@Hassknecht @Bradylama
My primary complaint about the show are the following:
1. Essentially the show feels incomplete at eight episodes. It should have been at least ten episodes long or they should have just sliced away the filler and made it into a two hour movie. They could have done either by removing the Vault 4 subplot. The show feels simultaneously a little underbaked while also being a little too long. I give it a lot of praise and I think said praise is well deserved but I do have criticisms--I just prefer to be happy about the parts I like over negative.
2. Moldaver's character never really comes together and that's a big mistake. She's a cold fusion scientist from before the war who is out for revenge for her possible lover/best friend that's Lucy's mom and was also accused of being a communist. The fact so many questions like, "How is she still alive 200 years later" and "why did she let Hank's kids be collateral damage" aren't things that I believe the show doesn't have answers for but they are sort of left hanging.
3. I don't doubt we're going to get to see Point A to B to C with Cooper with the show implying that he'll go after Vault-Tec, divorce his wife, get blacklisted, and lose everything. The show gives us enough to know he ends up doing birthday parties and gets labeled a pinko. However, that not happening is another part of the element that prevents us from getting really as far as we could have with the show.
4. The "surprise" revelation of Vault-Tec as the big bad is something that I don't have much to say about because there's not much to say. Basically, it provides a non-political answer to the story that has always been political. The fact they barely mention the Enclave when Vault-Tec is a major part of it seems silly.
5. Speaking of which, the fact that I don't think the fact that China is ever mentioned by name is noticeable. I don't think Fallout was ever going to be shown in China given all the media they've banned but the fact that they so studiously avoided mentioning who exactly was holding the other nukes is eye-rolling.
6. Hank Maclean is a character that isn't much of a character so much as a plot device. He's shown to be a loving father and willing to die for his children as well as sacrifice his fellow Vault dwellers but also nuked a city because his wife stole his kids/work for Vault-Tec to wipe the surface clean. I feel like there's a lot to sound down that square peg to fit a round hole. It's not that I can't believe it's a character but it's such a 180 that I don't get what it is. Loyalty to Vault-Tec over the Enclave is a lot harder to buy.
7. The "Maximus doesn't know what sex is" scene is just stupid even if we assume he's high as fuck (which I do).
8. The lack of the US government's culpability or the Pre-War government is also frustrating as we could at least have a crooked Senator or two. They make nods to the government being under the corporate thumb and that WestTek and Vault-Tec are part of the Enclave anyway but it feels like they present Vault-Tec as the bad guy as an independent section versus the Enclave.
9. I am fine for disaster economics and Atlas Shrugged predicted that the end of the world would be a good thing for capitalism. They could have written it smarter, though. Like mentioning they planned a limited nuclear exchange or otherwise showing that their continued support of hawkishness led to the retaliation. In other words, Vault-Tec shouldn't be perfectly geniuses but because they're idiots.
10. NCR's destruction is also something that only really feels like a tragedy for those who played the games. It's also something brought about by an outside third party versus all of the issues that had been brought about by New Vegas.
So, 9/10
Is it fair that combining all of these flaws only lowers the score by one point? Well, I measure things by comparing the good to the bad.
