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HBO's Westworld VII: Abort?.Retry.Fail


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I don't think they'll cancel it but they may reach a "mutual" agreement with the creators to wrap it up in season three. Maybe even cut the episode order to eight. But as I said before if the reviews for this season end up good and they don't really have anything to fill that void (plus the upcoming Game of Thrones void) they may agree to do two more seasons and just tell the showrunners that they won't have the budget to really show Roman/Medieval/whatever other worlds in any detail. 

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28 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

HBO definitely has a different business model that can allow for lower viewership, but they still have cancelled several shows that did not live up to their expectations.  So, I would wonder if a show this expensive will stay on for 5 years with the initial first run audience as less than 2 million, and is continuing to lose viewers this year.

David Simon was once asked about the latent popularity of of The Wire as opposed to the extant struggling audience.  His response was interesting: highly serialized show and virtually no streaming video then.

As I remember it, there was some video on demand through your cable box, but the selection was not comprehensive. you might be able to watch a few episodes from the previous season, but not enough to really get into the show.  for that you have to start at the beginning, which you could only do if you got a hold of some DVD's.

23 minutes ago, RumHam said:

I don't think they'll cancel it but they may reach a "mutual" agreement with the creators to wrap it up in season three. Maybe even cut the episode order to eight. But as I said before if the reviews for this season end up good and they don't really have anything to fill that void (plus the upcoming Game of Thrones void) they may agree to do two more seasons and just tell the showrunners that they won't have the budget to really show Roman/Medieval/whatever other worlds in any detail. 

I would be fine with 3 seasons if the final season wraps things up in a good (comprehensive, interesting) way.  For example, the final season of Boardwalk Empire did not do that.

Too much story can be just as bad as too little.  

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Five season seems like a bit much for this show, imo. I've caught up with the season but like a few others I'm not really feeling it. There's too much meandering going on. Kind of reminds me of season 2 of Mr Robot where the writers got a little too cute with trying to misdirect viewers and ended up with a whole lot of wheel spinning. I'm kind of regretting catching up with the season tbh. Should have done what I did with season 1 and recorded the whole thing for a binge watch.

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Yeah, five seasons seems awfully ambitious, and would have to entail more real world stuff...but a 5 year plan could explain why this season is soooo slow.  I'd be surprised though if ratings don't at least move back up for the finale, if they get more than 3 years.

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Didn't season 1 start right after GoT? People who get HBO just for GOT might have stuck around longer to watch, whereas season 2 had no lead in. That doesn't account for viewership dropping of since premiere, but could add to the overall lower ratings.

Personally speaking, I only have HBO now because Hulu offered a $5 a month deal for it. Otherwise I would've waited another year to get it again.

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That was action-packed! Fairly straight-forward as well. The Valley Beyond has all the data stored that they're planning to use to emulate humans rich enough to afford James Delos-style recreations in host-hybrid bodies, Dolores now has her father's CPU unit and is headed there to destroy it, Bernard is basically no longer autonomous now that Ford is completely in the driver's seat, and there's still something that's going to happen with Maeve's storyline. Oh, and the hosts are now completely mortal with their back-ups destroyed - if their CPUs are destroyed without a transfer, they're gone. 

I guess if the Cradle was bombed (that moment was kind of forced - what if he just shoots her instead of falling for her seduction?), and the park now shut down, that means that Ford's simulated consciousness is riding entirely inside Bernard? So is that Ford in Bernard's body in the flash-forward timeline?

In any case, the trailer for the next episode is certainly quite different. It's titled "Kiksuya", which (at least according to Googling I did) is a Lakota word meaning "remember".

Spoiler

It looks like it is centered on the native American guy whom Dolores is probably going to shoot after telling him that not everyone is going to the Valley Beyond. 

 

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Not gonna lie I thought Man in Black was toast. Guy got shot like four fucking times. Surprised he survived. 

Loved Dolores and Maeve’s conversation. Really not a fan of Hale. Knew cause of all the timeline shenanigans that she was gonna survive that confrontation with Dolores but I was still holding out hope for Dolores to kill her :lol:. Glad Stubbs got away though. 

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Great episode, loved having Hopkins back and all the revelations about the experiment. I’m going to credit myself for the wish washy tentative speculation that Ford had been creating a Bernard bot in S1. LET ME HAVE THIS ONE OKAY?

There were a few moments I wasn’t too pleased by because it felt a little too forced/difficult to suspend disbelief. William surviving all those gunshots for example. The Cradle explosion...why on Earth, after seeing the massacre upstairs, would he not just straight up shoot her? I mean it made for a good scene but it was a bit meh with the set up.

Pretty sure people speculated Arnold’s house had been built in the park which, if I understood properly, turned out to be correct? So is the park built on what was once a city? Or am I completely off here?

have to disagree with MA though, I loved Hale. As a character, obviously. As a person she’s a stone cold sociopath. It’s...chilling the way she says “analysis” and seems more robotic/emotionless than Bernard!

