If only the writers had paid attention to Dr. Ford: “It’s not about giving the guests what you think they want. No, that’s simple. The titillation, horror, elation… They’re parlor tricks. The guests don’t return for the obvious things we do, the garish things. They come back because of the subtleties, the details. They come back because they discover something they imagine no one had ever noticed before, something they’ve fallen in love with…”
Fr!! It’s like the show forgot it’s own philosophy lmao, the second season (where I stopped tbh) was just violent and “woah!!!” Moments, or made me confused/very, very sleepy.
Season one lost me halfway through. Imo they really used that reveal (and the subsequent one) as a crutch and ran out of ideas. I tried watching season two and it was just too dull
Westworld is a one season show for me. Also agree with how incredibly stupid it is to change a thing about your story because someone somewhere guessed it. That's maybe the dumbest thing a writer could possibly do to their story.
I tried watching season two, but my interest slowly waned. I've thought about getting back into, but season two totally killed my interest in finding out what comes next.
@@tizodd6 i rewatched the first three seasons in anticipation of season 4 and ya kno what i hated season 2 and thought season 3 was ok when i watched them the first time but sitting and just going thru the whole show episode by episode it actually works a lot better. still not perfect but interesting enough. nothing will ever top season one but also how the fuck do u follow a season that is nearly perfect????
Agree so much! I've seen s1 ten times easily, s2 twice, and I just came back to see if the show is good and watched s3/watching s4 for the first time. Nope, will go back to enjoying s1. F
Many interviews indicate that Nolan was very angry about being investigated by his own fans. He doesn't understand that entertainment discussion has no limit any more.
Season 1 was a brilliant work of art, some of the best television ever produced. The following seasons are simply corporate profit seeking fan service, and Westworld is best enjoyed by pretending they don't exist.
Yes, do yourself a favour and enjoy the first series w/o even thinking about the rest. The only annoying thing in the first series are those two idiots who are supposed to be engineers (?) but in reality wouldn't get a McDonald's janitor job for that requires at least 72 IQ points
This is a show that should’ve either been a mini series or an anthology. Dolores was a very engaging character at first, but ever since she “woke up,” she’s been pretty tedious and dull
It's true. She lost her spark somewhere in there. You're entirely on her side in seaon 1, because the story let you into her character. But in the subsequent seasons, she's so one-dimensional. far from becoming conscious, she seems to stop actually thinking at all, having made up her mind, and like any fanatic, redoubles her efforts while losing sight of her goal. More importantly, we have no way into feeling empathy with her anymore, which is what carried the character and the show through season 1 with such power. We're on the outside of her, not sharing her feelings at all, just kind of witnessing her anger. Regardless of whether you agree with a character, you have to at least empathize. Plus, characters need arcs, and she never gets one beyond season 1. Stuff happens to her, but she stopped changing or growing.
@@rottensquid I don't mind not sharing empathy for Delores in the later seasons but if that did happen they then should have created another character who takes over the role she played in the wider story arc. For example, an innocent human who is a victim of Delores' or other members of the hosts. I would have also liked, a side story that shows that The Sublime is possibly not a good place for the mental well-being of the Hosts.
@@MrStringybark I think Bernard was supposed to be that, and certainly Jeffery Wright went a long way to make the character empathetic, but the character is so passive so much of the time it was hard to feel invested in his hopes and dreams. I couldn't even tell moment to moment what they were. With Dolores, you know what she wants at all times, even if it's not what she thinks she wants. With Bernard, I still don't know what his motivation is. Regarding the Sublime, it doesn't really matter whether it was a good place or a bad one, because it was never more than kind of an abstract concept. All in all, I think the biggest problem with the show is that everyone read as a side character. No one was carrying the show forward after Dolores's evolution ground to a halt.
@@rottensquid You said, "No one was carrying the show forward after Dolores's evolution ground to a halt." Which is why I wrote, "(they) should have created another character who takes over the role she played in the wider story arc." .I barely remember Jeffery Wright other than the fact he played some minor role which is not the same thing as replacing Delores as the main character driving the narrative. "Regarding the Sublime, it doesn't really matter whether it was a good place or a bad one, because it was never more than kind of an abstract concept." The Sublime was meant to represent a "Heaven" for the Hosts except in this case it existed. Not some abstract philosophical concept as you suggested. I should have been more explicit about the Sublime and its possible effects on some or all of the Hosts existing there. As far as the Hosts in the Sublime are concerned they have a corporeal existence. But tell me what would happen to you if you discovered that everything in your world existed inside a program?
@@MrStringybark Right, I'm sorry I didn't acknowledge that. I was agreeing with you, and adding my 2 cents. I think your idea of the Sublime being not so great after all is a good one. In fact, given the track record of the show, would assert that the entirety of the show from the beginning may well turn out to be taking place inside the Sublime, with the Sublime inside it being a sort of dream within a dream, like Inception. What I mean by the Sublime being an abstract concept is that it felt too vague and conceptual, and not a goal the audience could really get behind. But I think that's a result of the characters themselves not being fleshed out enough. The only excepting for me was the one ghost nation character, Akecheta, who managed to be more fleshed out in one episode than the rest of the characters were over the whole season. Sometimes, it seems, having too much room to build characters ends up backfiring.
The fundamental problem with continuing Westworld's story is that its in-grained trajectory is to fundamentally become not Westworld anymore. The robots wake up, they start killing humans. They jump into some mind upload nirvana. They infiltrate the world. They do literally anything but exist in a context that makes sense for Westworld's story. It's The Matrix, it's Blade Runner, it's The Terminator. But it's not Westworld anymore. Westworld as a story died in season 1
This is precisely the reason why I always thought that it should have stayed as a one-season miniseries. I was actually kind of surprised when they announced season 2, and my first thought was, "what is there is supposed to be left to tell?" I wasn't even excited about it, really.
Season 1 was one of my all-time favorites, but by the middle of Season 2 I was confused by how directionless it was, twists for the sake of twists, yet most important things were so obvious. By the end of Season 2 they somehow managed to destroy in one way or another basically all characters, and therefore I didn't care anymore for next seasons. Similar thing happened with Jessica Jones, first season was modern noir masterpiece with arguably the best on-screen villain ever. Then comes Season 2 with writing quality dropped to CW level. How? Why? Well, whatever, I guess I can pretend that those shows have only 1 season each.
Interesting. I watched part way into season 2 and just got tired of it and never went back. I guess that's where it really did drop off. I'll have to check out season 1 Jessica Jones though!
