I’ll admit, the last half of the first season was quite dull and boring. But this season is great! Loved last night’s episode. Especially this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__DEAK3AinM
I am hooked basically because I like how they play with timelines so well. The dialogues I find a bit fru fru and lacking, and yes, the first season lacked … seasoning. But I fear that our disinterest will come to bite us in the derriere, as many of the events we see now were foretold there.
I enjoyed the first season, although I’m not sure I would have if I hadn’t known about all the different mysteries and theories.
I think the second season has been better, although to be honest I didn’t like E05 (Shogunworld) very much. I think it’s because …
… so many of the hosts are now awake, that I’m no longer interested in the scripted host stories. I guess I was supposed to feel something when Sakura was killed? I didn’t.
The very beginning of the “gunfight” scene, when they made it clear they were mirroring Hector’s and Armistice’s attack in Westworld, was fantastic. But I thought that scene went on too long - they’d made the joke, and they should have moved on.
Perhaps the best show of its ilk that I’ve seen since Lost. I’ve got more confidence in Westworld to provide a story that mostly makes sense, but the characters in Lost were far, far more engaging than the ones in Westworld.
I thought the first season was more like a game narrative than a television narrative. I also found HBO’s coy media focus on “what’s really going on here?” very irritating. I had a hunch that the Man in Black was Jimmy later on in life, so the timeline reveal at the end of the season was kind of a letdown. I found Bernard’s story horrifying, but I really didn’t connect with any other characters.
At any rate I lost interest. It plays sometimes in the background (if the tv is on), but I don’t pay close attention. Whenever I see angry Ed Harris’s face staring at me, it only reminds me how weak I found the payoff to be last season.
The 5th episode is also weak as that deus ex machina was a little bit too much.
1 Like
I like Westworld but they have kind of become predictable and straying away from what could be a seriously amazing plot.
I’m thinking Anthony Hopkins is just getting too old for this regular daily working life instead of just movies now and then.
I loved the first season, mostly because I thought it was laying the groundwork for the true story to come. But now that the second season is halfway through, I’m wondering if they had any story to tell after all.
Westworld has been losing me a bit this season, but the most recent episode (S2E08 “Kiksuya”) was fantastic. Again, reminiscent of Lost - I’m worried about the overall arc, but once in a while, there’s a really good one-hour story in there.
Haven’t caught this season yet.
Never saw the first season but I’ve watched all the episodes from season two and will probably continue to until I can’t take it anymore. Terrible show.
What a weird way to spend your time - forcing yourself to watch TV that you hate. If you didn’t watch the first season, no wonder you think it’s a terrible show. I doubt it makes any sense, and you certainly won’t have any feelings for the characters. I can certainly understand people disliking it, but to start with the second season is pretty much guaranteeing it’s going to suck for you.
Do you make a habit of starting novels on page 200, or walking into films an hour late?
It may be better binged. This week’s episode has me interested again, but the season as a whole seems a bit bloated for a bunch of the characters. They’ve definitely fallen into the trap of catering to the puzzle box-Reddit crowd, rather than producing an interesting story about characters - which is why this week’s single character focus was so welcome.
S1 was interesting and easy to follow once you knew you were in a flashback half the time. S2 is doing the flashback thing for every friggin character. S’not easy to follow. I will agree that it’s better put off for a nice summer binge.
Yeah I’m weird. Fair point about missing season one, though bad is bad, backstory be damned. The music grates as well. Plus I think I am burnt out on shoot 'em ups. Everything eventually gets to violence and it can get tiring unless it’s really good. The show that follows, “Succession” seems a nice respite from that(hopefully) and I look forward to the second episode tonight.
Gotta go watch the robots, it’s about to start…
The shoot 'em ups are definitely a problem this year. The show is pretty good with small action scenes that involve a couple of people, but they’re not doing well with the big action scenes. (I don’t remember those being a problem in the first season, I believe because there weren’t very many big action scenes.)
I saw this week’s episode with the Indian. It was real enjoyable even though I had no idea what was really going on or who the people were. Of course that’s my problem for jumping in midway to a show.
Should I start with season 1?
My problem with Westworld might have to do with the romanticism: they just want to love. And it’s strong. Tonight’s episode was a nice difference but, holy shit, exposition by way of narration was way too much.
I’m unsure how much to recommend it. I enjoy it, but that’s at least in part because I’m “inheriting” a bunch of podcast and newsreader feeds - the people who talk and write about Game of Thrones also deal with Westworld, so Westworld wound up in my media diet in a way that other shows normally don’t.
Last night’s episode may be my favorite of the whole series.
For Westworld: if you liked Lost, definitely give the first couple of episodes of Season 1 a shot. If you thought with Lost “Too much character, not enough puzzle box!”, then you’ll probably love Westworld.
Yes, it was quite fantastic on its own merits. Almost like one of the writers pitched an idea they had for an unrelated story and got it into the show.
Anyone watching season 3? I think it is getting pretty cool set-up.