Fallout and the 5 best new TV shows fans shouldn't miss this April

A new month means that there are new shows to try out.  So if you've caught up on everything that came out in March, check out this list and see if anything premiering this month might end up being your new favorite show.

Fallout - Amazon (April 11)

The era of (hopefully) successful programming based on video games continues this month with Fallout on Amazon. Based on the popular game series, Fallout takes place in an alternate timeline where a nuclear event was triggered sometime after World War II, causing a nuclear apocalypse and forcing the human race into fallout shelters in order to survive. The show takes place two hundred years later and features the dependents of those who hid in the fallout vaults having to venture out into the wasteland that remains.

The series isn't directly adapting any of the video games but rather is telling an original story set in the same world where the games take place. The look of the games, with the wasteland of the future mixed with the fifties aesthetic of the society that was destroyed, remains present in the television series and will hopefully bring in the fans of the game who want to see a new story told in that world. 

Franklin - Apple TV+ (April 12)

In 1776, Benjamin Franklin went to France where he would remain for several years seeking support from France for the new nation. America needed France's support in their war with England and Franklin played a critical role in gathering support from the French for America. Franklin wound up being a rather popular figure in Paris, and this series, rather than taking a biographical approach to the life of Ben Franklin, focuses on this specific journey to France.

Based on the trailer, the series takes a rather dramatic approach to the events, with plenty of political intrigue and backstabbing, both figurative and literal are featured in the trailer. It could be noted that an earlier adaptation of this exact same time period chose to adapt the events as a Broadway musical back in 1964. Given that this miniseries is specifically based on the book A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, it might be trying for a more historical take. This eight-episode mini-series stars Michael Douglas as the titular founding father. 

The Spiderwick Chronicles - Roku (April 19th)

In the early 2000s, during the Harry Potter craze, there were tons of books that tried to capture that same audience with stories about kids discovering magical worlds all around them. One of these book series was The Spiderwick Chronicles, a series about three siblings who discover a field guide to magical creatures in their ancestral home. A movie based on the books was released in 2008, though it never did well enough to get a sequel. But now, the books are being adapted into a series with eight episodes.

The show was originally supposed to be on Disney+ but was scrapped from Disney's lineup due to cost-cutting measures and was shopped to other networks. The series had already been completed by the time Disney pulled the plug, and Roku ended up purchasing the show for their small but growing lineup of original programming. 

Smartypants - Dropout (April 25)

Dropout has become an incredible streaming service to present improvisational comedy for the current era. The service has multiple shows that feel like the spiritual successor to Whose Line is it Anyway, or possibly a take on the type of comedy that has made shows like Taskmaster so successful in the UK. Their latest show appears to be a kind of take on reality shows like Shark Tank, taking the idea of a PowerPoint party to its most extreme.

In each episode, people are invited to the Smartypants Club, a group of self-appointed smarties, and present them with a slideshow explaining something. From what was shown in the trailer it looks like some of the topics for presentations include Vegetables Don't Exist, Wrestling is Drag, and Morning People are an Oppressive Class. With each presentation, the group will be able to ask questions that the presenter will then have to answer based on the topic. For those who have seen the other shows that Dropout offers, it's easy to see why this premise has a lot of potential for fitting in with the lineup the channel provides. 

Knuckles - Paramount+ (April 26)

After a bumpy start with their initial design, Sonic has ended up being a pretty successful franchise for Paramount. The two movies that have been released so far have both been incredibly successful and a third movie is set to be released later this year. The franchise is now branching out into television with a series based on the character Knuckles who was introduced in the previous movie. (Or he was introduced in the third game back in 1994 if you want to be specific.)

Knuckles the Echidna was originally out to take Sonic down, but by the end of the movie had joined forces with him and now, in this new series, Knuckles is setting out to explore the world that he now calls home. The series looks like it's taking a buddy cop format with Knuckles teaming up with Wade, the comic relief deputy sheriff character from the movies. Also, it looks like Sonic will be at least making an appearance in the series, so you might need to make sure you watch the show before the third movie comes out.