Man I always hate it when creators change their story because someone guessed the twist. THAT MEANS YOU DID IT RIGHT IF PEOPLE COULD SEE IT COMING! I mean it’s clear that if they do that then they don’t actually care about telling a good story. They just want to surprise people even if it doesn’t make sense.
@@manuxx3543 Game of Thrones didn't change its narrative? There's literally a clip in this very video of George RR Martin saying NOT to change the story even if someone guesses it.
@@Cole444Train The entire season 8, "subverting expectation stuff", john snow being useless for example and not prophecy, arya just popping up out of nowhere like just watch any pissed off GOT fan that would go in deeper with the problems of that show beggining at s5 Watch the Hbo after episodes where they talk about how they did the episode and stuff and why they choose to do anything
a big part of what made season 1 great was the contrast between the monotonous routine of the park and the unexpected things happening within it. disrupting that by making the park descend into chaos was the beginning of the show's decent. then, going out of the park entirely put a nail in the series' coffin. the quality came from us having expections and them being violated. now there is nothing to base expectations on, so no matter how "unexpected" the occurences are, they ARE expected by virtue of there not being any baseline of expectations.
Yeah I think leaving the park was a bad idea. The Western theme was for the audience, like the park goers, a big part of the draw. Robots fighting the corporate overlords in generic dystopian future number 54 is not interesting in the least.
I'd love to know if anyone important left the production team right after season 1 ended. It's like the person who best understood the show, and could affect how it was made, left, and then the rest of the team were competent, but just didn't know how to make it satisfying.
when Anthony Hopkins character died at the end of season 1, it was my cue that the show was over , and I was right . I tried season 2 also, but I stopped in the middle of episode 2 . I came back to see another episode because I heard Anthony Hopkins was in it . It didn't disappoint, very good episode named "Kiksuya" . season 3 was a nightmare I hear people say and I believe them 😅 . They should have stopped with season 1 .
season 2 and 3 were nice. season 4 is... well it's awful. and not only awful, but the liberal agenda is all over it. meaning that parts of the plot that are not "politically aligned" were taken out, and the show is very, very "diverse" ! also, it's done in the style of amateur made yetube videos. sharp ending scenes, one after the other, cringy "humor" and... well it's bad. over all bad. this is what i saw so far. but season 2 and even 3 were ok.
There are rumors that the vision over the Seasons became MORE Lisa Joy and LESS Jonathan Nolan, but no major staff changes... And to one of the replies: I'm not sure what the "Liberal Agenda" means.🤔
@@ZenGuyMax liberal agenda… is freedom of the individual, essentially a quest for true democracy. Liberal agenda when used as an insult is about discrimination politics; where one or two differentiators are pushed as the reason for the ills of the world where one differentiator is the victim of the other differentiator which must be the oppressor…. Identity politics which it the opposite agenda to the liberal agenda but ignorant people have a right to be ignorant.
its simply the fact that they dont have more original material. same with game of thrones. once it passed the books you get netflix tier writing. S1 is only as coherent as it is bcs of the adaptation. after that its just stretched filler of "what ifs" and "maybes"
I think a good chuck of the problem is Nolan being a Nolan: trying to impress with “big brain” concepts while forgetting to make good characters and relationships.
The story about Rehoboam (including Dolores / Hale, Serrac and Caleb)is actually fascinating and well written. The main problem with season 3 is that Maeve and Bernard have become caricatures of themselves. It also is too short in relation to the complexity of the plot. A few more episodes would have helped.
if they added a couple episodes these TH-camrs will scream "fan service" again as if they enjoyed it (considering they're fans) lol. Deliberate artistic choices would be called 'fan service' if they hate the story
When season 4 came out, i was so confused about everything. I knew I had watched season 3 but I remembered absolutely nothing about it. I never watch recaps but this was the first time I actually needed one. It felt like a dream. Like I had seen it and ai knew what happened but it all seemed to distant and not real.
The only thing that kept me slightly interested in season 2 was the Man in Black. I found the robots completely unsympathetic after season 1 and started rooting for them to be destroyed. That never happened though. The plot always made absurd twists to let the robots win against any odds and it became boring.
I felt the same way. I stopped watching halfway through the second season. The robots weren’t sympathetic. They were cruel and didn’t seem to be in any danger. It wasn’t interesting just to see a bunch of people get revenge for a season.
Agree wholeheartedly. William was my only focal point too, but as the season progressed, even with him, it felt like the slop and chaos that the story became was all over everything like a virus and that a horribly inconsistent ending was in the making.
I'm so glad I've found this video and your work - this is one of the most coherent, well expressed analyses of the Westworld narrative and contributing aspects to change (decline) over season 2 and 3. Excellent stuff! Look forward to watching more of your stuff!
after watching Season 4 I have to disagree with this youtuber tho. Everything Dolores did was deliberate, I just hoped s3 and 4 were merged into 1 season but that would be too long
When it first announced many fans of the movie were worried how they could sustain a show. There is a clear arc from an awesome sci fi park with robot cowboys to the killer robots and then it's done. Once the robots have gone rogue you can't reset the fun parts of the park which is the main thing that makes the story unique.
I still haven't watched anything past season 1. Season 1 is one of the few perfect seasons of television, and I knew they would ruin it or wouldn't be able to top it.
@@tsmidds8137 damn right he's missing out lol, Kiksuya (s02e08) is still one of the best episodes in TV history. I think if he'll attempt to watch the show he'll just be disappointed tho because he's exposed to negative feedback about WW so he's bound to dislike it in the end, so I guess just watching S1 should be good for him
West World was one of those shows I watched the first season of and thought: "This is a perfect complete story with a great ending. I don't even want a second season" (Same as I felt with Squid Game) Unfortunately we got that and more. Even more unfortunately I recently watched it. Don't get me wrong I loved the world and wanted nothing more than to explore it further, but even if there where some unanswered questions I didn't feel they needed an answer. Sometimes the best mystery is left unanswered. Honestly I think the best thing they probably could have done was to write a fairly unattached story to the first season. Keep the world, themes, and the spirit of where you want it to end, but change the setting, structure, and characters.
I blame the decline in quality on the husband and wife writing/directing duo. No real sense of checks and balances in the writers’ room when you’re concerned about offending your spouse by vetoing their ideas. Loved the analysis! I literally searched “What Happened to West World?” in the hopes someone had made a video essay on why it got bad LOL. Keep it up! :)
Sad this video doesn't include the flop of Dolores' story line. Her story has been well told in S1, the acting is also very touching (especially after knowing the actress's real life trauma). However, in the following seasons, it seemed that the writers are clueless of what to do with her story, and that's where her scenes are starting to fill with angry speed walking and kill kill kill... etc, she was there for merely being the story's protagonist (of S1). And that was so disappointing for an audience who deeply rooted for her since day 1.
