The Fallout season 2 premiere had a significantly lower viewership than its predecessor, but that makes sense. After all, Prime Video's release strategy for both installments couldn't have been more different.
Nielsen's streaming stats (via The Hollywood Reporter) show that the new season of Fallout accumulated 794 million viewing minutes on Prime Video during the week of release (December 15-21), which, compared to the 2.9 billion minutes achieved by season 1, might seem like a huge step down. Season 1 of the show still stands as the best premiere for a series ever on the streamer, so it was a pretty hard record to beat to begin with.
However, it's worth noting that all episodes of the first season were released at the same time, while season 2 has been dropping one single episode every Wednesday. That means that the numbers reflect very different amounts of content consumed by viewers over a single week, and therefore it would be unfair to compare them with no context. In fact, nearly 800 million minutes of viewing is actually a really impressive achievement.
With only a few episodes left to air (check out our Fallout season 2 release schedule to keep up to date), season 2 of the sci-fi series starring Ella Purnell and Walton Goggins has managed to live up to the record-breaking first season. The new batch of episodes landed a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, with our Fallout season 2 review praising its recreation of the world of the games.
"Prime Video's live-action TV adaptation of Fallout remains fun as hell, and kicks it up a notch by bringing New Vegas to life with stunningly accurate set designs and franchise Easter eggs galore. While the flashbacks to the Ghoul's Hollywood actor past prove to be the most compelling part of the season, other plotlines make it all feel a little overcrowded in the end," we wrote.
Fallout season 2 continues on Wednesday, January 21. Never miss an episode with our Fallout season 2 release schedule. For more, check out our guide to the Fallout season 2 timeline or our breakdown of all the Fallout season 2 Easter eggs we've spotted so far.
