Westworld (2016)

[Totenkindly]

Okay, maybe Maeve was fine too, although there were times... As a generality, I wasn't a fan of Thani Newton in the past but she's done an impressive job as Maeve.

She's great in the role, I just wish the role hadn't been so one-note this season.

Don't forget evil Dolores/Hale, hence why Bernard must continue to exist. Am I the only one who finds Bernard irritating? There were so many points in time where had he taken action or specific actions, results would have been far more positive. He's useless besides being a plot device. Ugh.

I suspect you dislike Bernard because he's a passive character. I like him and especially Jeffrey Wright playing him, but basically they had nothing for him to do this season but wrote him into some scenes to keep him in play. I wish he were more active. I think I mentioned earlier he just tends to play a victim each season though. Season 1, it felt very tragic. Last season it was more bewildering because he was always confused and we didn't piece together why until the end. This season, he barely did anything. But his general role is that he gets the short of the stick in pretty much any situation, it's like a cosmic farce.

 

[rav3n]

I suspect you dislike Bernard because he's a passive character. I like him and especially Jeffrey Wright playing him, but basically they had nothing for him to do this season but wrote him into some scenes to keep him in play. I wish he were more active. I think I mentioned earlier he just tends to play a victim each season though. Season 1, it felt very tragic. Last season it was more bewildering because he was always confused and we didn't piece together why until the end. This season, he barely did anything. But his general role is that he gets the short of the stick in pretty much any situation, it's like a cosmic farce.

But if he did something, he wouldn't end up with the short end of the stick since he'd be crafting and shaping future events.
Maybe next season, his narrative will be more proactive since his 'use' in this season for carrying the key forward (plot device) has been revealed.

 

[cascadeco]

Just finished the season finale. I am pleasantly satisfied with how they wrapped things up, and am still invested in the show. I still think overall season 3 was too rushed, and my least favorite of the three, but other than the episodes and thoughts I already mentioned, I enjoyed it.

Re Bernard, I like him, but also understand the irritation. I relate to the lack of much ability to interface instantaneously with things right then and there, and I still think he built himself a program to specifically address this flaw/natural ineptitude in his character, to 'activate' a persona to be able to do so (ie his kick butt and take action persona), but I suspect I would end up behaving similarly for the most part. I'm probably somewhere between he and Elsie or Teresa in terms of being initiating, but nowhere near as instantaneous as Maeve or Delores by season three.

Looks like both Maeve and Bernard will be showcased more in season four, though honestly I think I'll find the Hale storyline irritating.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

While I think a lot of the criticisms of the season are fair, and I would echo many of them at least partially, I did really enjoy the Caleb / Dolores dynamic. I also think Dolores was handled better and much more interesting throughout the whole season than in season 2.

It's unfortunate that Maeve's storyline goes off the rails until the end of the last episode, especially given that Episode 2 was so good. The Dolores / Maeve conflict did not really work that well.
Maybe Maeve, Dolores, and Caleb vs. Halores/ Serac would have worked better. I think Bernard wasn't quite as mishandled, but he needed more fleshing out of why he was so sure he needed to stop Dolores; it's a little undercooked.
.
Halorees's character evolution is something that I think had something to do with her assuming the personality of Hale. Remember, she had to act like someone who was really not a very good person to begin with. I think that rubbed off on her, and in imitating Hale, became more like the real Hale.

One criticism I'd add is that they would spend a lot of time treating the repetition of information the audience already knows as though they were big revelations. Like, the fact that Dolores plan was predicted by the computer to lead to human extinction. Or the revelation about Caleb's past; it was something already told to us in straight by the basic guy. It's one thing thing if they wanted to rely less on twists going on; the problem is that they narratively treat the non-twists as though they were twists, which becomes sort of tedious and flat for the audience. This might have even been the chief problem of the middle and later parts of the season. (Either that, or the fact that the Maeve/Dolores conflict feels so forced.)

You know something that would have really helped things? A full episode, like Kikuya, dealing with the consequences of the Incite leak. It was a really interesting the idea that they didn't explore enough, and handling it more could have done more to justify Bernard's fears as well as better set up the riot. I mean, yeah, the riot makes sense, but it would have meant more to the audience if it had been established more. Also, it seems like everyone's profiles are bad which seems a little hard to swallow. This was probably just because they only had so much time, but if they had an episode dealing with the fallout, we could see what happened to the people with good profiles.

