Will ‘Fallout’ follow in the Emmy-winning footsteps of fellow video game adaptation ‘The Last of Us’?
Video game adaptations used to be cursed, at least from a critical standpoint, from the notorious 1993 live-action “Super Mario Bros.” to 2015’s “Hitman: Agent 47” with its whopping Rotten Tomatoes score of eight-percent. But video games finally got their prestige media bona fides in 2023 with HBO’s “The Last of Us,” a zombie apocalypse drama that won eight Primetime Emmys out of 24 nominations last year. Turns out video games just needed space to breathe on the small screen. Now comes “Fallout,” Prime Video’s adaptation of the game series of the same name. Will this post-apocalypse achieve the same success?
“Fallout” takes place in Los Angeles 200 years after a catastrophic nuclear war, when Lucy (Ella Purnell) ventures out into the wasteland in search of her kidnapped father. The series has an awards-friendly pedigree with Emmy nominee Walton Goggins in a leading role and “Westworld” masterminds Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy as executive producers — Nolan also directed the first three episodes. It received positive reviews from critics, scoring 73 on MetaCritic and 93% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes — a far cry from those aforementioned “Hitman” numbers.
According to the combined predictions of Gold Derby users as of this writing, “Fallout” ranks sixth in our odds for Best Drama Series. There will be eight nominees in the category, so that bodes well for the series. Among those betting on it for a nomination are 11 out of 17 Expert journalists from major media outlets, 10 out of 11 Gold Derby Editors, 22 of our Top 24 Users and 23 of our All-Star Top 24. So the consensus is that it’s pretty safe for a nom in the top category.
It doesn’t hurt that seven of last year’s eight nominees for Best Drama aren’t eligible in this awards cycle, either because they went off the air or were on extended hiatus. Netflix’s “The Crown” is the only show eligible to return from that lineup, so the TV academy has an opportunity to spread the wealth to a lot of new or under-recognized programs. “Fallout” could easily be one of them.
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