WestWorld: ...Where nothing can possibly go worng!

I just watched the latest ep. it's better than the previous one but still disappointing somehow (although there were BIG things happening).
The Bernard/host thing was totally expected but I was surprised they killed Theresa already.
Since they also "killed" Bernard, in a way, they lost two main characters in one episode !
also, the new management woman is terrible as a intelligent/ruthless/sexy/powerful caricature.
and I don't really like the Maeve storyline. Actually, as said by many in this thread, I don't really care about any character (maybe Dolores, a little) but I still enjoy the show, although with diminishing returns (which makes me wonder about how long they can sustain this).
Thinking about it, I wonder if my initial enjoyment didn't come from my binge watching of the first 5 eps in a row. all the novelty and information might have made it better than it is since watching the two latest episodes on their own was quite disappointing...

Think there have been too many big things happening too quickly, would have preferred them to set out the internal logic with a few more stories set in the BAU westworld than unravelling straight away. Does make you wonder how they'd manage to keep it together the past 30-odd years. Saying that, still enjoying the ride for now.

Yeah, for a show about the western world, there's not a lot set in the west in the latest eps. It feels like most of the show is about the company politics/mysteries now. Maybe that's one of the things I miss.

yeah i love the concept of this show, and it felt to me like someone involved had almost certainly been to see punchdrunk's immersive theatre shows in nyc or london - too many similarities to be a coincidence. that piqued my interest a bit but ultimately the characters aren't strong enough. the rebellion by the maeve character doesn't actually interest or please me - i don't want the characters to escape, i want them to go on a journey in their world, the allure of the robot world to the humans is probably more interesting than the reverse.

her name is maeve, who knew

Starting to feel like the reveal about Bernard is just the bodysnatcher version of "black dude dies first"

I mean, I struggle to see how it makes the character more interesting. Unless we have a season 2 of Jeffrey Wright in aged makeup, playing Arnold. Hope not/hope so?

oh and it's supposed to be forbidden for the staff to have intercourse with the hosts but I guess the new management woman is above the rules !
(Theresa also but she didn't know she was doing a host...)

what was his character before? he had chats with dolores, was sleeping with borgen, acted like a robot... maybe he will do stuff now

regarding Bernard, there's also the question that a host is not supposed to be able to understand/know about the real world and the westworld. so how can he work and deal with other hosts knowing they're just hosts, not humans ?
and if it's possible for him, then it's no big deal if Maeve and other hosts can understand the divide between reality and the park...

he can know about robots, he's not supposed to know that he is a robot

hum. it seemed the hosts weren't supposed to be able to understand there was another reality and therefore that robots existed at all.

Well that's surely because they are "hosts" in a realistic Wild West theme park, this one has been designed (secretly) for a different purpose

ie Bernard is only being asked to accept one "reality", he doesn't live in the fake one

No guys all robots are programmed to think they are Cowboys there is no other way

Is this not tied in with what Maeve asked to have turned up. The thing that allows one to grasp how concepts interrelate?

yeah, I suppose.
and regarding Maeve, that means she can never be "switched of" now, right ?
like when the guys came in the saloon to take her friend.

that said, even Bernard couldn't understand/see some things related to his host status while Maeve could.

I'm betting on a finale in which Hopkins pulls a Mithradates and has the robots kill all the humans in the park

what's his big project under construction ? I don't remember the hints and clues.

also, the new management woman is terrible as a intelligent/ruthless/sexy/powerful caricature.

we weren't sure but it sounded like she used the term "blood sacrifice" and hopkins used the term as well at the end of the episode which suggests... i guess either that she is also a droid or that they're in cahoots?

Or he has every inch of the park bugged.

xpost
hum. if she's also a robot, it would explain why she's allowed to have sex with a host !
but at this point, would it really matter or interest anyone to learn another supposedly human is actually a robot ?

Yeah the

It's established that they've got good cameras, but with convenient spottiness of coverage - what is noticed and what isn't noticed is always exactly what the writers require. So Bearded Tech Dude can tell someone's been messing with the settings, but can't tell who. Bernard can have long soulful chats with Dolores with no one apparently knowing. Elsie can see who did what to the transmitter, but she's apparently unworried about anybody noticing her wide-ranging snoopage. Everything can be done remote by tablet except for the things that can't; everything can be dialed up in the browser history except for the things that can't; etc.

The system's capabilities expand and contract in response to what's convenient for the narrative at that moment. It's like one big CSI:Whatever where you can always "enhance" a photo unless there's a detail needs to be obscured for writerly convenience. You can get anything off of the wiped hard drive except for the One Missing Piece.

One can see all this machinery in action and still find it dumb popcorny fun.

oops forget 'yeah the"

No guys all robots are programmed to think they are Cowboys there is no other way

― duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes), Thursday, November 17, 2016 7:13 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bernard actually got into robotics because his son died after an accident involving a horse on their ranch

Presumably everything Bernard has been doing (e.g. chatting with Dolores) have been at Anthony Hopkins' instigation, not some personal project of his own?

