Westworld (TV series) - Ed Harris

[MinionZombie]

Well my friend who was ahead of me ducked out after a few episodes, and I ended up following suit. I saw the whole season. Generally enjoyed it, although I did get fed up of the number of times Dolores was able to casually kill screeds of armed (and armoured) goons with one or two shots, many of them almost 'flung' casually - and without even looking! - at the target. The goons are spraying bullets everywhere and she's just one-shot killing MFs all over the shop. Occasionally she gets grazed or takes a bullet, but they just patch her up or print a new body, so it loses a bit of tension because of that. There was one other thing that irked me, too:   Aaron Paul's character is shown that utter calamity is in store for humanity and Earth if they don't 'stick to the plan' laid out by the machine, he sees the horror in that, but in the end it's 'ah fuck it, no matter the extraordinarily high cost, people gotta be free, yo!' ... They never fully justified that decision. We saw how much chaos was thrown up after Dolores leaked all the data and projections being kept on every citizen (chaos, destruction, death, suicide, broken families etc etc etc) ... so I doubt it'll be all puppies and kittens from this point forward. They never properly justified Paul's character making that choice on behalf of the entire global population. It didn't play as 'cute' with the structure this time, which I did like, as season two got needlessly complicated and smart-arse with its structure, and I did enjoy quite a lot of season three, but it certainly wasn't without fault and some irritations. There's a fourth season coming.

[Neil]

This thing is still going?

[MinionZombie]

Hopefully it'll be better than season three, which just got even further lodged up its own arse. So much snobby posturing about, too ... a very arrogant cast of characters. Arrogance and smugness isn't heroism, it's just annoying. One of the very best episodes of season two was the one with the Native American guy. That was a really well made, written, and performed episode. If only the whole show could be that good, rather than hell bent on making itself as complicated as possible. Obtuse doesn't equal intelligence, it just smacks of an inability to bring clarity to the storytelling. The viewer ends up getting lost and not caring if they don't know when they are in proceedings.

[MinionZombie]

I've watched the first two episodes of season four and not only have I found myself doing out of some 'viewer obligation' (i.e. I've watched this far, so I guess I'll keep going), but I've also found myself thoroughly underwhelmed by these episodes despite having already low expectations. The show feels like a lot shots of pretty architecture and sleek interior design that occasionally feature people with plain expressions meandering about like a Frenchman from a 1960s New Wave film about some vague sense of ennui (sometimes doing that 'cool' thing of casually eating your lunch sat atop the precipice of a skyscraper as if it was a park bench ). It feels cold and unconvincing, yet again keeping the viewer at a distance with little promise of anything truly meaty to sink your gnashers into. The concept has so much in the way of possibility, even the third season had some cool ideas to play around with, but they always just feel kind of thrown away or squandered or wasted on pretentiousness and convolution. There's always the hope that something great will happen, but it never really does and you just come away shrugging. The perversity is you feel like you'd be wasting all the time you'd previously invested into the show if you just give up, but ironically you're more likely wasting your time sticking with it. I ditched-out of Designated Survivor, though. Great first season filled with kinetic story, solid characterisation, and thrilling drama ... but season two got off to such a dreadful start I just had to abandon it. I mean, it was a shockingly bad drop from season one to season two with that show. West World, on the other hand, hasn't had that sudden drop, instead it's been a drip-drip-drip of declining quality. Maybe one more episode and if it's still dull as ditchwater I'll bail...

[Neil]

I don't think I even made it properly into season 2... My friend made it through 2 and gave up there...