WESTWORLD (HBO TV)

[Edmilson 7,436]

Actually, more people are streaming the episode instead of just watching it live:

 

Quote

Overall, the episode scored 1.7 million viewers across HBO’s platforms when taking into account digital viewers. That means its viewership was split almost 50-50 between live and streaming, a much more even balance than previous seasons which skewed far more towards live. For comparison, the last episode of “Westworld,” which aired way back in June 2018, scored 1.6 million total viewers.

 

That debut figure is still one of HBO’s strongest this season, outperforming “The Outsider” by 24% and the “Watchmen” premiere by 13%.

 

Many people were turned off by the complex narrative of S2, but I hope they come back now that it has become more streamlined.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Plus, people are probably staying home now more because of coronavi--- oh wait.

[Thor 7,495]

12 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

Many people were turned off by the complex narrative of S2, but I hope they come back now that it has become more streamlined.

 

Again, I have to disagree with that description. No doubt the previous two seasons were complex, but differing timelines and such comes fairly easy to me. However, when there's a lot of information communicated strictly through dialogue, and when there's a lot of 'corporate speak', and -- as Jay said -- when there are so many convoluted plot points over such a relatively short time, that's when my brain turns off. This first episode was far more complex and difficult to grasp than anything I've seen in the previous two season. But I do appreciate your rundown of the plot earlier, Edmilson. That helps.

[A. A. Ron 1,742]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

...differing timelines and such comes fairly easy to me. However, when there's a lot of information communicated strictly through dialogue, and when there's a lot of 'corporate speak', and -- as Jay said -- when there are so many convoluted plot points over such a relatively short time, that's when my brain turns off.

 

I'm with you this far...

 

1 hour ago, Thor said:

This first episode was far more complex and difficult to grasp than anything I've seen in the previous two season.

 

...and now you've lost me. This episode was complex, sure, but by no means more than what's come before. The reason we have no idea what's going on in this season so far is that the writers simply haven't told us.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Thor doesn't like stories or plots.

[Thor 7,495]

5 hours ago, Þekþiþm said:

Thor doesn't like stories or plots.

 

Ha, ha. I do enjoy a good 'yarn' like everyone else, but it's true that my main attraction to films is visuals and sound. Which is why my main memory of the first two seasons of WESTWORLD is settings and atmospheres (both in the western and samurai worlds), perhaps some individual setpieces. I have a problem with information-heavy films, especially if the information is communicated mostly through dialogue.

 

Repeated viewings help, though. I remember quite disliking a film like LINCOLN upon first viewing. SO much information through difficult dialogue. But during the second or third viewing, I came to appreciate it more. A LOT more, when I finally had time to take in the visual aspects (Kaminski's light through windows, the mud and earthly colours, the brilliant framings -- like in the bedroom conversation between Lincoln and his wife etc.). So much so, in fact, that it eventually ended up on my top 10 of the year. THE INSIDER is a similar film that has grown on repeated viewings.

 

In short, I guess I need to see the first episode of season 3 again. And again.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I bet you're a huge fan of Joseph Mankiewicz and Howard Hawks films.

[Thor 7,495]

Howard Hawks is often great. I've only watched some 3-4 Mankiewicz films, and they haven't exactly blown me away. Some great scores, though.

[Jay 37,351]

Westworld 3x01 Parce Domine

 

I'm intrigued by the little white background, black imagery interstitials that introduced each new location, mentioning an "anomaly" or whatever at each location.  Is this supposed to be Rehoboam noticing a major upset to its prediction algorithm or something?  The versions of these interstitials in that cool teaser trailer had dates attached too.  Very curious.

 

I thought the cold open was simultaneously pretty cool but also kind of poorly directed.  Like, the important parts of the scene all carried through; It sets up Dolores' general look and mood, shows that she has all kinds of knowledge of part guests and has a plan to use this guy's Delos files as a part of it, and sets up that she doesn't necessarily want to kill all humans (unless she was lying to him), but certainly doesn't mind if they "accidentally" kill themselves thanks to her flawless hologram/VR tech.  But I dunno, to me the scene kinda dragged, like it was much longer than it had to be to get the point across.  This was the first time I realized this ep wouldn't be the the straight-forward storytelling season that was promised...

