I wouldn't put Stranger Things in the same league as this show.
That's an example of a show where everything was super predictable even though it gave you the "mystery" vibe. The story wasn't why anyone watched, it's just Poltergeist.
This show is firmly in the "mind bending" genre so it's going to give you lots of pieces and multiple narratives (hah?) within the show and pieces it together slowly, giving bread crumbs every episode. It's only been 5 episodes so there's still a lot of mystery.
Last edited by polak; 11-01-2016 at 01:41 PM.
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The show has a good premise, good cast and the beginnings of interesting themes, but instead of exploring those it just has us guessing what the #### is going on all the time.
Conversely, True Detective had all the mystery but the characters themselves were compelling and that's ultimately what kept me coming back week after week.
Compare this to Stranger Things, where there was a tonne of mystery but the show had 3 dimensional characters you cared about.
Firstly, your rating a show very much in its infancy against 2 of the most critically acclaimed shows out there. I'm not going to get too much into the failings of those shows but neither was perfect. Seeing Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey in roles more or less written for them is a treat. It doesn't take a great script to make that work. Even then, by the end of it, I was glad they'd wrapped it up and the overall payoff was pretty lousy. The whole thing ended up being more style over substance.
I'm not sure where you are getting that characters in Stranger Things were so 3-dimensional. The characters were basically all established archetypes from 80s movies. The greatest criticism of the show was that the cast, largely composed of children, did an inadequate job of providing character depth and had shaky performances. Even the actors themselves resembled 80s child actors like Will Wheaton, Sean Astin, etc.. The actors were all hired for their looks as opposed to any kind of acting chops.
As for Westworld, I find several of the characters quite compelling. I'm drawn in by the fact that you don't know if they are even real or just spitting programming during conversations. I like how they juxtapose characters like Dolores with characters like the sloppy lab techs.
To each their own. But I find this show is off to a great start. I do get how some could conceive Westworld as getting a little too clever for its own good.
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I may be way off base but I have this feeling that there's a twist and some of the people that are being represented as humans in the show may in fact be machine. I have this feeling Bernard is in fact a machine but like the other robots is totally unaware and that the real game is deeper than what's in the theme park. If you are Dr. Ford the best way to ensure that you have control is to surround yourself by your own robot creations.
I could see that coming. Not sure about Bernard though; maybe one of the other characters
Bernard for sure is a Robot. His and Delores' answers about loss and taking away pain were identical.
Yeah but he said it first and she just repeated it back at him later. Could just be that she is mimicking him in order to save herself from being wiped or taken out of service completely.
In order for the time theory to work you have to believe "the maze" is a thing for 30 years, because we see lots of the symbol in White hats "time" and MIB is still hunting for the same thing? I don't buy it at all.
Man, Ford is under assault from both outside and within the park. Not to mention he's managing his own weird little fantasies and hidden agendas. All of that intrigue brewing while the livestock dorks bring about the AI apocalypse. This is brewing into something awful.
I love how there's so many sub levels just quarantined off. Bernard visits that creepy sublevel and it's just utterly abandoned and untouched. Maybe from whatever went down 30 years ago?
Well, that was quite the episode. A lot happened even though we didn't see much of the inside of the park, and nothing with Dolores or William. They did a lot to expand of the DELOS mythology.
So, now we know that the man in the picture with Robert wasn't Arnold, but Robert's father (or at least the robot version of him).
Also of note, Bernard's last name is Lowe (I don't know if that was known before tonight, but he said it in the elevator). For what it's worth, Bernard Lowe is an anagram of Arnold Weber. It's always convenient when characters have names that can be easily rearranged to form another name.
We also got confirmation that the little boy is a robot version of Ford. Also, when properly maintained, the early mechanical models are not all herky-jerky robotic like the Old Bill one we've seen.
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Well, that was quite the episode. A lot happened even though we didn't see much of the inside of the park, and nothing with Dolores or William. They did a lot to expand of the DELOS mythology.
So, now we know that the man in the picture with Robert wasn't Arnold, but Robert's father (or at least the robot version of him).
Also of note, Bernard's last name is Lowe (I don't know if that was known before tonight, but he said it in the elevator). For what it's worth, Bernard Lowe is an anagram of Arnold Weber. It's always convenient when characters have names that can be easily rearranged to form another name.
We also got confirmation that the little boy is a robot version of Ford. Also, when properly maintained, the early mechanical models are not all herky-jerky robotic like the Old Bill one we've seen.
Spoiler!
Picture of the scene in question. There's a big empty space in the picture where it looks like another person should be. So Ford, Ford's Robo father and blank?
So we have no idea what Arnold actually looked like? I wonder if Bernard is the robot version of him. Would explain why Bernard is obsessed with turning the hosts into real people. Could be an imprint of Arnold's personality in him.
I'm assuming Arnold would be in that gap in the photo, but he's been thoroughly erased by Delos. Well, except for his voice speaking to some of the hosts, apparently. But mostly thoroughly erased.
In order for the time theory to work you have to believe "the maze" is a thing for 30 years, because we see lots of the symbol in White hats "time" and MIB is still hunting for the same thing? I don't buy it at all.
Ford managed to keep an entire family of robots hidden. It seems as though its pretty easy to hide things in their system.