Also, it doesn't make sense why Dolores would say things that prolong the conflict between Maeve like "you're all copies of me" beyond the fact that the plot demands it.

I didn't hate the season, and there were parts of it I thought were brilliant. I'm also not sure if there's enough to build an interesting 4th season on, though. I was invested on what Dolores's plans were at the end of season 2, and what would happen between her and Bernard. I'm not sure I'm interested in a Maeve vs. Dolores (via hale) redux, even if it actually would make more sense the second time around.

There is one way I could see season 4 working, though. What if the "New World" looks a lot like the Wild West? Dolore's comments in episode 7 on horseback made me wonder if that's maybe we're they are going. I' just think in having to tackle a post-revolutionary order in the next season, they've bitten off more than they can chew. But, going back to the Wild West could work, maybe.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I'm only just starting the third season. I'm on the second episode. And I have to get this out of my system: Simon is back!!!!

I'm happy about Tommy Flannagan joining the cast. I'm not fond of Aaron Paul (except as Todd), but so far (first episode) I think he's working out okay.

(Yay about Simon!! I'm going to be slightly disappointed if he's a host now they're off on a narrative, but it'd be better than him not being back at all).

 

[Totenkindly]

I'm only just starting the third season. I'm on the second episode. And I have to get this out of my system: Simon is back!!!!

I'm happy about Tommy Flannagan joining the cast. I'm not fond of Aaron Paul (except as Todd), but so far (first episode) I think he's working out okay.

(Yay about Simon!! I'm going to be slightly disappointed if he's a host now they're off on a narrative, but it'd be better than him not being back at all).

Yeah, I was happy about Flanagan too.

Paul will always be Jesse from Breaking Bad, to me. But I've seen him in a few other things now, which is helping. I think he does okay and gets more screentime later in the season.

I think my favorite episode of the season is the third one.

 

[Totenkindly]

Why does this show suck so much? Five episodes into Season 4 and I am exactly in the same point where I am with The Walking Suck [uh, I mean Dead] -- just watching each episode once, sometimes while doing other things, just to mentally get a rough track of the season gist.

• Season 1: Sublime. Still one of the best, most beautifully constructed TV shows and seasons I have ever seen. Easily in my forever Top Ten.
• Season 2: More convoluted, but at least it tied together to Season 1 in terms of continuation of story arcs + had really meaningful moments and setup for leaving the park. Really beautiful cap on the Native Americans and Maeve's search for her daughter.
• Season 3: Felt like it was completely by another creative team more interested in plot than character. Also felt like some exec wanted a "fight between top two Hosts, Dolores and Maeve" and thus Maeve became an action hero. Also became a show more about really broad big ideas but not necessarily about implementation strong enough to make one care.
• Season 4: Double down on Season 3. Beautiful production value, but very little sense of the actual story arcs involved, and people are just doing shit to generate plot. I don't know who anyone is, I don't care who anyone is. Maeve really is just another action hero so far, and there's no real connection between the characters and who they used to be. We used to be tracking William through his slow disintegration, now there are multiple Williams and I don't care about any of them. Such a meme-ready show (not in the good sense) -- last episode my kid walked in halfway through and was like "OOOH THEY SAID THE LINE" [quoting something from first season] but mainly just like being a namedropper, which is a huge red flag as if that justifies this season's existence. No real development of ideas in ways that can be followed emotionally and rationally, just relying on goodwill from better seasons. Like WTF happened to this show? I noticed episode 5 ended better than some prior episodes this season, but... is that too little too late?

There are some big ideas. I like they are trying to again compare between humans and hosts and flipping the tables to put each in the other's role, for example. But that is a Big Concept that is just not at all satisfyingly executed, especially because none of the characters are generating emotional interest.

Like, I am never going to rewatch these seasons. I will rewatch Season 1, and I will occasionally rewatch Season 2, but the rest is just forgettable. It might be worse than the decline in Game of Thrones, because at least we got 4+ decent seasons out of GoT.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Why does this show suck so much? Five episodes into Season 4 and I am exactly in the same point where I am with The Walking Suck [uh, I mean Dead] -- just watching each episode once, sometimes while doing other things, just to mentally get a rough track of the season gist.