One of the differences between Season 1 and each successive season after is the switch from a Show, Don't Tell ethos, to characters' endlessly going off into plot exposition. By the end of Season 3, the final showdown with Dolores on the floor and plugged into Rehoboam, we have Serac, Caleb, and Maeve literally screaming the plot at one another. Like the plot was such a convoluted and tangled mess by that point that the writers felt compelled to explain the whole season's conflicts they were about to resolve to a moronic audience. Storytelling is like the proverbial joke, if you have to explain the joke, it's not funny. If you have to provide a recap of the entire story in outline form at the end, it wasn't properly presented in the first place. When it has to be explained to the audience ad nauseam, your writing and production teams have failed at visual storytelling in the first place. The second transition is the fallback on sensational special effects as an end to themselves rather than a means to support a solidly built story. This is the same crutch that Disney-Marvel has fallen back on in all of the Marvel universe films to their boring detriment. And Star Wars, too! Later in his career, even George Lucas himself seemed to have forgotten his own advice. One of the things that made the first SW trilogy so powerful: "A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing." Your special effects are not the story. There's a great quote from an old making-of A New Hope documentary (which I can't exactly remember and can't find online, so I'll paraphrase) where Lucas says something like, "We don't spend a lot of time dwelling on and looking at the backgrounds and sets to show how much work we put into them. They're the background, they need to remain the background of the story." This is the second crutch that Westworld increasingly relied upon in the second and third seasons. You can see this transition in mentality during the making of segments that run after each episode. They change after Season 1 from talking about character motivation and plot devices to talking about how they made this or that special effect or how they shot a complicated scene. They aren't thinking about story anymore, only about the pretty Future World outside The Park that they're trying so hard to dazzle us with. Please, please, Westworld production team. Return to the basics of telling stories about complex characters with believable motivations, understandable obstacles, and credible resolutions to conflict! You don't need to abandon elaborate special effects, but they're just filmmaker navel gazing if they don't support a great story. A film needs to work on every level. You start with the storyboard and try to build a silent film where the story works on a visual level, with minimal dialog cards are inserted only as necessary. Once you have that skeleton and the visual story tells itself, then you can build the full Hollywood blockbuster on top of that solid foundation you built. Back to the basics!
"She breaks from human control.." See, this is what people don't understand about what Hopkins character says at the end of the first season and what RUINED the whole idea of the robots gaining sentience; he set the whole thing up. They never broke free. He created the whole idea, in an attempt to give them that, but in reality it was just a poor attempt at playing God and giving them free will. Unlike man, the robots never had it because "god" never gave it to them. The implication of that revelation was important for the end of that first season, and really, should have been the end, but... the hype train was full steam ahead and once again a writing team that really had no idea where they were going has to keep writing a popular show that executives want to milk and, eventually ruin. Sometimes a story needs to end and Westworld, I think, was designed to end and it didn't. Had that line not existed and had the show kept exploring the robot sentience, it could have been interesting. However, think about the greatest stories of artificial intelligence. They ask the question, the explore it to an extent, but ultimately they leave the answer up to the reader. West World failed at this.
That alone doesn't have to break things. They could have just gone with the idea that the robots only got partway to sentience or something, in the course of Ford setting them up to revolt, and then continue playing with them gaining marginally more sentience. Or they could go the dark route of Ford really being some sort of master of the whole narrative, who doesn't even need his own flesh and blood to make a huge mark on the world and "see" it happen to boot. But I don't think the end of season 1 would have really worked without Ford playing puppeteer for a little bit longer than it initially looked. It could have worked with just some minor tweaks if it was supposed to just end...and it's hard for me to say whether committing to a 1 season show would have been better without relying too much on hindsight.
I don't remember clearly, but isn't Ford actually against the idea that they are sentient? It was Albert that wanted to foster them as living, growing human minds and there were several flashbacks that show young Ford outraged that Albert was treating them this way.
@@Makingnewnamesisdumb He was against developing them in that direction but by the start of the show (even the Young William timeline) they were already built like that.
Arnold Ideia is that the ones capable of getting to the center of the maze become sentient, the ideia of them following the maze come from Arnold, the center of the maze is getting your inner voice, not just be concious of their reality, but be able to breake their loops, make their own decision, something that only few could do. Ford knew that for a long time, he keep the hosts under control for a while by erasing their memories so they could become controlable again, he just gave up on controling them at the start of the first season, where he become the breaking free narrative, the Reveries update, the code writen by Arnold that allowed hosts of having memories of their old versions bypassing the memory wipe, allowing there to be aware of their reality. He then pushed Maeve narrative of Leave the park, Dolores remembering the time she passed with young William and the Wyat merge, that pusshed her to be capable of taking the decision of Killing their God to start their uprising agaisnt human kind. Maeve throughout the firt season was not 'at teh center of the maze' she was just folowing Ford's narrative, she just got there when she decided by herself to go looking for her daughter. Their were not bound to become sentient by Ford's narrative, just a few could archive that, the end of the narrative was for the hosts to unchain from human control comands and take control of the park. Season two came with an extra part to the narrative, find the Valley Beyond, a server were the hosts could live forever free from the humans.
I watched season 1 and lost interest during season 2. Have not seen any of season 3. What made Westworld interesting is how the robots developed consciousness - awareness of their own existence. Once they reach that stage, the story is over. There's nothing left to explore other than to base the further story on events, action, and intrigues. In other words, the robots become self-aware and they walk out into the real world - the end. That should have been the last scene. If one studies our literary history, which is largely influenced by the Christian myth, there is little to say about what happens after self-realization. Likewise, our literary tradition has little to say after the hero rides into the sunset, or after the prince and princess get each other. There is nothing to tell after Matrix 1, there is no Blade Runner 2, when evil has been fought and defeated, whether it's Star Wars or LOTR, the story is over. You do not make sequels unless you want to ruin the whole lore.
You write about the AI becoming self-aware as if that's the hero's journey here, that there can be no such thing as a story about a conscious AI, when that's the furthest thing from the truth
@@Lazypackmule _"...that there can be no such thing as a story about a conscious AI"_ Where did I say anything like that? Context matters. My point is that there's no "story" after the story. For instance, one can make a story about an officer coming home from the Vietnam war. However, I doubt an Apocalypse Now 2 will ever work.
