Once it seemed unthinkable that any adaptation of a video game could be good.
Now, we’ve had fantastic shows like Arcane, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and The Last of Us.
Sure, there are still a few duds, but it feels like there are just as many success stories nowadays.
Thankfully for fans of the Fallout series, its Amazon Prime adaptation is one of the successes.
Personally, I have never really been able to get into the Fallout games.
I have tried multiple times but, for whatever reason, the Bethesda style has never really worked for me.
That being said, I loved the first season of Fallout.
It has excellent world-building, a fun and relatable cast of characters, and some of the best dark humor I have seen in a while. 

The show follows four characters, 200 years after nuclear war reduced the United States to a radioactive wasteland full of crazed bandits and mutants.
Our main character is Lucy (Ella Purnell), a naive Vault Dweller who leaves the security of her Vault after an attack, during which her father was kidnapped.
Purnell described her character as “Ned Flanders in the apocalypse” and I honestly could not think of a more fitting description. 

Then there is Maximus (Aaron Moten), a recruit for the Brotherhood of Steel who is absolutely horrible at making himself seem innocent, even when he is.
The character most viewers will gravitate to is the Ghoul played by Walton Goggins, whose tragic tale is one of the most gripping of the entire first season.
The story I was most invested in, however, was unexpectedly Lucy’s brother Norm (Moisés Arias).
Norm is left behind in the Vault but becomes suspicious of his its purpose, creating an intriguing mystery which was mind blowing with the way it tied the storylines together in the final episode. 

These great characters and their interesting stories are tied together with a solid old-school soundtrack, fun visuals and, of course, hysterical dark humor.
There was at least one moment every episode where I laughed out loud, and there were quite a few times I felt bad for doing so, given the subject matter.
However, the show is not all dark comedy because sometimes it’s just dark, with a few disturbing moments which will stay with me for a while.   
The show does an excellent job of balancing the darkness between making you laugh and making you feel horrified. 

There are also a lot of great easter eggs to the games and just video games in general, which also got a good chuckle out of me.
Overall, there’s a lot to love about this adaptation.
It has interesting characters, a fun and disturbing world, and it will make you laugh at the darkest of things.
Fallout has already joined the ranks of great video game adaptations and I look forward to laughing at its dark comedy in the second season.