Fallout TV creators saved “iconic elements” for season 2 so it doesn’t feel like they just skimmed Wikipedia
They have some big, bad cards to play if they get a second season
If you've been narked about favourite bits of Fallout not yet appearing in Amazon Prime's unexpectedly good live-action show, hold your horses. In an interview, the showrunners have talked about holding back certain "iconic elements" to do them in a hypothetical second season right rather than cram in all the greatest hits—and also so the show didn't "seem like it was written by people who just like spent 10 seconds reading the Wikipedia page for Fallout and didn't bother to like bring in some deeper cuts."
The Fallout show recreates heaps from the games, from blink-and-you'll-miss-it props to stomping big iconic elements, but some big places and nemeses you might expect haven't yet appeared. One that the showrunners held back on was those giant genetically engineered murderlizards, the deathclaws (though one is kinda present through a skull seen in the final episode, outside New Vegas).
"We wanted to get deathclaws, but we didn't want to just throw it away. It’s such a monumental piece," co-showrunner Graham Wagner told TheWrap in an interview which reads like it happened before the show aired. "We want to save some something for Season 2 to be able to do it properly, not just added on to the massive world building we had to do already in Season 1. So Season 2, we're very excited to finally tackle one of the most iconic elements of the games."
I'd certainly rather things be paced than crammed in. Presumably you also want to give the party time to level up and loot better gear so they don't end up reloading saves over and over getting torn to pieces while failing to sneak through Quarry Junction.
"There's all the greatest hit things, like the most obvious things that people who aren't even gamers know about Fallout, like Nuka, deathclaws, whatever. There are these things that are just so prevalent and we were tempted to do all of them in Season 1," added co-showrunner Geneve Robertson-Dworet.
"But on the other hand, we didn't want to see the show to seem like it was written by people who just like spent 10 seconds reading the Wikipedia page for Fallout and didn't bother to like bring in some deeper cuts," Robertson-Dworet continued. "So it was important to us to also bring deeper cuts into Season 1. Hopefully that won't piss off fans because we didn't get to every last thing, but hopefully they will bear with us and pray with us that we get a second season to bring these things to the screen."
While Amazon have not formally announced Fallout season 2, it's looking likely because the California Film Commission have already earmarked tax credits for it. I wonder if the mysterious message you get by contacting a phone number seen in the show is teasing a November announcement for that, or if it's anything to do with the games, or... who knows. In the meantime, hey, it looks like loads of people are playing Fallout right now. Alas, the much-anticipated giant mod Fallout: London has delayed its launch from next week because Bethesda are about to release a new Fallout 4 patch that will almost certainly break mod compatibility (not intentionally or maliciously, just as a technical side-effect).
Season 1 of Fallout is available in full on Amazon Prime now.