Entertainment
Amazon Prime’s ‘Fallout’: One thing I wish they’d done differently
‘Fallout’: Amazon streaming series adapts post-apocalyptic video game
After being raised in an underground vault, young Lucy (Ella Purnell) ventures out into a wild wasteland in “Fallout,” based on the video game.
Maybe it’s my own fault.
As I assured Amazon Prime that I was still binge-watching “Fallout,” the drama released this month that’s based on the video game series, I almost wished I wasn’t.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the show. So did USA TODAY’s TV critic Kelly Lawler (see her full review on “Fallout”). Instead, I wish “Fallout” hadn’t been released all at once.
Binges are great! I even find myself occasionally saving a number of episodes of a show that releases weekly to watch all at once in the evening or over the weekend. But with very good shows, the ones I find the most enjoyable, I often feel sluggish and overwhelmed afterward, no different than when I eat too much.
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“Fallout” is one of those shows. With its fun characters, vault and timeline mysteries, intricate world-building and video-game Easter eggs, there’s a lot to think about — and even better, discuss with friends. Two enthusiastic thumbs up to the entire experience.
With so much to talk about, I mourn the absence what could have been weeks of savoring this tasty series, a delayed gratification of how they would continue to work with the source material, what Lucy (Ella Purnell) would find out or the Ghoul (Walton Goggins) would swagger through next.
Yes, I could have stopped watching the series at any time. I didn’t have to sit through all eight episodes at once. I could have saved some for later. But it’s also true that spoilers for most things will pop up in conversations and all over social media within 24 hours of release, and they’re getting harder to avoid.
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And it’s admittedly no fun being behind — or even ahead — when your family or friends want to chat about it. So I wish the streamer had opted not to release all of the season’s episodes at once.
It would have been a treat if the show had been released either weekly or a few episodes each week. Now we wait for signs of life across the desert to see what’s next for “Fallout.” I’m already hungry.