Trailer for next week...

Spoiler

Hmmm. Curious choice, could be interesting but worried it will break the momentum they built up this episode. I mean they left Maeve on deaths door and they want to take an interlude with a new character? Hopefully it works though, I e known shows to pull off these kind of interludes before with huge success (*cough* the cut wife)

 

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I was ok with the Cradle scene, because they did set up that guy earlier in the episode as an arrogant piece of shit. Any other guy may have shot her early, but not that guy.

I loved Teddy the Terminator.

I felt that the Maeve v. Man in Black set up was kinda forced, but I did enjoy the confrontation. I, too, thought that he was toast, and was thinking to myself that in the episode where they bring Hopkins back, they get rid of Harris. But William has to have more to his story.

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Both Maeve and MiB should be dead, either from the gunshots or from bleeding out. We live in a world where kids murder kids with AR-15s, and if you read the story I linked from the emergency room doctor in the gun thread, those guns have bullets that basically implode any organs they touch because of the velocity of the bullets. I’m sure the modern guns of the future are more deadly. MiB was at least shot by what was likely still old technology, but geez, he was shot so many times.

Timelines.

Bernard waking up with Charlotte questioning him. This is the two-weeks-later timeline progressing. Interesting that we were right, Hale did not know Bernard was a host and believes the moment he saw the other Bernards was the first time he knew he was a host. Interesting they had torture effects they can use on hosts, we haven’t seen that before, but considering they had a specialized nail gun that all of them were familiar with to use on hosts, it was hinted at. That puts Dolores’ conversation with Maeve about ‘they’ll torture you’ in context. There is something darker that has been regularly going on that we have not seen and perhaps that we will see more of. As if murderous guests weren’t bad enough.

Bernard and Ford is the continuation of the two week period between rebellion and third rescue (1st was park security, 2nd was the parachute crowd, 3rd with ship and the Chinese soldier), and hurtling toward confrontation. Interesting that Bernard and Dolores lived with each other for years. Obviously Dolores was the only host who survived Arnold’s mutiny. I still hold to my thesis that Arnold loved her and therefore did not instruct her to shoot herself after killing him. Bernard must have been host #2, the first one created after Arnold’s mutiny.

I am surprised that after Maeve was rescued and they drove off, the Blood Indians did not come looking to see if MiB was still alive. Maybe they do, and we see that next week. I feel certain we see him in Season 3.

@HelenaExMachina Ford said the house was built in the park first, that Arnold built everything in the park first. So the other house we saw must have been outside the park in a city. 

The way that was said, I wonder what else Arnold built outside the park.

Ford looks demented, looks like he wants to wipe humans off the face of the earth.

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Ed Harris should have been dead many times already...they should have found something more interesting to do w/him than shoot him again but he doesn't die.

I love that Sizemore saved Maeve.

I'm glad Hopkins is back.

RIP Angela we hardly knew ye.  Ditto for Clem

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They are in the cradle when Ford says that Arnold built the house there first, I took that to mean within VR rather than within the park but I could be wrong on that. 

I didn't think seducing that guy was the original plan for destroying the cradle, I think Angela balked at actually dying - she looked scared when she turned around at first. She was having second thoughts, then his arrival burnt her bridges and she had to follow through.

I thought when we finally saw the original massacre at the end of season 1, Dolores does turn the gun on herself at the end - that just doesn't kill her. Teddy is also stated to be a host from that time, Arnold says she will have Teddy to help her as always and he helped her shoot all the other hosts before she looks him right before herself.

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I have to wonder, ever so slightly if Ed Harris IS a host, because he really should have died.  And the show is better than using such a cheap tactic as 'looks dead' but isn't twice in the same scene.  

I think Ghost Nation is saving 'innocents' both host and human.  

Charlotte Hale has become too 1 dimensional...she was sort of interesting as a take no prisoners corporatist...but she's getting to Bond villain level now.  

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I would hate if he was a host. Feel like that would take away a lot from his character but yeah he should be dead from all those gunshots. 

14 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Charlotte Hale has become too 1 dimensional...she was sort of interesting as a take no prisoners corporatist...but she's getting to Bond villain level now.  

She’s the worst. So fucking smug and every line is some edgy badass quip. I see people use that same complaint on Dolores but Hale is even worse for me :dunno: 

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15 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

I would hate if he was a host. Feel like that would take away a lot from his character but yeah he should be dead from all those gunshots. 

She’s the worst. So fucking smug and every line is some edgy badass quip. I see people use that same complaint on Dolores but Hale is even worse for me :dunno: 

She needs some other motivation, I don't know, the more powerful seeming she has become the less I like her. Or something.

Dolores too became very unlikable, and one dimensional, although the scene with Hale and Abernathy almost redeemed her story.

Stubbs is the best.  

Anthony Hopkins monologues like a boss.  You really need someone like him to pull off some of the show's weightier philosophical angles.

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