We Didn’t Like: The Binge Watch Rollout
We already touched on this at length over the weekend, but aside from the general trend streaming platforms have made away from the model pioneered by Netflix in the early days of of the streaming age—few shows become appointment television when the appointment date is just one day instead of weeks and months—Fallout’s debut season feels particularly damaged by an all-at-once drop due to the structure of its mystery.
Being offered all the answers about why the Ghoul is the way he is, the reasons behind the Vaults’ existence, or even the real story behind the Great War pretty much from the get-go—because you have access to those answers in the last few episodes immediately—instead of it being teased out as it is dramaturgically within the flow of the show, week by week, means that you don’t really have the time to sit with it, or for the show to naturally develop a conversation around that mystery with its audience, because you have either already binged the whole season while others are parceling it out of their own accord.
It speaks to the show’s quality that it still hits its mystery beats really well in spite of this, but fingers crossed that any potential season two learns to take its time in the wasteland a little more preciously.
