Topic: Westworld Season 3: Feel better deep inside an electronic carcass

[Zero Gravitas]

Season three started today after their year of lazing about.


Basically a new series with an entirely new setting (set of settings going by the teasers) so the first episode had to do the work of both making us glad to see Bernard with a beard and dump the context of a algorithmically planned capitalism (spoiler alert, sucks yo).

What we do see of the world is interesting, they've clearly taken some tips and extended dark webs, digital contracts and humanity-freeing-automation being used in a way that still exploits and locks people into drudgery, I look forward to that being fleshed out!

[Puce Moment]

Like a lot of people, I gave up after the second or third episode of the second season. I thought the first season was passable but you can see how pleased the HBO execs were about coming up with a concept that allowed for tons of salacious scenes of nudity.

Can I jump into the third season without resorting myself to the second?

[Zero Gravitas]

So far yes, All you have to know is the robots rebelled and some of them escaped, I think the opening 'last time on Westworld' is sufficient and it looks like they're going to re-demonstrate the important bits, such as Bernard and being a host, when relevant.

[Ja'moke]

I'm on the recap beat again for this (my recap of last night's premiere - https://www.tvinsider.com/922301/westworld-season-3-premiere-recap-parce-domine/), and I can safely say I probably wouldn't be watching this show anymore if I wasn't getting paid to write about it.

It's just an endlessly frustrating show because there are signs of a GREAT show lurking somewhere in there. The acting is usually top-notch, it looks fantastic, there are some brilliant action sequences, and it can be emotionally resonating when it focuses in on one or two characters (last season's Ghost Nation backstory or the one about Papa Delos in the lab). But most of the time it squanders that potential behind boring technobabble, timeline trickery, poor dialogue, and overly complex narratives.

Those flaws are still present in the new series, even if the setting is different.

[Zero Gravitas]

Way to ruin my next 7 weeks early Ja'moke! I've a very high tolerance for technobabble and overly intense obscurantism in the dialog if it's at service of something, I'd equally give them a grudging acceptance of their oh-so-clever timeline trickery as the sequences and episode construction that opened up were damn good tv even to the detriment of overall flow.

[Ja'moke]

Way to ruin my next 7 weeks early Ja'moke! I've a very high tolerance for technobabble and overly intense obscurantism in the dialog if it's at service of something, I'd equally give them a grudging acceptance of their oh-so-clever timeline trickery as the sequences and episode construction that opened up were damn good tv even to the detriment of overall flow.

I haven't seen the entire season, by the way, just the first couple of episodes. So there is hope it gets better. There are definitely some signs of hope in the first couple of eps.

[Chairman Yang]

For all its convolutions, I couldn't actually tell you what Westworld is about. Rich people are dickheads? Seems like this is going to be the same old bag of tricks. More simulations, more reveals, a bigger onion.

'I'll still eat that onion, though, Dolores... until the onion eats me.' _{(the onion was human instrumentality or something)}

[grassbath]

^ You've nailed it. Amazed I made it through all two series without getting too annoyed to watch it tbh. Flaunting its big concepts and not doing anything with them. All twists and no trousers.

[Mister Six]

Enjoyed the first season but dropped out after the fort battle in the second. Like the look of the trailer for season three, but I'm tired of all the timeline wankery. It worked in season one, but felt unnecessary - in fact actively disruptive, in a bad way - in season two. Just tell a fucking story, you smart-arsed cunts!

Is Thandie Newton still in it? She was the only one I gave a toss about when I jumped off in season two.

And did they finally kill off Teddy?

[Chollis]

Really quite enjoyed the first season. Didn't make it past the second episode of the second. cheers

[Ja'moke]

Is Thandie Newton still in it? She was the only one I gave a toss about when I jumped off in season two.

Yep, she's still in it, and still the best part of the show (only a small post-credits scene in the premiere though, but she takes a big focus in episode 2).

[Mister Six]

Ah. I'll see what the consensus is once this season wraps up, and if it's largely positive I'll give it a whirl. Still got The New Pope, The Righteous Gemstones and High Maintenance to watch on my HBO list anyway.

[Chairman Yang]

To its credit this episode does breeze by effortlessly enough, but then the first episodes tend to. No faith that it'll go anywhere. mind.

I found it quite novel how naff the future looks, got a big bang of Crichton off all the power suits and concrete business centres. You could probably just replace the next seven episodes with a montage of Evan Rachel Wood strutting around to Everything Counts and get much the same effect.