 

The new opening credits were pretty cool.  I like how they integrated in the Rehoboam, and the imagery of the host almost reaching it's reflection on the water surface then submerging again was cool, as was the ominous red at the end of it.

 

Dolores - I enjoyed the rest of her story this episode, trying to learn more about Rehoboam from the Incite founder's son, the head security guy figuring out she's a fake, and her whole escape at the end.  I thought it was pretty stupid, though, that the head of security would actually tell her the name of the person with more info about Rehoboam as he was dying, but maybe it's a false lead, I guess we'll have to wait and see.  I also thought it was a bit much that Dolores had planned so far ahead she had managed to build a clone body of the security guy before all this went down.  Does this imply the necessary information to do that was smuggled out of the park by her, available because he had been a guest?  Or does she just need to grab some of his DNA from the real world?  I guess we'll have to await an explanation of that as well.  It was nice that Caleb came to her rescue at the end, since the episode goes out of the way to portray him as a "good" human, so perhaps the season will feature a storyline where Caleb changes her mind about her plans for humanity..

 

Bernard - I love this character and Jeffrey Wright's portrayal of him, but his story this week wasn't terribly interesting.  He is a wanted man yet looks up himself at the lunch room of his job?  He makes almost no attempt to disguise his appearance in a future with cameras and drones everywhere?  I dunno.  Hopefully him arriving back on the island with Westworld and the other parks is interesting in future episodes.

 

Caleb - I liked this new character, and what we see him do: His morning routine, working on the construction site, taking criminal gigs (but no murder or kidnapping!) for money to help his hospitalized mum, and that Rehoboam can't find a job for him with its algorithm, etc.  But I thought the method they used of the voiceovers and flashbacks of him getting over the death of Francis was very clunky and awkwared shoved into the episode.  Like it was a bad idea to make the viewer simultaneously try to follow everything happening visually on screen as we meet this new character and through him see what this future world outside the parks seen in the first 2 seasons is like, and simultaneously follow this conversation they are laying over all this with Franis the whole time.  It was just poorly executed.

 

Charlotte - I thought her brief scene was simultaneously pretty cool and kinda strange.  Like, I enjoy Tessa Thompson and her portrayal of the original Charlotte, and enjoyed this slightly different take based on whoever it is that's inside her now.  But I was hoping we'd get SOME clue as to who it is inside her, not to mention I don't get why William wasn't at this seemingly important board meeting.  Maybe I forget how season 2 ended, but didn't William get out of the park alive and OK?  I remember the final post-credits scene of the 

 

Maeve - WW2-World seems like a strange idea for a park; was there any way that park was bringing in as much income as Westworld, Samurai World, or the Raj? I doubt it!

 

 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Naziworld.

[Jay 37,351]

Some more thoughts

 

 

* So INCITE makes these little circles you can put on your tongue, and it gives you vivid dreams / helps you sleep.  INCITE also has Rehoboam, and AI tracking everything people do.  Is it therefore possible that INCITE, either secretly or openly), has two-way communication in those tongue tabs, and the reason Rehoboam can map human behavior is that the tabs are transmitting back to INCITE data?  Basically like Delos' hats did?

 

* Caleb mentions in the episode he stopped using the tabs.  Is this why Rehoboam couldn't find him a job?

 

* Alternatively, is it possible Rehoboam is secret running that RICO app?  If so, is that way it didn't offer Caleb a job, it knows he's doing criminal activities?

 

* OR, is it possible it didn't offer him a job because it knows there's a money disparity but doesn't know why?  IE, the level of care he's paying for for his ill mother is less than he makes from his construction job, so it looks weird to Rehoboam (because he's paying for it with the block-chain payments from RICO)

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

God I dunno, I guess we'll find out.