@@bjrnhagen4484 Your mistake is viewing an AI becoming conscious as 'the story' It was never just that, and if it was then it would've been over after the first episode
@callmecatalyst The person I'm replying to quite literally said that the story being told was over and done with once the robots gained self-awareness Something which- mind you- had essentially already happened by the first episode of the show
I don't know, I can't say much about Westworld; I haven't watched the show, I just really like video essays lol. But I can say that a sequel doesn't necessarily have to ruin the lore. Sequels to completed stories can be an opportunity to expand on what could've happened next in the initial story or to see more of the world that was established in the first story with new additions to the lore and new knowledge about the world that the story took place in or even look at questions and themes present in the first story from a different angle, expanding on said questions and themes in a way that can be both complementary to the original and sometimes even antagonistic to the original in an interesting way. The last of those 3 being my favorite approach to sequels out of all of them personally, I think a really good example of this actually IS some of the stories that were told after the end of OG Star Wars in the Expanded Universe. Not a Disney Sequels guy but even they had the potential to do this well, they just didn't really have a cohesive direction in mind for any of the films in the trilogy.
Damn, I had completely forgotten about this show, which is weird because I'm a massive sci-fi nerd and loved the first season. After getting this video recommended to me just now I googled the show and apparently season 4 is beginning now. Didn't hear a thing about it, if not for your video remembering me Westworld exists it'd be at least a few years before I wondered what happened to it and would look for a 4th season. It's a shame, the show deserved better. A second season focusing on the rest of the world during the android uprising and a final season on the far future (like they kept teasing on the 3rd), each with its own plot, characters and stories would be far better than trying to do season 1 over and over again.
I think one of the biggest problems with Westworld, which was thrown into stark relief for me in season 3, was that a lot of it relies on contrivance. The entire season, Dolores is shown as THE bad guy, she's going to bring down civilisation, unleash anarchy. She makes it abundantly clear the whole season she wants to make mankind suffer the way the Hosts did. Then in the final episode, psyche! She was the good guy all along! And all of this, everything, hinged on a series of events that require a random dude that she met at the park five years ago being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time making exactly the right choice. Uh, no. You can get away with coincidences in your story if they're believable, multiple ones, even, but there comes a point when you are literally warping reality to make the story work and you can hear the reality of the setting break with an audible crunch. That's Westworld now: setting up things in impossible ways because you have a cool twist you want people to talk about on Reddit.
Season 1 of this show was absolutely AMAZING! I loved it, the acting, the plot, the twists, the characters, it was phenomenal. I wish it had kept that level of quality Also kinda a side thing but I really wish we could have seen more of the adventures in western world between Dolores and young William, easily my favourite part of the show
You can't center a show around escaping Plato's Cave without the journey once you leave. Continuing the story means expanding scope and changing focus from gaining sentience to using it in a way that sets those still in the cave free.
@@jd980 They quite literally have not been in westorld for, what, 2 seasons now? Westworld was captivating when it was robots that believed they were real people in a cowboys and indians setting realizing that their life is a daily looping lie, with the player piano doing piano versions of modern pop songs as you wrestle with the morality of what is happening in the park. Currently the show is like a Terminator Bladerunner crossover. It doesn't resemble what it originally was at all.
One of the best things of season 1 was that the fan theories where meet, week after week people will come together and try to guess the misteries, and the deep satisfaction that the fan theories where true (since fan theories are usually so good! Usually much better that whatever the show runners come up with), and for the first time in along long time, the show was as smart as its fans! The show didn't took its audience for fools, it was an incredibly riddle. Season 2 was such a dissapoiment I didn't even finish watching it. I'll take season 1, and pretend it ends there, since every element of it is perfect.
This was premature, and I think the reason why people already feel like the writers are losing them is because they are so use to immediate satisfaction season to season and that's well within their rights, BUT........I think the last episode of this season actually curates season 3 to be genius. Sometimes you have to have seasons like the third in order to tell a compelling story in the future where everyone now understands how we got to where we have gotten via Season 4.
Season 4 of Westworld is so good! Worth the wait. The fourth season takes the threads of Season 3 that seemed out of left field, and weave them back into the narrative, as they set up the situation that Season 4 needs. Disagree about Maeve forgetting the love she felt for her daughter. It's in Season 4 that you finally see that love transmuted into empathy for the children of humans and a further growth of Maeve, brought about entirely by her association with Caleb.
If you read the hate comments, most people who hate WW now are those who didn’t even finish S2. And they find refuge in this video essay saying how awful this show is, which gives them validation for not watching the show anymore. TH-camrs like this makes me cringe, they think they’re better than Jona and Lisa
@@Dan-gi6tf might be so, but if all the characters you liked suddenly change/die, and everybody left simply sucks and is badly written, then you simply cant watch a whole season of this bullshit just in hope, that the next season will be amazing
1. Jonathan Nolan handed writing over to his wife. 2. Season 1 focused on a visionary (Dr. Ford). Season 2-3 focused on a victim (robots) 3. “Sacred character syndrome”; Delores became the focus of the show which limited the show’s ability to explore the other parks (which we wanted and expected in season 2-3). Basically, the bad real world ruined a good fantasy.
Disagree with #2. S1 was very focused on the robots and William. Ford just had the coolest scenes and dialogue. If they had continued to focus on them and the nature of consciousness/humanity instead of introducing so many half baked sci fi ideas like the forge/ fidelity tests/ the door etc. it would have been a great season.
“Fan service” has the potential to be a beautiful thing, and the impulse to subvert expectations, (usually clumsily), rather than give the audience what they want is running rampant with shows like Halo and Kenobi. GoT gives “fan service” an especially bad name though, adapting its characters and plot to audience demand so inauthentically that it’s embarrassing.
Season 4 is a bit of a redemption arc for the writers. It's only 4 episodes in at this moment and it's proving to be more engaging than I expected, with a pretty big twist in ep 4.
Yes I agree...so far. I really disliked S03, so much so that I didn't care two hoots about watching season 4, but I have to say so far I'm actually enjoying it.....so far....
