The show has 3 protagonists competing for an unconventional mcguffin in a nuclear wasteland full of radioactive monsters and all manner of crazy people. Nearly every time Lucy the Vault-dweller or Maximus the Brother of Steel think they've done something heroic, they're met with a reality of nuance that ruins their spirits. The Ghoul is too experienced to fall for anything like that and just does the most violent thing that gets him what he wants. The show has a strong production value of mostly practical effects and seemingly every asset ever made for the games has become a prop to enrich the world and confirm to fans in a surface-level way that this is Fallout. Many people including myself are on the fence with Max's characterization because he feels like a child rushing into the power-trip for its own sake and he attempts selfishly evil acts to make things go his way, which often backfires. With the promotion given to him at the end, I think he'll grow into a more compelling character next season.

Is that a good or a bad thing for you?

Rather bad than good. Not entirely bad but mostly bad. Considering how rich the Fallout world is, it's honestly a pity to see such mediocre show. In short, every Amazon show I tried to watch was like this: weak storytelling and simplified characters doing too many illogical things just for the sake of moving the story forward. And I guess those other Amazon shows were lucky that I wasn't familiar with their source materials. Otherwise I would stop watching them after a few episodes.

Sounds like your average Bethesda game plot then.

Yeah, pretty much. :)

I haven't read the Reacher novels but my mom is fanatical about them and absolutely loves the Reacher show and said it's quite faithful.

I had a random thought on the drive to work this morning that Fallout should have been made as a throwback 1970s adventure series, like each self-contained episode features Lucy and her companions stumbling across some new aspect of the wasteland and helping the residents with their problem before moving on toward their ultimate goal of...well, something more interesting than yet another "find your relative!" story. On next week's exciting episode...THE DEATHCLAW! With special guest star, William Shatner! Streaming fans would hate it and it would bomb but I would have gotten a kick out of it.

Well, that "monster of the week" narrative describes pretty much 60-70% of every Fallout game I played.

Think I already expressed my thoughts but its not a bad show, like maybe a 6 or 7 out of 10. Nothing amazing like the Boys that has me hoping for more but not a bad show to sink some time into. Im also a very casual fan to the point of normie and I enjoyed it despite knowing pretty little about the game apart from some lore about the vaults being human experiments. I dont really know the factions and havent gotten to Fallout in my backlog yet.

I liked Lucy and didnt think of her as a mary sue. She does get brought to reality many times and clearly suffers and evolves through the story which is very un-sue like. She also is honestly pretty disliked by most people at first glance which is another non-sue trait so think the criticism of her as a mary sue is just because she is a semi-competent female protagonist.

I did not like Maximus at first but he does grow on you over time. Since a second season is confirmed, I do want to see how he changes as a character.

The Ghoul is great as basically a villain protagonist to anti-hero. I do think he is going to play a big leading role if the series continues and the writers dont pull some "subverted expectations" BS like they did with the man in black in Westworld.

My biggest criticism is the story is SUPER slow. There is a ton of fluff from episode 2 to 6. I did like the last episodes where there was a good chunk of story to finally get the plot going but damn was the pacing bad. Its like reading an essay by a student shoving in fluff to fill the 5 page quota for their paper. I do hope they actually add more story content and bring a faster pace in following seasons if Amazon decides to move forward with the series. There can be side-events and there technically was "urgency" built into the main narrative (conflicting factions vying for the McGuffin) but its like everyone gets wrapped up in a side quest and backstory.

Seems my reply for this just didnt appear. I agree Lucy isnt a Mary Sue and its just a term now used to describe any semi-competent female protagonist. Mary Sue has very specific characteristics since it is basically an author insert and bad fan fiction writing.

I guess the power armor is quite iconic for Fallout and the medieval knight and squire system is quite cool but the brotherhood comes off as almost villainous in the show.

I agree although I suppose the issue with doing that is it would make the show far too short. I also feel that the Ghoul is far more relevant and central to the story than Lucy is to be honest.