[Arpy 4,145]

What if everyone including Dolores is trapped in another simulated world? 

@Jay  Perhaps the incidents are the system logging errors or events in the simulation?

On 3/19/2020 at 8:14 AM, Jay said:

 

Maeve - WW2-World seems like a strange idea for a park; was there any way that park was bringing in as much income as Westworld, Samurai World, or the Raj? I doubt it!

 

 

I think people would pay to be in a war, almost like reenactments, but this time more realistic. I wonder if Maeve will rally the hosts in each of the parks to resist Dolores's uprising? 

[Thor 7,495]

Yikes, most of the information that Jay just mentioned passed me completely by. Guess I REALLY need to see the episode again.

[Arpy 4,145]

Yeah I didn't know what Jay was referring to as 'rehoboam' as I don't remember them saying it in the episode.

[Thor 7,495]

I remember Dolores sneaking about with some undefined, sinister intentions, I remember seeing Jessie Pinkman roaming about in search of a job(?) and a few board meetings. That's about it!

 

It's interesting. During the first couple of seasons, I wanted them to exit the park so we could see the proper outside. And then they did at the end of season 2, and I was kinda excited. Now I'd just like to see them back in the park again; I had more control of the narrative then.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

5 minutes ago, Thor said:

I remember Dolores sneaking about with some undefined, sinister intentions, I remember seeing Jessie Pinkman roaming about in search of a job(?) and a few board meetings. That's about it!

 

It's interesting. During the first couple of seasons, I wanted them to exit the park so we could see the proper outside. And then they did at the end of season 2, and I was kinda excited. Now I'd just like to see them back in the park again; I had more control of the narrative then.

 

It's one bloody episode so far! God, let it breathe and see how it goes.

[Thor 7,495]

No. I want answers NOW!

[Jay 37,351]

1 hour ago, Arpy said:

Yeah I didn't know what Jay was referring to as 'rehoboam' as I don't remember them saying it in the episode.

 

Rehoboam is the name of that big globe-looking thing with blinking lights on it that was both in the opening credits and in the Incite building that Liam takes Dolores to.  It's the object she spent the entire episode trying to find more information about; She thought Liam would have the answers because he's the son of the (deceased) founder of the company, but when he revealed he didn't even have access and didn't know what it was doing, she got the name of the technician who works on it from Liam's security guy as he was dying.  Whether or not he gave her a real name or a false lead remains to be seen.

 

It was also mentioned in the episode that Rehoboam is a big AI that defines algorithms for all of humanity (or maybe just LA?  Not sure) to live; It finds people the right jobs to make all of society happiest.  This is why I both assume Incite is using information collected from the tongue tabs to feed Rehoboam the information it needs, and why the AI that called Caleb didn't have a job for him because he's not using them any more.

 

 

And I think that black and white interstitials that set up the various locations are Rehoboam noticing anomalies because Hosts have left the island with WestWorld and the other parks and are interacting with humans, messing up the algorithm.  We got one in China before Dolores' scene there in the cold open with the Incite guy who was trying to sell his Delos stock, we got one in whatever country Bernard was in before his first scene, and we got one in London (it didn't say London, UK btw, it said London, UREW - United Republic of England and Wales?) before Dolores first scene there.......... the interesting thing is we ALSO got one for Los Angeles, before Caleb's first scenes there (long before Dolores traveled there).

 

I think this is one of two hints that Caleb is a host and not a human, the other being the way we saw him wake up and start his day, it was like a Host loop in the park.

 

However, I think those hints are just misdirection, and Caleb will turn out to be a human after all.  So I don't know what caused the anomaly that Rehoboam found in LA

[Thor 7,495]

Caleb is Aaron Paul's character, right? Would be interesting if he was an A.I., but thought he was human, BLADE RUNNER-style.