• Season 1: Sublime. Still one of the best, most beautifully constructed TV shows and seasons I have ever seen. Easily in my forever Top Ten.
• Season 2: More convoluted, but at least it tied together to Season 1 in terms of continuation of story arcs + had really meaningful moments and setup for leaving the park. Really beautiful cap on the Native Americans and Maeve's search for her daughter.
• Season 3: Felt like it was completely by another creative team more interested in plot than character. Also felt like some exec wanted a "fight between top two Hosts, Dolores and Maeve" and thus Maeve became an action hero. Also became a show more about really broad big ideas but not necessarily about implementation strong enough to make one care.
• Season 4: Double down on Season 3. Beautiful production value, but very little sense of the actual story arcs involved, and people are just doing shit to generate plot. I don't know who anyone is, I don't care who anyone is. Maeve really is just another action hero so far, and there's no real connection between the characters and who they used to be. We used to be tracking William through his slow disintegration, now there are multiple Williams and I don't care about any of them. Such a meme-ready show (not in the good sense) -- last episode my kid walked in halfway through and was like "OOOH THEY SAID THE LINE" [quoting something from first season] but mainly just like being a namedropper, which is a huge red flag as if that justifies this season's existence. No real development of ideas in ways that can be followed emotionally and rationally, just relying on goodwill from better seasons. Like WTF happened to this show? I noticed episode 5 ended better than some prior episodes this season, but... is that too little too late?

There are some big ideas. I like they are trying to again compare between humans and hosts and flipping the tables to put each in the other's role, for example. But that is a Big Concept that is just not at all satisfyingly executed, especially because none of the characters are generating emotional interest.

Like, I am never going to rewatch these seasons. I will rewatch Season 1, and I will occasionally rewatch Season 2, but the rest is just forgettable. It might be worse than the decline in Game of Thrones, because at least we got 4+ decent seasons out of GoT.

I think season 3 let me down enough that I haven't really been interested in visiting season 4. You're right, the fight between Dolores and Maeve made no sense.

 

[Totenkindly]

I should say that, much like Game of Thrones, this is not really the fault of the cast. Their performances are generally stellar.

This is primarily a story / writing problem. You can't really put lipstick on a pig here.

I still am kind of blaming Lisa Joy, although I could be wrong. But I did watch Reminiscence last year (her directorial debut) and it felt very similar: Great production values, great cast, so-so writing. It was supposed to be moving but was very inert. I was rooting for Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson and the story was just so flat and forgettable.

I don't really know how much Jonathan Nolan has been actively involved (although they are a pair) in the last two seasons aside from ideas, because pretty much everything I have ever seen from him in the past that he has written has been super-tight. He even has the honor of writing/adapting my favorite film ever ("The Prestige"). Is he involved at all in the actual implementation any more, or does he just give notes and high-level concepts for this?

 

[Totenkindly]

Episode was better in the sense of moments within the episode itself, although the season still has trouble with its overarcing plots.

It still has multiple dumb moments too. For example, someone who is a "survivor" and is used to avoiding death [who thus should know better], but who moves into melee range to point a gun at someone -- why would anyone ever do this?! The whole point of guns is to threaten someone at distance, to avoid being within melee range of someone with more physical strength than yourself. Or early on, everyone freezes to avoid being discovered by the host sentries -- and then they end up just fleeing and there seems to be no actual chase or danger in fleeing because they get away easily; so why the hell did they choose to freeze to start with, and why not just flee from the beginning if it was easy to flee and dangerous to remain in proximity? Just dumb dumb things like this seem to happen with regularity -- unrealistic / bad mini-plotting. I really get annoyed with shows where characters do dumb things to force a particular plot direction. Let's have smarter characters. This show used to.

I'm still not sure the Caleb plotline was the best direction to go in with that character. However, it did allow for a number of resonating images / moments. I'm still a little lost as to whether this is trying to signify a difference between hosts and humans that is anchored in their thinking and not in the physicality -- or are they trying to make the other point where hosts are offing themselves not because they were infected but because they don't want to bear up under the shit circumstances they have found themselves in? (Hosts are also wrestling with ennui, Hale included.) Again, the show used to provide more precision with exploring these topics, now it just throws them into a big hopper to be churned around -- so while there are good ideas in there, it's not exactly clear what is being said or what is driving the point.

The editing just doesn't seem to have the clarity of earlier seasons either. You can piece it together after a few minutes of watching based on character reactions, but at first it's confusing. I think there's a fine line between misdirection and confusion and the show sometimes seems to fall off the beam it is trying to walk nowadays.