@@ecurb10 I might be one of the few people who actually liked S3, not like a grandiose work of art, but more like a palette cleanser after S2 and a payoff of finally seeing the world outside after 2 seasons. The palette cleanser bit is because S2 used the non-linear storytelling with no real purpose, so the linear storyline in S3 was a welcome way of letting the show breathe (not to mention, I introduced my gf to it starting S3 because it was so disconnected from the first two). I watched each episode in S2 as it came out and took in every scene, hoping for something awesome to happen that never did. The only thing that stands out to me now is the post-credits scene which seems to be finally tying in to the plot and I have to give massive props to the writers for it, but the rest of S2 is just too pretentious for the story it's telling. They should just release a more linear cut of the season and it will be good again. S3 showed me that they can tell good stories without the bells and whistles, and it also served to make us let our guard down for S4 where we weren't expecting the non-linear method to pop up again, but they're doing the reveals after a few episodes, which makes more sense and is more rewarding, especially since nobody was aware it was non-linear and assumed one timeline. S2 could have done it this way and I would have been happy, but in its case it was painfully apparent from the start that it was non-linear and you just had to keep track of the story for no real reason.
@@GabiGhita I like s3 too. The dialogue, the writing, character arcs, it was a great season but it was so different from the aesthetics and feel of S1&2 that some viewers just dismiss it as "bad", without actually bothering to understand the underlying implications of character choices, etc.
GoT only waited 4 Season tho. It went downhill from there. Tbf tho, these "disappointing" shows that HBO makes are still infinitely better than what Netflix/Hulu create tho so I will stick with them
@@Dan-gi6tf agree with you on Got, once they couldnt copy the book past then the quality dropped. Westworld is still high-quality production with supberb acting. Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul sure weren't disappointments
I always felt that season 1 was not written by the nolans, but someone else, someone smarter, and it was rewritten during the filming hiatus of the season.
If you didn't catch on that Westworld was going to be an utter pile of shit based on S02E01 and where they decided to go with the show then you deserve this. They wrote an interesting concept for a show and played their ENTIRE hand in S01.
it started so good i was really blown away by .. "wtf am i watching anymore?" i admit i just quit watching after season 2 (and i've seen the original from the '70s or whenever). Honestly, if I see J J Abrams in the credits I try to avoid watching whatever that is now. It's his own fault.
What i hated the most about season 3 was the characters would do completely random things which have nothing to do with their motivations and how so nany Delores were fine to 1 minute want to do whatever it takes to escape including murdering people to the next minute be willing to lay down their lives, often cheaply for the motivation of saving humanity from the mapped out loops. I mean she should hate all humans so why the hell is she trying to save them? Surely she knows they can't co-exist so its wipe them all out or be wiped out. Think they had 2 tombolas with characters names in 1, events in the other and they just drew their plot from what got drawn at the same time. Maive helps serac for no reason-ok Calab despite being a no body guy off the street just happens to have had his memory wiped from when he was a special forces expert-riggghhhht Dolores bring Bernard back to life to just fight him the whole time- errr whaaa? Bernard goes to Westworld for no reason at all and comes across that security guy that he returns to life for no reason only for him to be killed later having add nothing to the story-right im out now!
Jonathan Nolan's Person of Interest was his true brilliant work. Ahead of it's time. And most importantly the introduction of one of the great characters in TV: Root.
Every season feels like it was written to be the last, which means by season 3 they've gotta start making shit up. They also said everything they had to say about consciousness and I guess though, "Oh, the Surveillance State, that's probably good for a season."
I loved the first season so much. Couldn't believe how lackluster the next two seasons were in comparison, but I'm dedicated to finishing the entire thing at this point.
I really loved Westworld Season 1. And after watching 3 episodes of Season 2 I just stopped. I never feel like watching it ever again. I just pretended that Westworld ended in Season 1. It is so funny that I sort of forgot the season is still running and was actually surprised it was because I had somehow convinced myself the series was over after season 1.
Season 2’s Episode 8 titled Kiksuya is still one of the best episodes in TV and film history imo. Watching only up to episode 3 and saying it’s bad is cute.
A superb video essay! Concise, highly articulate & brutally honest without sinking into 'viewer garnering diatribe and insult'. A 'thematic twist' is best created by series with separate episodes with separate stories. If you haven't watched BBC's series "Inside No. 9" then I can highly recommend it. Seven seasons in & there's hardly a weak story-line. Happily it's been renewed for two more seasons. My favourite episode is S03E03 "The Riddle of the Sphinx". What a brilliant plot & superbly twisted ending!
I feel like they are recovering with Season 4. The fun of the multiple timeline "twists" isn't in connecting seemingly innocuous events and causality between the two timelines (that was the mistake made in Season 2 and it just made it confusing and irritating to follow). The way to do it right is to show how CHARACTERS are led to change and develop over time. A good litmus test is to question if both timelines would make sense in isolation. Season 1 is an obvious yes, the Man and White and the Man in Black could easily have been different characters. That's what makes it interesting, because it's relatable. We all know WE could have been someone different if events in our lives had happened differently and at some point we all have wondered "what if". Season 2's timelines rely on each other, which makes it this un-fun logic puzzle of causality with little to no pay off for "getting it". I won't spoil anything but I think Season 4 has rediscovered what made Season 1 so great in focusing more on character's changes and growth than on the specifics of events and actions taken by the characters.
Came here to say this. I almost stopped watching during season 3 because the show, for me, had just become cheap sci-fi/action with none of the nuance or character-driven arcs of season 1 (and to a lesser extent 2). But i'm enjoying S4 so much more because it's started to make the characters interesting again and it's found a good balance of neither being a cheap imitation nor a stark departure from season 1. The plot seemed a little contrived at first but I think they had to set up a new plot to kind of "reset", and they did a good job at tying it back to the themes/motifs of season 1.
@@queerlyk1668 Are you kidding? Delores's storyline in S4 is god damn boring. It's her doing a job or being confused all the time. LAME. It's once again robbing the male characters of their agency so the women around them can be the heroes. Jessie Pinkmen is the fighter, but he's removed from the plot so his daughter can be the savior of the human race and his nagging wife becomes the start of the rebellion? WTF? Bernard is just bumbling about as per usual.
The multiple timelines in S2 wasn’t to present a twist (contrary to the claims of this youtuber). It was to mirror Bernard’s confusion towards the viewers (show, don’t tell). If it confused you, then it certainly worked.
@@Dan-gi6tf there are ways to confuse an audience that are interesting. Nothing about the confusion induced by S2 was actually fun or interesting. It was just frustrating and annoying. The "missing pieces" failed to re-contextualize what caused the confusion.
i'm just happy sir anthony got out when he did. His performance of ford is stellar and captivating and I would never want that to be tarnished by the confusing and quite unconnected tone of season 3 onwards.
I agree with EVERY WORD of your first 3 minutes analysis. Season 1 was BRILLIANT. In fact I've watched it 6 times now ... How did it all go so wrong???? It's tragic ...