 

Looking forward to how this will proceed, and I'm sure it will all be made clearer, but I have to admit that right now I'm more excited about DEVS (as long as we're talking A.I./algorithm stuff). Such a great show so far. Not surprising, since it's made by one of my favourite directors of that generation. I'm sure you've all been discussing it in another thread I'm not aware of.

[Jay 37,351]

Yes Caleb is Aaron Paul's character

 

And no, I haven't seen a single post about Devs anywhere on JWFan

[Edmilson 7,436]

Episode 2 was pretty good.

 

Tbh, I was never that much of a fan of Maeve's arc, I thought they made her too overpowered and too fast. So it was great that they finally gave her a character that can limit her superpowers, which is Vincent Cassel.

 

Still, it was a pretty entertaining hour, with Maeve discovering she was inside a simulation and deciding to disrupt it with the much hated computer lag. And it was cool to see Rodrigo Santoro's Hector again.

 

So, Cassel's character with a very complicated name is indeed the architect behind Rehobam, and have now detected a disturbance inside his perfect (?) system: Dolores. He's probably aware of her plot of revenge against mankind, and will try to use Maeve against her. Let's just hope this whole story of an artificial intelligence that decides the lives of everyone fits with the rest of the show's lore that we knew from the past 2 seasons.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Probably no-one else noticed this except for me because I'm awesome, but Maeve being in a computer similation was visually hinted at before it was revealed in the way it was shot. Everything in the simulation was shot anamorphically, as evidenced by the oval shaped bokeh, but cropped to 16:9. But when she finally works it out, it opens up to the full anamorphic 2.35:1 frame. Just like when Bernard was in the simulation in Season 2.

 

Creative use of lens shifting!

[Edmilson 7,436]

Indeed. The director said that during the episode making off, after the main episode.

 

Also, I liked Djawadi's orchestral score during the Warworld scenes, specially the opening action sequence. His electronic score for the rest of the episode, though... I've heard better electronic scores elsewhere.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I dunno, I kinda dug it. The electronic stuff.

[Ricard 2,245]

13 hours ago, Þekþiþm said:

Probably no-one else noticed this except for me because I'm awesome, but Maeve being in a computer similation was visually hinted at before it was revealed in the way it was shot. Everything in the simulation was shot anamorphically, as evidenced by the oval shaped bokeh, but cropped to 16:9. But when she finally works it out, it opens up to the full anamorphic 2.35:1 frame. Just like when Bernard was in the simulation in Season 2.

 

Creative use of lens shifting!

 

Brainstorm, anyone?

[Thor 7,495]

Easier to get overview of second episode than first, although my brain is full of questions.

 

So, the park is still running even after the disaster that ended season 2. I believe this is what Maeve (the one who escaped into real life at the end of season 2) ensured in one those board meetings in episode 1?

 

Android Hector returns to the "real" park here, but the purpose of his mission must have passed me by. What is it?

 

Maeve (a different host than the board meeting one that escaped the park) is in a "fake" VR park, and escapes. That storyline was fairly straightforward.

[Edmilson 7,436]

1 minute ago, Thor said:

So, the park is still running even after the disaster that ended season 2. I believe this is what Maeve (the one who escaped into real life at the end of season 2) ensured in one those board meetings in episode 1?

 

 

No. Stubbs even says so when he's walking with Bernard that the park is now on hold after all the massacres, and the technicians are waiting to see what's going to happen with them.

 

The park that Maeve wakes up, Warworld, isn't real. It's a simulation created by Vincent Cassel's character to make her reveal where she put all the hosts. However, Maeve doesn't know it because it wasn't she that hid the hosts - the one who did this was Dolores, which on the season 2 finale hid the Valley Beyond (another virtual reality) with all the hosts' minds, somewhere the humans can't reach them.

[Jay 37,351]

8 minutes ago, Thor said:

Easier to get overview of second episode than first, although my brain is full of questions.

 

So, the park is still running even after the disaster that ended season 2. I believe this is what Maeve (the one who escaped into real life at the end of season 2) ensured in one those board meetings in episode 1?

 

Android Hector returns to the "real" park here, but the purpose of his mission must have passed me by. What is it?