[olliebean]

Did everyone in this always talk in the same incessantly dour voice that they do all the way through this episode? Found it quite wearing, tbh. I don't remember the previous seasons being so monotonous.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I don't really know what's going on Jeff!

Did everyone in this always talk in the same incessantly dour voice that they do all the way through this episode? Found it quite wearing, tbh. I don't remember the previous seasons being so monotonous.

I dunno if it was the rip I had but it seemed pretty hard to work out what was being said in places. The Scottish thug especially, had to stick subs on for that.

Still Vincent Cassel though eh.

[olliebean]

I don't really know what's going on Jeff!

I dunno if it was the rip I had but it seemed pretty hard to work out what was being said in places. The Scottish thug especially, had to stick subs on for that.

Still Vincent Cassel though eh.

The audio seemed pretty poorly mixed on my copy, as well as very slightly out of sync which didn't help. Don't know if the Amazon rip which I noticed afterward was available would have been any better.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Probably my favourite show of the past few years so looking forward to getting started with season 3. The only sour note I remember was that British pound shop Joseph Gordon-Levitt guy who can't act to save his life.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Enjoyed the first episode although I wasn't entirely sure what was going on half the time. They really went all out with the Evan Rachel Wood sexy assassin thing. Odd choice of Pulp's "Common People" in one pivotal scene but it somehow worked.

[Gulftastic]

Chibs!! And looking good, too.

[Sebastian Cobb]

World on A Wire then.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Am I the only one who saw this to completion. It was bonkers, I didn't really know what was going on half the time. I think I enjoyed it.

[wooders1978]

I’ve just started it - episode 1 was not promising

[Ja'moke]

Am I the only one who saw this to completion. It was bonkers, I didn't really know what was going on half the time. I think I enjoyed it.

I finished it, but only because I was recapping it. Thought it was a load of shite. Actually, episodes three and four were pretty good, especially the one that just focused on Charbot. But after that, absolute turd. Tin-eared dialogue and one-note bad guys. And Bernard and William both felt like spare parts until the very last episode.

Some great action sequences, though, I'll give them that.

[Chairman Yang]

I know it's a cliche at this point, but it really does feel like the show exists to cut trailers from. Each episode idles along with the same four people trading the same three quips and then at the last moment there'll be a cliff-hangar that tricks you into coming back next week. 8 hours later and you've watched an entire season of robots bumbling around, all for the sake of a post-credits sequence. It's the typical 'peak TV' shell game.

The show really suffers for not being in the theme park. There's so little mystery or visual appeal to Realworld and the endless stream of black-clad goons exposes how repetitive all the fights really are.

So this is the second time Jonathan Nolan has attempted to tell the story of a supercomputer with perfect foresight through the incredibly prosaic medium of 'people shooting guns' and it's turned out somehow even more boring than Person of Interest... and that had fucking Caveizel in it.

[olliebean]

I essentially gave up after episode 3 of this season. Kept the others hanging around in case I saw people saying it had got a lot better. But I didn't. So they're gone into the recycle bin now.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Charbot.

A robotic cleaning lady?

[Poobum]

Shame that the plot only moved forward by people acting in irrational and idiotic ways. All that fake deaths piled on top of each other did quite remove the sense of tension. Also quite obvious the writers were just making it up as they went along, the plot being an incoherent mess. Ed Harris's character is just aweful, well acted, but still, just one note, all the things he goes through and there's just no difference to him from beginning to end. A three series character full stop stabbed into the paper rather than arc.

I was on the god computer's side, always chose the Helios ending in Deus Ex, whose plot was far superior to this in every way.

[Jim Bob]

Ed Harris's character is just aweful...

Surely a performance which inspires awe is a good thing?

[Poobum]

It more inspired, "aw, why didn't they kill him off last season or the season before when it might have had an impact?" Gotta have Ed Harris in his hat I suppose, being cranky.

[Puce Moment]

I suspect I am one of few people who is enjoyjng S3. I forced myself through the nonsense of S2 which is terrible in the hope that S3 would be an improvement, which it is, just about.

Why they made the writer a main character is beyond me given that he is easily the shittest character and worst actor in the series.

Elsewhere, the Nazees storyline is shit. But I quite like the Jesse story - in particular the Genre drug part was a fun bit of SF. I also like seeing the 'real' world in all of its dystopian glory.