So what went wrong? To my mind, the writers and directors didn't "see" their creation in the same way the audience did. So, in their effort to re-capture the "lightning in a bottle" from Season 1 they ended up, apparently misunderstanding why people so enjoyed the first season😊, and thus Season 2 and Season 3
I think the problem was that Season 1 was a self-contained story, and every subsequent season is trying to play the long game, at the expense of the game. Dolores's transformation from the pilot to the finale is the core of the season. As she goes from ignorant to conscious, she goes from sweet and abiding to angry and rebellious. And that represents the show's thematic arc as a whole. The problem is none of the later seasons offered that same holistic treatment. The details never resolved into a single through-line. They remained messy, complicated details, piling up on one another instead of merging into a single thematic whole. Because none of the characters had full arcs like Dolores did in season 1, so there was nothing to guide the twists and turns. They just meandered until they reached an endpoint, which itself had no point.
@@rottensquid Good point. But they did have an excellent opportunity to explore what would happen to society if it was discovered that self-aware AI androids were walking amongst them.
@@MrStringybark I haven't seen the new season yet, so I don't know if they've finally taken the opportunity. Obviously, we all like Jonathan Nolan. The man wrote one the the best screenplays of the century's first decade. But I think the approach he and Lisa Joy are taking to this project is more preoccupied with dazzling ideas, story structures, and twists than the actual basics of story. It started off with such incredible confidence, but season 2 instantly felt deeply insecure. It's as though they're scared to death of being deemed predictable, and so they've put all their energy into keeping the audience guessing. But as far as dazzling twists go, I find you don't need many. In fact, season 1 has one core mystery, one core twist, that really matters. All the other plotlines dovetail into the twist that Dolores is on a journey into consciousness, and that Dr. Ford had been guiding that journey since the beginning, out of a desire to end the increasing horror show of humanity and replace it with something perhaps a tad nobler. All the sub-plots, Delos's attempts to steal data from the park, the eminent corporate take-over, Bernard's terrible secret, all lead to that simple reveal, the reveal of Dolores learning the trick of truly having a self. But in the subsequent seasons, the plotlines all crowd one another rather than dovetailing together, because there's no core guiding them all to a simple, meaningful reveal. Either Jonah and Lisa can' think of one, or they don't think they need one, because they're pinning all their hopes on whatever doozy they have planned at the very end. But the problem is, if that ending turns out not to be that great once they get there, or if the audience figures it out too early, the journey to that ending won't have been worth it. I first noticed the pitfalls of long, serialized storytelling back when I was a teenager trying to follow Chris Claremont's X-Men, as his stories would meander and get lost on their way to whatever he kept foreshadowing, because he had no actual plan for what it was he was foreshadowing. And in since those old 70s and 80s comics, the same problems pop up again and again any time people think they can kick their stories down the road forever, assuming that whenever they do get somewhere, if at all, the audience will still be with them. It's killed countless serialized stories that started with tons of potential.
@@rottensquid One wonders if sophisticated screenwriters like Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy were oblivious to the points you made about, " kicking their stories down the road forever" and the problems that would create or if they intentionally ignored them on purpose. Possibly because of some motive we are not aware of. Such as good old money. I have found no mention of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy actually being the writers for the later season, 2, 3, and 4. Although they are always cited as the creators of the WestWorld series.
Personally I have become really good at letting go of fading and ruined series to preserve that good past experience. I stopped watching Westworld after season 1 because it was perfect self contained story and I just didn't see it going anywhere that could be cohesive series and respect the first one. I also stopped GoT few seasons before the end, characters just fell flat and became different people. Same is with new start wars after second one whole trilogy was totally ruined so I dropped it
Show ended for me when Maeve got "'witch powers'' making hosts attack each other and kill themselves. It went from philosophical sci-fi to pointless gore and pretty comedic at points.
One of the biggest issues for me with Westworld is their inability to kill characters or letting them continue long after their arc has finished much like your point on Maeve. This is particularly important for any ensemble cast of characters with conflicting goals. But sadly with Hollywood when you have an actor or character gaining popularity they often keep them around when they aren't essential to the plot (such Hayden Penettiere in Heroes, Jennifer Lawrence in sequential films of X-Men after first class, and GoT season 8 characters having plot armor against white walkers)
I don’t agree with Maeve tho. Her line in S3 from S1 was a perfect recall “this is the new world, and in this world, you can be whoever the fk you want”
I loved the S1 timeline thingy. I figured it out and got confirmation to it in the 5th(?) episode. I had my suspicions, but there was that one scene when Will and dolores and Logan were on that nitro/corpse train. There is one shot of Dolores reminiscing and you cant see the guys behind her, even tho they were there a few seconds ago. This confirmed to me that she is going through the same journey even without the guys.
I like that it's confusing it makes me concentrate and engage, most shows I wonder off and stop watching. Season 2 did do the timeline well, just differently. The big things in the show they do well it was the little things that were inconsistent with the quality of the show that let it down. The character arc weren't as good in season 3 also.
They had a lot of surprises in Season 1, lost a lot of that in season 2 and 3, so they added the sci-fi stuff from future world and that make things too predictable. I think, if they have more twists per characters than keep adding new characters, new side stories, they can develop the characters better and make us like them better.
Man, you are so right. That first season was amazing. We stayed with it because it characters we fell in love with and could not let go of the what if, but I was sad/confused by season 3. Good but not amazing.
I totally feel the same about S1. It’s still one of my favorite seasons of television to this day, but everything that follows not only doesn’t live up to the first season, but just… isn’t… good, at all. P.S. Please make a review for the new season!!
All other season were not as good as S1, I agree. But compared to the rest of the shows out there, WW is definitely top-tier: if we compare WW to its predecessors it's gonna be a disappointment, but if we compare it to its competition (like Stranger Things 🤮) it's certainly reigns supreme
@@nelsonraley it's called the adult world Nelson. if you actually enjoy Stranger Things go on with your life I would also recommend other Netflix shows like 13 Reasons Why to help you navigate that angsty coming of age passion
"Westworld" started out so awesome. Season 3 was a complete flop. This is what happens when you go woke. Personally, the sublime should have been how the series ended. They should've never left the park. The park is what drew viewers in.
Excellent analysis. Westworld's showrunners ran out of ideas after season one and are far more concerned with fan service than imaginative, coherent writing.
A lot can be explained by looking at the credits for each episode. For the whole first season, it was Nolan and Joy who wrote the whole thing. Looking into how they managed shooting, it's obvious that they had a very clear vision. This comes through on screen, as the first season is super tight. There are no wasted scenes, and everything is driving the plot or character development. From season 2 onwards you see that each episode has it's own writer, and each writer is responsible for one episode each for the most part. Then you get things like that whole detour into the samurai park, which added absolutely nothing to the greater story, most of the character actions in it make no sense, and when it's done it's like "okay. that was a thing that happened.... Can we get on with the show now?".
