Television programmes [2]

{{ Finished the Fallout series. It rounds up enough to be satisfying whilst leaving plenty threads for a season 2, which I hope it gets and given the generally positive reception its received from fans I hope it does get a second series. It's not brilliant or the greatest tv ever made, but its damn good, and entertaining and the disparate threads all come together nicely by the end. Recommended. }}

{{ Seems the Fallout TV show is not just proving a hit for Amazon, it's also quadrupled the number of people playing the games! Now that's a successful business partnership.
I'm playing myself, though I'd started replaying before the show aired, but it certainly made me want to play more, it captures the feel and world of the games so well. Also, if you have VR, Fallout 4 VR with just a handful of mods to spruce things up is a ton of fun. Though compared to wandering the mountains, valleys and lush forests of Skyrim, wandering the wastelands and post-apocalypse ruins of the Commonwealth for hours on end can be somewhat depressing. Though it does have odd moments of destroyed beauty.}}

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It seems we would have seen Ringworld years ago, except that its development by Amazon was stalled due to RoP. But given how they absolutely butchered Ring of Power I sort of don't want them touching Ringworld. I only trust HBO with this type of material.

{{ As far as Amazon goes I think Fallout is the first adaptation of theirs I've seen that's actually genuinely good, true to the source and not fighting or hating the source it's drawn from. Everything about the games; the juxtaposition of real tragedy and emotion alongside absurdist satire and ridiculous, almost comical levels of over-the-top violence is translated intact. I'm not sure if they did the Last Of Us, or was that HBO? but it's the only other recent adaptation I can think of that got good reactions. And the Last of Us, even as a game is designed like a film anyway. Fallout was a much harder proposition to adapt as it in no way naturally lends itself to either linear storytelling nor cinematic narrative construction.
All the book to screen attempts of late have been utterly dire sadly. Seemingly made by people who hate the very thing they are adapting and only seem to be doing so in order to reshape it and rewrite it in their own likeness and to their own liking. }}

{{ I've been thinking about why the Fallout TV show works as an adaptation and oddly enough I think it comes down to one key choice they made- not to adapt it.
This might seem odd but its actually perfect for Fallout. The TV show is not based on any Fallout game, it does not share a setting with any Fallout game, none of the main characters have ever appeared in a Fallout game, yet it's a perfect adaption of a Fallout game.
So how can that work? How can you adapt something successfully by not adapting it at all?
Well in part it's down to the games themselves; the bombs fell in 2077, Fallout 1 is set in 2161 in southern California. Fallout 2 you play as a descendant of the first games main character and it's set in 2241. Fallout 3 takes place in 2277 in Washington DC with an all new main character, Fallout New Vegas takes place in around Las Vegas again with a new cast of characters, Fallout 4 is set in 2287 in and around the Boston area, also all new cast and Fallout 76 is set earlier than all the others in 2102 in West Virginia, and again features none of the previous games characters or stories.
Every game has a different part of the US post apocalypse, a different cast of characters, and introduces completely new story elements and plots.
So when it came to adapting the game, the games lead Todd Howard told them, 'don't adapt any of the existing games, do it like we would approach making a new game'. In other-words take the history of the Fallout world, its setting, its lore, its products and aesthetic, all the stuff that makes the world of Fallout, Fallout, but make your own story to set in it.
As a result, we have a tale set in 2296 (after all the games by a few years), a new Vault and a new main character and a new cast of characters. All the games factions and groups are present, but moved on from when last seen in the games, some groups have got bigger and stronger (Brotherhood of Steel, while others like the New California Republic have got weaker) and the places the story visits are all in the Fallout mood and style, but are all new locations, just as the player in a new game of Fallout would discover new places.

This approach has given the writers the best of both worlds - they have a fully fleshed out world and setting, but no need to stick to any pre-written plot or characters or have to change them to suit what they want the TV show plot to do. Instead, they can write whatever they want, so long as it fits into the world.
And that is the show's key to success. It feels just like another Fallout game precisely because it's not adapting any Fallout game, it's doing what the games themselves do when a new one comes out - new locations, new characters, new plot, same world. In this way it gets away with feeling utterly genuinely Fallout yet without having to worry about changing or altering anything pre-existing that might upset fans.
It was a very smart decision. }}

{{ No one else given Fallout a go yet? I am rather curious to what someone with little to no game knowledge would make of it and if it holds up shorn of its context.}}

I've just finished the last of Killing Eve, want to finish up with the Three Body Problem before I move on to something else. Started Black Sails but am somewhat disenchanted with it, so might give Fallout a look in the near future.

{{ I thought Chris might have given it a shot, he always seems pretty quick on any new hit streaming stuff. You not given it a go yet Chris?}}

Blech, I don't get the enjoyment of that Fallout show. It has some pretty shit characters.

{{ The main appeal is largely the same as that for the games I'd say, its fidelity to the games, their look and feel also helps, the fun and interesting juxtaposing of a 1950's style ideal of America and the American Dream and pure barbarity and extreme violence and silliness, intertwined with its commentary on things like the 'red scare' and McCarthyism, and of course corporate corruption. It's 40's and 50's soundtrack that continues that contrast between the silly, the happy and upbeat and the violence on screen also lends it a unique surreal air.
As for the characters they too reflect the games well, the main character is innocent like a new player, fresh from the Vault with no idea what's ahead, the Ghoul is your long term player with a couple hundred hours under their belt and has long since shed their morality in the Wasteland, and Maximus is your mid-tier character, got to grips with the basics but still not quite up to speed on all the mechanics yet.
As to them as characters, Lucy is a lot of fun I thought, her 'gosh let's all sit down and talk about this' can do, all pull together community attitude is used to fun effect, but she is capable and intelligent without being overly so in either department so she never annoyed me, I found her very engaging to watch. The Ghoul is the most complex of the three, I really enjoyed all the pre-war flashbacks on his backstory,

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, and Maximus I enjoy because he is so deliberately grey in his morality,

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And I thought the overall plot, how it is revealed and paced and plotted, and how it all comes so well together in the finale was also pretty good.
It's not the greatest television ever made, but I thought it was a quality, entertaining bit of television. And although the bar is not hugely high it's easily the best game to film/tv I've seen to date. }}

{{ Stumbled on this on youtube, not seen it in years, decades in fact, Porterhouse Blue, a solid adaptation of the Tom Stoppard novel of the same name. Stars David Jason, who had an uncanny knack for playing older (hes only in his thirties when he made this), he is till best known as a comedy actor, but he is simply a superb actor all round, with several serious roles under his belt alongside his massive sitcom hits. Some of the political ideas of the day it is dealing with are obviously dated by now, it was made in 87, the book from earlier, but it is also brilliantly played and performed, still full of charm and dark humour, has some of the finest actors of the era in it and a slightly haunting and suitable theme tune by the Flying Picjkets (anyone remember them?).



If that one doesnt play for copyright reasons in your country try this one- }}


Also if youve ever read any of the terry Pratchett books based around the wizrds of Unseen Univeristy a lot might seem familar, though of course both Stoppard and Pratchett were satarsiing the same university instituitions and attitudes, Ive always felt just how close the teaching staff of Porterhouse seem to thos eof Unseen Unicversity wa smore than coincidental satire. }}

Oh gosh I remember watching this, Ive read a few books by Tom Sharpe, Grantchester grind was the first book I read. I think I like the books better than the tv versions but Porterhouse Blue was good David Suchet was in Blott on the Landscape, but I just think of him now as Hercule Poirot