 

Maeve (a different host than the board meeting one that escaped the park) is in a "fake" VR park, and escapes. That storyline was fairly straightforward.

 

Racist!  Maeve and Charlotte Hale are two totally different characters and actresses (Thandie Newton vs Tessa Thompson), Thor.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Hehe

[Thor 7,495]

Oops.

[Jay 37,351]

Charlotte Hale is a human played by Tessa Thompson who first showed up mid-way through season 1.  She is a member of the board of directors of Delos, the company that owns Westworld and the other parks on the island.  Her arc in season 1 was about smuggling out Host data by stuffing it inside Peter Abarnathy, because the board was suspicious of Ford and his new reveries story and wanted to ensure their intellectual property was safe.  Her plan went to shit in the season 1 finale when Ford's reveries story kicked in and the hosts revolted and she lost track of Abernathy.

In season 2 she was still trying to get Abernathy to smuggle him out, and killed Elsie when she got in her way.  Just when she thought she had everything under control, a Host that looks just like her showed up and killed her - The original human Charlotte is dead.  This copy was Dolores' pearl put inside a Charlotte body made by Bernard, under the influence of the Ford inside his head.  Dolores-Charlotte is able to leave the park both because she looks like Charlotte, and because Stubbs, who realizes "Charlotte" is a Host, turns out to be a Host himself, which he reveals to "Charlotte" as he lets her get on the boat.  In season 3 we learn he was programmed by Ford to help Dolores.

 

Later in the season 2 finale, Dolores creates another replica body that looks like herself in Arnold's safe house, and her pearl moves to that body, and an unknown Host is now inside the Charlotte body (when Dolores-Hale left the park, she had 5 pearls in her purse).

 

The only time we've seen the Charlotte Hale body in Season 3 was in episode 1, when she attends a Delos board meeting.  The point of the scene was to show the infiltration by a Host worked without suspicion, that Charlotte had the power to override board decisions because Williams (Ed Harris) is missing, and that she was placing the blame on what happened in the park on Bernard, making him a fugitive.  We still don't know what Host is controlling the body; It could be Teddy, it could be a new Host we've never seen before, it could be another copy of Dolores.  We just know it's one of the 5 pearls she smuggled out in her purse.  I'm sure we'll find out before the season is over.

 

 

Maeve is a Host played by Thandie Newton who was the head of the brothel in Sweetwater, the starting town of a guest's Westworld experience.  During season 1 she "awakened" and became aware she was a Host, and in the season 1 finale had a chance to leave the park unnoticed, but went back in for her "daughter".  In season 2 she hunts for her daughter and along the way gains the ability to control any Hosts near her via the wireless mesh network.  Towards the end of season 2 her daughter makes it through "the door" that sends the Host code into "the Sublime", but Dolores (in Charlotte's body by this point) uses a satellite dish to transmit The Sublime to an unknown location.  I don't think we ever really saw what happened to Maeve after that.

 

The location of The Sublime is what Serac (Vincent Cassel) was trying to determine in Season 3 episode 2; he was trying to find out if Maeve knew the location of The Sublime by jacking her pearl into a simulation where she would hopefully reveal it to a simulated Lee.  We didn't know until this episode that Maeve's original body was in cold storage underground on the Westworld island nor that her pearl was stolen by Serac.  By the end of the episode he's printed out a new body for her, but one he has control over via that little remote he has.

 

 

[Thor 7,495]

Thanks! I am unusually stupid when it comes to remembering narratives and names. I think I may have a condition.

[Jay 37,351]

I've never heard anyone confuse Thandie Newton with Tessa Thompson before.  They look nothing alike.

[Thor 7,495]

There's always a first, I suppose.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Maeve and Valkyrie are two different actresses? Who knew?

[Edmilson 7,436]

Next episode apparently will focus on who is inside Charlotte's body:

 

 

Spoiler

The trailer that appeared at the end of episode 1 kinda revealed  it was Teddy, but we shall see.