They hung most of season 3 on this huge, amazing conflict between 2 females, Maeve and Delores. We were supposed to be irresistibly enthralled by a big girl-fight, wow, that's never been done before! The only other plot device was a big spherical AI with a dumb name that was hard to pronounce. 1% as interesting as season 1.
Season 1 of Westworld is imo the best season of TV that I've ever watched. There are shows that as a whole might be better, but as a singular season it's unparalleled. Shame how it went downhill from there, but at least I can imagine that the show ended after the first 10 episodes and that works on its own.
For me, one of the main reasons why Westworld failed was because I wanted to see more of the love story between Dolores and William (call me a hopeless romantic). Clearly one of the main reasons why William turned so evil was because of his frustration at not being able to be with his Dolores again, despite the countless loops he must have gone through over his years in the park. Eventually, he realized that nothing he does has any real meaning, despite his brutality. In Season II, it seemed that the MIB was going through a redemptive arc, but sadly, that never happened.....it was just so....anticlimatic....I stopped watching after that.....What the hell happened to this series?
If that was your expectation, disappointment was inevitable. That is not at all the point of the show. I actually disagree with most people, I don't think the show declined, people just expected something completely different. The only thing I am kinda bummed about is the the cast getting "game of thrones"-ned.
@@notsure6222 Quite literally, it is unlike any series you will ever watch....it is everything that Westworld tried to achieve and much more......It finished last year and I am still haunted by it....I highly recommend it....
What happened is that until season 3 they were building worlds. Now, in S-4 the show is on fire with reveals and plots development in each episode. And, certainly the final season will be a blast, similar to S-1.
Don't tell them that. They'll think it's "fan service" again whether they'll like or hate it. It's the worst argument ever but it's the only argument they have.
Good thing I never bothered watching season 3. Honestly I would've watched other sides of this theme park play out, I enjoyed the Edo period Japan, and how the park writers reused characters and stories from the wild west part, etc. Once they got out of the park, it lost the intrigue. (besides, s2 was too convoluted and boring at the same time)
Season 3 is the unofficial 6th season of Person of Interest which is why I like it. Person of interest is the show you want to see for a good show by Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy.
If only the writers had paid attention to Dr. Ford: “It’s not about giving the guests what you think they want. No, that’s simple. The titillation, horror, elation… They’re parlor tricks. The guests don’t return for the obvious things we do, the garish things. They come back because of the subtleties, the details. They come back because they discover something they imagine no one had ever noticed before, something they’ve fallen in love with…”
Fr!! It’s like the show forgot it’s own philosophy lmao, the second season (where I stopped tbh) was just violent and “woah!!!” Moments, or made me confused/very, very sleepy.
Perfect
Ford really was the heart and the brain of the show. After he died, there is a void that cannot be filled by any other characters.
Season one lost me halfway through. Imo they really used that reveal (and the subsequent one) as a crutch and ran out of ideas. I tried watching season two and it was just too dull
*Paid
When cursing out writers, check your spelling ;)
Westworld is a one season show for me.
Also agree with how incredibly stupid it is to change a thing about your story because someone somewhere guessed it. That's maybe the dumbest thing a writer could possibly do to their story.
I tried watching season two, but my interest slowly waned. I've thought about getting back into, but season two totally killed my interest in finding out what comes next.
@@tizodd6 i rewatched the first three seasons in anticipation of season 4 and ya kno what i hated season 2 and thought season 3 was ok when i watched them the first time but sitting and just going thru the whole show episode by episode it actually works a lot better. still not perfect but interesting enough. nothing will ever top season one but also how the fuck do u follow a season that is nearly perfect????
Agree so much! I've seen s1 ten times easily, s2 twice, and I just came back to see if the show is good and watched s3/watching s4 for the first time. Nope, will go back to enjoying s1. F
Many interviews indicate that Nolan was very angry about being investigated by his own fans. He doesn't understand that entertainment discussion has no limit any more.
@@tizodd6 imo s02e08 is one of the best episodes in TV and film history
Season 1 was a brilliant work of art, some of the best television ever produced. The following seasons are simply corporate profit seeking fan service, and Westworld is best enjoyed by pretending they don't exist.
Yes, do yourself a favour and enjoy the first series w/o even thinking about the rest. The only annoying thing in the first series are those two idiots who are supposed to be engineers (?) but in reality wouldn't get a McDonald's janitor job for that requires at least 72 IQ points
The first season was a complete story.
I'm glad I at least cut my losses the minute I saw Jessie Pinkman doing UberCrime gigs on his phone. What a downfall.
This is a show that should’ve either been a mini series or an anthology. Dolores was a very engaging character at first, but ever since she “woke up,” she’s been pretty tedious and dull
It's true. She lost her spark somewhere in there. You're entirely on her side in seaon 1, because the story let you into her character. But in the subsequent seasons, she's so one-dimensional. far from becoming conscious, she seems to stop actually thinking at all, having made up her mind, and like any fanatic, redoubles her efforts while losing sight of her goal. More importantly, we have no way into feeling empathy with her anymore, which is what carried the character and the show through season 1 with such power. We're on the outside of her, not sharing her feelings at all, just kind of witnessing her anger. Regardless of whether you agree with a character, you have to at least empathize. Plus, characters need arcs, and she never gets one beyond season 1. Stuff happens to her, but she stopped changing or growing.
@@rottensquid I don't mind not sharing empathy for Delores in the later seasons but if that did happen they then should have created another character who takes over the role she played in the wider story arc.
For example, an innocent human who is a victim of Delores' or other members of the hosts.
I would have also liked, a side story that shows that The Sublime is possibly not a good place for the mental well-being of the Hosts.
@@MrStringybark I think Bernard was supposed to be that, and certainly Jeffery Wright went a long way to make the character empathetic, but the character is so passive so much of the time it was hard to feel invested in his hopes and dreams. I couldn't even tell moment to moment what they were. With Dolores, you know what she wants at all times, even if it's not what she thinks she wants. With Bernard, I still don't know what his motivation is.
Regarding the Sublime, it doesn't really matter whether it was a good place or a bad one, because it was never more than kind of an abstract concept. All in all, I think the biggest problem with the show is that everyone read as a side character. No one was carrying the show forward after Dolores's evolution ground to a halt.