Anyway, along with the many faces of Caleb, I am fairly certain a particular resonance was purposeful:

And I am talking about how Caleb's memories with his daughter are shot in ways that remind me -- although I haven't watched it for a few years -- the golden shots of Maeve and her daughter in Seasons 1-2. If there is any reason Maeve feels even more connected to Caleb, it would be because of this shared experience, and the show seems to be doing a connection with a connection. Maeve seemed to be more human because of her "irrational" love for her daughter, where she throws away her chance to escape the park at the end of S1 and instead spends S2 trying to free her daughter even after her daughter has forgotten her. Now Caleb is reaffirming that humanity with memories of and connections to his own daughter. Maybe this is also cosmetic, but they are both young black girls in the memory sequences, and they could have cast anyone as Caleb's daughter this season, so it feels purposeful to me.

There also seem to be more mature levels of both host and human. Some have more limited programming; others can be quite nuanced (like Maeve, Dolores, or Bernard). Humans aren't much different. We saw both William and also Devos going through this "fidelity" test, and while both of those characters were complex in their anguish, none of them really got outside of their own programming and prison cells. In this case, Caleb was allowed to escape because Hale wanted to see what he would do and "what his master plan" was, leading to her ridiculing him for having such a pointless, ineffectual plan -- maybe Caleb wasn't "smarter" than William or Devos, but he was driven by his love for another person and it wouldn't let him quit. I'm still a little lost over how S3 Hale was trapped in loops regarding her human family; I guess she has forgotten/rejected all that as part of the humanity she is not part of? It is the same Hale, we see her burned arm regularly. But basically, Caleb doesn't need a bigger plan other than express his love for and encouragement to his daughter, and it drives him to experience great pain and eventually death repeatedly to try to say goodbye to her. Hale doesn't even understand that anymore, or simply is turned off by it.

Occasionally despite the confusing elements or dumb things, there's a line that chokes you up. For me, this was when Frankie/C tells Maeve that she's Caleb's daughter, and Maeve just studies her briefly, then gives that little side smile and says, "Of course you are." Maeve always gets the best lines.

 

[Totenkindly]

well, thank god that season is over. I was hoping that was the entire series finale too, just let the pain end!

RT actually has this at 80%. I don't know what I am missing. (Technically, for later seasons, an 80% isn't the greatest, usually only the people who care are rating it and the score is significantly higher.)

There was an emotional moment last night or two, but only brief and really it seems like a disconnected random series of plots and arcs (like a plate of spaghetti dropped on the floor) that you just kind of wait to see what the very end is to make sense of any of it. Being inscrutable is not necessarily a positive thing, in terms of caring about the show. there's very little I feel like that mattered again in this season, a bunch of characters just doing things and/or getting randomly offed, and all of them feeling far "less than" than their original incarnations in Seasons 1&2.

• Both Hale and Maeve are shot in the head at the end of e7 and supposedly "die". Then oh look, I guess Hale is fixable -- maybe she just had super-duper skull plates no one knew about? So she's really not dead after all. There was way too much of this in the last two seasons -- people and hosts dying in ways that generate little emotion, then you wait around to see if they get brought back or are actually dead.
• William becomes the Dark Avenger of Death that he was in first season (well, Host William, although the real William was overlaid on him), goes around destroying everything until Hale kills him. Whatever.
• Clementine shows up just to say, naw, Hale, I'm done, I'm gonna go hide with the Outliers, then proceeds to try to kill the only Outliers who she needs to find the Outliers, so after killing Stubbs -- oh, RIP, Stubbs, not a very momentous way to die for a guy who was from Season 1 and outlasted almost everyone else -- and oh, I guess her plotline is over. Did she even matter? Why include her for this dumb shit?
• I guess William was gonna destroy the sublime, which we can now see over Hoover Dam for some reason, so... but I guess not, since Hale decided her world sucked and might as well not bother. Despite all the effort she put into it. Whatever, Hale.
• The dialogue, I'm sorry, is such shit. Season 1 was sublime and refined. Season 4 was like 12 average/below-average writers each wrote five minutes of dialogue in their own cubicles, then mailed it to some central coordinator who just arranged it on a page without doing a full rewrite. It's all high-level, shallow, and/or incomprehensible -- even the beautiful stuff. Like WTF is all this coming from? I would say I missed something, but no, I saw the whole season. I was either heckling the screen or laughing at how bad it was.
• There's honestly so much shit here I can't even list it all. Watching the first five minutes of humans and hosts killing each other in the street was hilariously awful. All that work went into making the deaths look really painful too, it was like an amateur cosplay. They even threw Stephen Ogg into the mix OMFG! I know he was in Season 1 too, one of the milk guys.
• Season 1 and even Season 2 had a significant number of earned "feel" moments. Seasons 3 and 4 had very few that were earned, and the only truly successful ones even if not totally pulled off were from Caleb and his daughter.