 

[Arpy 4,145]

@Edmilson wasn't that just a speculative line? 

[Marian Schedenig 8,192]

I finally caught up with this after starting a full series rewatch only two days before the first new episode came out. Binged the first season in just three days, but it took a week or more to get through the second one. And I have to say that while S1's storylines are much easier to follow when you've seen it once and know the clue (though there were a couple of scenes that I still couldn't place, time-wise), I'm still very confused about S2's chronology

 

On 3/20/2020 at 7:35 AM, Arpy said:

What if everyone including Dolores is trapped in another simulated world?

 

That seems to be an obvious question with all the Inception style layering of different realities. Might just be a red herring though.

On 3/20/2020 at 2:54 PM, Thor said:

Caleb is Aaron Paul's character, right? Would be interesting if he was an A.I., but thought he was human, BLADE RUNNER-style.

 

You mean like Deckard...?

[Jay 37,351]

Westworld 3x02 The Winter Line

 

That was pretty good.  I liked how the first episode mostly stuck with one side of the upcoming battle (Dolores), and this episode mostly stuck to the other side (Maeve).  It was also good to see Stubs, Sylvester, Felix, and LEE (!) again.  However, the cameos by B&W from GOT was atrocious and should have been completely axed once the final season of GOT bombed.  This episode also had a same issue last the premiere, which was that the cold open took WAY too long to get its point across.  I think they were just really pleased with their location for the Warworld scenes, but since we end up seeing it so much through all the repetitions, they really should have tightened up this long introduction here.

 

Maeve - For the most part I enjoyed her story this week, figuring out she was trapped in a new way (her powers don't work), figuring out it was a simulation, then getting put into a new body in the real world to work for Serac.  As a programmer myself, I'm a bit iffy on the whole idea that she was able to tax the simulation by asking two techs to figure out the square root of -1, nor the final taxing with the papers in everyone's pocket.  But I think they just about pulled it off that I can let all that slide; However what I am more dubious about is that she was able to hack into the real life robot and give it new instructions from within the simulation.  I know sandbox attacks are a thing but eh, it didn't quite work for me.  Luckily it doesn't really matter, as what's nice is that this entire arc was resolved in one episode, and now we get to follow her in the real world looking for Dolores, which should be cool.

 

Bernard - I thought it was odd how delapitated and burned up the area of Westworld he walked through was, until I heard that the actual set had burned in the California fires last year so they just shot it as-is, which is kinda interesting.  Hemsworth's acting as Stubbs was awesome, the little tickets and facial expressions, and just the way he delivered all his lines, he's the hidden gem of the episode.  I think the interesting thing about Bernard's arc so far is his assumptions about Dolores and her hold over him; He's smart enough to realize she could have put her own code/agenda in him in the new body she made for him, but thinks that a clean tablet in the FantasyWorld operations center can prove that she didn't?  Is it possible Doloroes reprogrammed Stubbs before she left and he's going to betray Bernard at the opportune time?  We'll see!

 

Serac - Seems like a cool new character, the architect of Rehoboam, upset that Rehoboam isn't working properly because of Dolores, and looking for the location of the guest & host data that Dolores beamed somewhere for unknown reasons (I guess he thinks it would help Rehoboam work better maybe?).  I suppose it's a decent enough plan of his to ask Maeve to kill Doloroes, but is she even all that powerful or capable in the real world, where she has no powers like she did in the park?  She also hasn't studied the real world and certain inhabitants like Dolores has, and hasn't been living there for a month like Deloroes.  She seems so far behind in the battle, what help will she get?

 

Since the episode told us nothing about Dolores or Caleb, I have no idea what to expect will happen next episode!

[Edmilson 7,436]

Episode 3 was decent, although maybe a bit down compared to the first two.

 

We still don't know who's inside Charlotte's host body, but the probability of being Teddy are big. Dolores said that "no one knows you like I do", which could allude to their past relationship. And she admitting to be a predator to the pedo guy was maybe a reference to the fact that Dolores pratically turned him into a murderous monster on season 2?

