The latest trend in television is to create a fictional dystopia and then try to make it real. Squid Game turned playground games into deadly competitions, then simulated the drama with Squid Game: The Challenge. Reality shows depicted in works like The Running Man are replicated in the shameless real-life reality competition Beast Games. Now, Fallout is trying to turn its satirical wasteland into a reality show, but the odds may already be stacked against the strange idea.
Prime Video announced that it’s greenlit Fallout Shelter, a reality competition series set in the world of its hit Fallout show. “Set inside Vault-Tec’s bomb-proof vaults, Fallout Shelter drops a diverse group of contestants into an immersive, high-stakes world inspired by the games’ signature dark humor, retro-futurism, and post-apocalyptic survival storytelling,” the press release reads. “Across a series of escalating challenges, strategic dilemmas, and moral crossroads, contestants must prove their ingenuity, teamwork, and resilience as they compete for safety, power, and ultimately a huge cash prize.”
You can try your hand at surviving in a vault in the reality competition show Fallout Shelter.
While the name Fallout Shelter has already been claimed by a mobile game, this sounds like a Survivor-style competition that combines physical challenges with a social game of trust and alliances. But does anyone really want this?
One of the biggest pulls of Fallout is the lofty, twisting story, something that just isn’t possible in an unscripted reality series. Then there’s the issue of worldbuilding. People keeling over in Squid Game: The Challenge was ridiculous enough, and watching people pretend to be living underground after the nuclear apocalypse might be a bridge too far. It’s not even Amazon Prime Video’s first foray into turning one of its properties into a reality competition, but 007: Road to a Million didn’t make much of a splash among Bond fans.
Fallout Shelter borrows its name from Bethesda’s mobile game about vault management.
The other problem facing Fallout Shelter is that it will only be streaming. More and more people may be cutting cable, but competition shows like Survivor, Big Brother, and The Amazing Race still flourish on broadcast television. The only comparable streaming show is the Emmy-winning Danish import The Traitors, but that series is chock full of celebrities, many of whom rose to fame on broadcast competition series.
If Fallout Shelter still sounds enticing to you, the series is currently casting. But for now, I think I’ll let Lucy MacLean do the surviving for me.