This really fell off after episode 1, or at least the super-stylised production values stopped holding my attention when it began to get repetitive and the plot inched forward, if at all, at snail's pace. I think stretches of both eps 4 and 5 actually sent me to sleep? And then ep 6 brought it back in a pretty huge and unexpected way for me, easily the first time I was actually gripped by the story. This is entirely down to Maeve's self-actualisation - she's probably the only character I'm invested in. I love how her reaction to all the new info is to process it like a robot and determine a course of action based on that, even when it might seem she's reacting like a human on the surface (eg tears for Clementine's lobotomy). Thandie Newton is MVP in this show by a million miles.

I'm pretty bored with most scenes in the park, especially the shoot-em-up scenes which feel so rote, especially when you know how little's at stake. Feel like half this season has been given over to cycling pointlessly through these narratives. Becoming rapidly uninvested in Dolores, whose self-actualisation seems to have stalled, at least compared to Maeve's. William is a completely boring void of nothing. It's hard to sustain a character seven episodes in when all they've given us is vaguely worried looks.

There's literally nothing about the Man In Black storyline that holds any interest for me, the problem isn't that the show's piling up ridiculous mysteries à la Lost, it's that it's piling up boring mysteries. What is the Man In Black searching for? I don't care bc I don't care about him bc he's total cardboard. I guess the video game parallel is intentional but they're not emotionally compelling either. And every single interaction with hosts is just devoid of any reason to care, sort of like the show's hoist itself on its own clever conceit. (Even though the logic of Westworld collapses as soon as you poke at it, like the magic bullets than all humans are safe from.)

The action in the control centre with the humans (OR ARE THEY etc) is more interesting for sure, even if it can be a bit silly. Intrigued that we're not being led to root for either Ford or the board at this point - Elsie (if still alive) seems to be the only human presented as on the side of good and truth so far?

I was wondering whether Charlotte was a bot based on her relaxed attitude to nudity and Ford echoing her "blood sacrifice" line. Did Ford imply this is like a game he and the board play regularly? They try to unseat him, he sees through them and...kills someone? This doesn't make much sense.

Def on board with the theory that Bernard is (made in the image of) Arnold and the scenes of him testing Dolores were actually Arnold. There's some possibly interesting anagram stuff going on with their names too.

the bernarnold theory

Arnerdb?

I think the "blood sacrifice" line was first meant as a metaphor (We're going to fire Bernard) and later as literal (Bernard is going to splatter your head on a wall.)

he said the blood sacrifice thing cuz he was using the Hector sex bot as a spy on the board woman just like he used Bernard sex bot to get the Teresa specs to make her into a robot. the fact that this wasn't clear was either really bad writing or they are trying too hard.

or both!

http://io9.gizmodo.com/new-footage-solves-one-mystery-of-how-westworlds-park-a-1789095775

This might be the movie that Knudsen had to get back for, it's out now in France:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5247544/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_4

Danish, English, French YOU'RE JUST SHOWING OFF NOW SIDSE BABETT KNUDSEN

i'm not gonna lie i fell asleep at least once during that last ep

Holy fuck, it appears Sky have hijacked the official website in that it won't load in the UK but redirects to the Sky Atlantic's Westworld page. Fuck this show

https://www.discoverwestworld.com/#

in France it goes here: http://fans.ocs.fr/westworld-series-ocs-ambitieux-subversif-delirant/

If you're trying to check out the website and have a look at the map, you think they'd realise there's a fair chance you're already watching the show

the problem isn't that the show's piling up ridiculous mysteries à la Lost, it's that it's piling up boring mysteries.

I pretty much agree with this. So I still enjoy watching the show but it's not really exciting. Just fun. And maybe less and less...

I like Dolores' plot. A robot falling in love is not original or surprising, but inevitably something they have to explore in this show, and I like that they're kinda doing it in a classic silver screen love story kind of way. I was hoping that the western setting would also allow for some classic western sub plots. As for the shoot-outs it was all fun and games at first but we see now that guests can get in genuine danger and be killed by hosts, if not by the bullets, so there's more to it than before.

yeah, I like Dolores's plot, so far (although her lovers are pretty boring. I mean, Teddy and William...) : the hidden gun, the hidden conversations with Bernard/Arnold, her quest to whatever she'll find...

General derision here and my wife's apparent firm "no" means I won't be traveling back to WestWorld any time soon, but I thought this was funny:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/now-that-the-election-is-over-i-have-some-questions-about-westworld

Holy fuck, it appears Sky have hijacked the official website in that it won't load in the UK but redirects to the Sky Atlantic's Westworld page. Fuck this show

https://www.discoverwestworld.com/#

― groovypanda, Friday, November 18, 2016 8:48 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just got something about the site not being available in the territory I'm in. Though I did get the Delos page.

Lol... it would be amazing if the agency that created the website somehow sold the rights per territory

Maybe it was wrapped up in some "ancillary content" bit of the contract that only HBO paid for.. I dunno, scratching my head over that

if u hold down the shift key the website will send u a garbled transmission from anthony hopkins, here is the map

http://i.imgur.com/aoRlE8e.jpg

oh that seems to be missing the main towns

there u go, had to figure out how to take a screenshot w/o using the shift key lol

http://i.imgur.com/8GYgHxJ.jpg

so the story is basically going south ?
the part where nobody ever came back is the "under construction" area, I suppose ?