 

There's something about this season's plot that is bugging me. The whole Rehoboam story is interesting, and certainly as timely as ever (I work as a data analyst, and people leave a lot of data for us to study when using the internet), but I feel it could put the show on a "good vs evil" story that wouldn't be the ideal.

 

If on season 1 Westworld was this interesting sci-fi show filled with philosophical and technological ideas about the awakening and the subsequent rebellion of a new artificial race, the Rehoboam arc could turn it into a "good guys vs bad guys". I mean, I was interested on seeing Dolores getting revenge on mankind and leading a robot revolution, but I fear her friendship with Caleb could make the show become "good robots and good humans vs bad guy with his evil machine". 

 

It's almost like Star Wars: Caleb is Luke, Dolores is Obi-Wan, whoever is inside Charlotte is Han, Maeve is Leia, Serac is Vader and the Rehoboam is the Death Star.

 

And I don't want a subject so fascinating and philosophical like an artificial being becoming aware of how shitty mankind is and trying to destroy it to turn into something with clear heroes and villains.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Amazing ep! The stuff about Delores' revelation to Caleb that the powers that be have decided his future for him, a rather depressing one, and that no-one would ever want to "invest" in him because their "infallible" predictive algorithms dictate what he is, is profoundly relevant science fiction. Probably done before, but it never hurts to reframe it within a new context. And a revolutionary like Delores would appropriately be enraged by such a cruel, restrictive and oppressive system.

[Thor 7,495]

Did not care for the third episode at all. One thing is the aforementioned complexity. I'm sorta getting the handle of that. But the structure was dreadful -- every single scene, short or long, was built like a movie in itself, ending on an episode-ending-type climax, with Djawadi putting everything in it. It felt like a 90s soap opera or something. Over the course of the first three episodes, my WESTWORLD interest has kinda dwindled. I don't rush to see the newest episode anymore; there are other shows where this is more of a thing (like BETTER CALL SAUL).

[Edmilson 7,436]

Better Call Saul is indeed better (lol) right now. It's a show that could use some more hype to boost its Emmy prestige, because it absolutely should won for Best Drama and long due awards for acting.

 

As for Westworld, I just hope the show doesn't go on a direction like "this machine is evil, the guy who built it is evil, and we, hosts and humans, have to unite to defeat them, even though humans spent 30 years abusing hosts on Westworld!".

[Marian Schedenig 8,192]

On 3/29/2020 at 6:36 PM, Jay said:

As a programmer myself, I'm a bit iffy on the whole idea that she was able to tax the simulation by asking two techs to figure out the square root of -1, nor the final taxing with the papers in everyone's pocket.

 

The show has been a far cry from the surprisingly believable tech of the first season (quite possible the most authentic looking coding concepts I've seen in a film or series, especially scifi) already in season 2. Since they never explained who the host sphere thingies work, I guess we just have to accept that they seem to run on their own clock and just interface with the core system. Though that still leaves the question why the core system's load and that of the other hosts are connected. If, alternatively, she simply has control over the scheduler, she could just have slowed down (or paused) the other hosts without that overload trick.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Jay: I couldn't follow it.

Drax: I loved it! Intriguing sci-fi!

Edmilson: It's too conventional!

Thor: I hate stories! Hmph!!

[Jay 37,351]

You're putting words in my mouth again.  I never said I couldn't follow it.  Please read more carefully, thank you.

[A. A. Ron 1,742]

I thought episode 3 was pretty great, personally. The music was menacing, the plot developments were intriguing and easy enough to follow, there were characters. More of this, please!

[Arpy 4,145]

I was getting a bit annoyed by the stop/start nature of the second half of the episode, so many false endings.

 

[Edmilson 7,436]

Anyone else thinks this show is over scored? I mean, there's Djawadi score in pratically every minute of each episode. Sure, it helps creating the atmosphere of the show, but it can get a little tiresome sometimes.