But okay, me being kind and trying to try to get what the writers WERE after despite all the shitty actual plotting and writing:

• Seasons 3 and 4 were the Hosts time to shine -- looking at humans as just biological hosts of sorts, driven by their own programming and innate characteristics. How well can we manipulate humans? It was an obvious flip of the script to now give the Hosts their due.
• Humans imprinted into host bodies just do not work very well. They invariably break down and crash. Hundreds of iterations were tried and all failed. The only successes I think they had were Hosts who had a Host core (Hale was based on Dolores, then had Hale laid overtop; William was based on Hale who was based on Dolores, then had William laid overtop). these latter ones could become close to the original human in terms of accepting that imprint, the Host William at the end was all the important things and roles of human William and eventually became him. This suggests that humans and Hosts are incompatible at least at core, there is something that even while they are similar, they can't quite become interchangeable.
• One of the few surprises, which shouldn't have been a surprise: Christina was a host without a body, running the entire red city (which is comparable to the park model in Seasons 1 & 2 that controlled the hosts and could provide snapshots of park activity). Basically a recreation / sister to Dolores, modeled I think after the Dolores in Hale? And her entire world we saw this season was herself trying to wake herself up, harkening back to Season 1 of Dolores trying to resolve unconsciously the Bicameral Mind issue. I just wish all the dialogue has been far better. I mean, we all ship Tedolores but not like this...no, not like this.
• Caleb and daughter was the thread of humanity -- despite all the shit, there is love and commitment and humans will do things that are illogical because they are connected to the people they care about. Caleb killed himself over and over to send a message to his daughter -- and it wasn't even a subversive message to win the war, it was a message of love and affirmation to make her feel better.
• Bernard served no real purpose except to plant a gun and prove that the world as Hale created it was doomed. However, that was important to get Hale to accept her experiment had failed, so why continue? Let's try something new. He appealed to Hale's best qualities and she responded to that -- although fuck if I know why because she was a terrible shit for Season 3 and 4.
• Hale finding a beautiful spot to spend her last moment in, then choosing the moment of her own death despite potentially being immortal -- this was a scene that belonged in a better show that had earned the moment. GREAT scene, should have been immensely powerful.
• The first four seasons come down to this: Humans cannot make a world that is satisfying to the Hosts. Hosts cannot make a world that is livable by humans or Hosts. Humans and hosts aren't quite interchangeable. Now what? If there is a Season 5, it's up to Dolores to finally make it work.
• Honestly, see all the above: You can KIND of see what they were driving at, but I don't feel like this creative team was up to the task of really making a satisfying show where I could actually FEEL and understand the arcs leading to moments of catharsis. Everything is way too high-level at times and doesn't feel real. I'm not sure who someone looked at these scripts and thought they were on task.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I dunno, started season 1, not feeling it. I mean it's well made, just not doing anything for me.

 

[Totenkindly]

‘Westworld’ Canceled by HBO After 4 Seasons

Creators Lisa Joy and Jonah Nolan had hoped to conclude the sci-fi series' story in a fifth season

www.yahoo.com

Disappointing but more in regards to how they fubar'ed their own series for Seasons 3 and 4 leading to the cancellation. They probably only have themselves to blame. The first season was sublime, the second season was decent (though flawed), and the third season was either going to restore the series or bottom it out (and it ended up being more of the latter). Season 4 also felt confusing and aimless, although there were occasionally good sequences (like when Caleb tries to escape his captivity). They tended to reuse the same bag of tricks that was novel in Season 1. But everything felt pretty confusing and aimless, with no real big picture being generated.

I really hated the way they manufactured a pointless conflict between Dolores and Maeve in Season 3, and then essentially just turned Maeve into a ninja action hero starting in Season 3. The strong and nuanced character building just did not seem to be there anymore, it was all mainly a plot show and a rather confusing one at that.

The actors aren't to blame, they were all pretty talented. This has been happening a lot with various properties (especially within Disney as well), they have great production values and a talented cast, but the narrative and writing just isn't up to snuff.

I'm still feeling like Lisa Joy had more of a hand in these seasons, based on what I know of J Nolan's work versus hers, but she's just not as talented. Whatever writers they brought on just weren't as good either.