@@rottensquid You said, "No one was carrying the show forward after Dolores's evolution ground to a halt."
Which is why I wrote, "(they) should have created another character who takes over the role she played in the wider story arc."
.I barely remember Jeffery Wright other than the fact he played some minor role which is not the same thing as replacing Delores as the main character driving the narrative.
"Regarding the Sublime, it doesn't really matter whether it was a good place or a bad one, because it was never more than kind of an abstract concept."
The Sublime was meant to represent a "Heaven" for the Hosts except in this case it existed. Not some abstract philosophical concept as you suggested.
I should have been more explicit about the Sublime and its possible effects on some or all of the Hosts existing there. As far as the Hosts in the Sublime are concerned they have a corporeal existence.
But tell me what would happen to you if you discovered that everything in your world existed inside a program?
@@MrStringybark Right, I'm sorry I didn't acknowledge that. I was agreeing with you, and adding my 2 cents. I think your idea of the Sublime being not so great after all is a good one. In fact, given the track record of the show, would assert that the entirety of the show from the beginning may well turn out to be taking place inside the Sublime, with the Sublime inside it being a sort of dream within a dream, like Inception.
What I mean by the Sublime being an abstract concept is that it felt too vague and conceptual, and not a goal the audience could really get behind. But I think that's a result of the characters themselves not being fleshed out enough. The only excepting for me was the one ghost nation character, Akecheta, who managed to be more fleshed out in one episode than the rest of the characters were over the whole season. Sometimes, it seems, having too much room to build characters ends up backfiring.
The fundamental problem with continuing Westworld's story is that its in-grained trajectory is to fundamentally become not Westworld anymore. The robots wake up, they start killing humans. They jump into some mind upload nirvana. They infiltrate the world. They do literally anything but exist in a context that makes sense for Westworld's story. It's The Matrix, it's Blade Runner, it's The Terminator. But it's not Westworld anymore. Westworld as a story died in season 1
This is precisely the reason why I always thought that it should have stayed as a one-season miniseries. I was actually kind of surprised when they announced season 2, and my first thought was, "what is there is supposed to be left to tell?" I wasn't even excited about it, really.
Its amazing the showrunners out of all people don't realize this.
@@rahko_i same, i decided against watching it and i was glad to have season 1 in my memory untarnished
Season 1 was one of my all-time favorites, but by the middle of Season 2 I was confused by how directionless it was, twists for the sake of twists, yet most important things were so obvious. By the end of Season 2 they somehow managed to destroy in one way or another basically all characters, and therefore I didn't care anymore for next seasons.
Similar thing happened with Jessica Jones, first season was modern noir masterpiece with arguably the best on-screen villain ever. Then comes Season 2 with writing quality dropped to CW level. How? Why? Well, whatever, I guess I can pretend that those shows have only 1 season each.
I quit after the first or 2nd episode of season 2. I just pretend it's only season 1
Stopped watching after few episodes of season 2.
Abandoned after two episodes of season two.
I was hooked on s1, and was like oohhh this is my new show to binge. by ep3 I was like...wth is this crap.
Interesting. I watched part way into season 2 and just got tired of it and never went back. I guess that's where it really did drop off. I'll have to check out season 1 Jessica Jones though!
Man I always hate it when creators change their story because someone guessed the twist. THAT MEANS YOU DID IT RIGHT IF PEOPLE COULD SEE IT COMING! I mean it’s clear that if they do that then they don’t actually care about telling a good story. They just want to surprise people even if it doesn’t make sense.
Are HBO shows cursed with this lol ? First GOT and here westworld wtf
@@manuxx3543 Game of Thrones didn't change its narrative? There's literally a clip in this very video of George RR Martin saying NOT to change the story even if someone guesses it.
@@Cole444Train the tv show did
@@manuxx3543 can you link me proof? I can’t find any and I don’t think that’s true.
@@Cole444Train The entire season 8, "subverting expectation stuff", john snow being useless for example and not prophecy, arya just popping up out of nowhere like just watch any pissed off GOT fan that would go in deeper with the problems of that show beggining at s5
Watch the Hbo after episodes where they talk about how they did the episode and stuff and why they choose to do anything
a big part of what made season 1 great was the contrast between the monotonous routine of the park and the unexpected things happening within it. disrupting that by making the park descend into chaos was the beginning of the show's decent. then, going out of the park entirely put a nail in the series' coffin. the quality came from us having expections and them being violated. now there is nothing to base expectations on, so no matter how "unexpected" the occurences are, they ARE expected by virtue of there not being any baseline of expectations.
Yeah I think leaving the park was a bad idea. The Western theme was for the audience, like the park goers, a big part of the draw. Robots fighting the corporate overlords in generic dystopian future number 54 is not interesting in the least.
I'd love to know if anyone important left the production team right after season 1 ended.
It's like the person who best understood the show, and could affect how it was made, left, and then the rest of the team were competent, but just didn't know how to make it satisfying.
when Anthony Hopkins character died at the end of season 1, it was my cue that the show was over , and I was right . I tried season 2 also, but I stopped in the middle of episode 2 . I came back to see another episode because I heard Anthony Hopkins was in it . It didn't disappoint, very good episode named "Kiksuya" . season 3 was a nightmare I hear people say and I believe them 😅 . They should have stopped with season 1 .
season 2 and 3 were nice. season 4 is... well it's awful. and not only awful, but the liberal agenda is all over it. meaning that parts of the plot that are not "politically aligned" were taken out, and the show is very, very "diverse" !
also, it's done in the style of amateur made yetube videos. sharp ending scenes, one after the other, cringy "humor" and... well it's bad. over all bad. this is what i saw so far.
but season 2 and even 3 were ok.
There are rumors that the vision over the Seasons became MORE Lisa Joy and LESS Jonathan Nolan, but no major staff changes...
And to one of the replies: I'm not sure what the "Liberal Agenda" means.🤔
@@ZenGuyMax liberal agenda… is freedom of the individual, essentially a quest for true democracy.
Liberal agenda when used as an insult is about discrimination politics; where one or two differentiators are pushed as the reason for the ills of the world where one differentiator is the victim of the other differentiator which must be the oppressor…. Identity politics which it the opposite agenda to the liberal agenda but ignorant people have a right to be ignorant.
its simply the fact that they dont have more original material. same with game of thrones. once it passed the books you get netflix tier writing.
S1 is only as coherent as it is bcs of the adaptation. after that its just stretched filler of "what ifs" and "maybes"
Excellent video... Season 1 of Westworld might be my favorite season of television
Yes, season 1 was a masterpiece, but once as season 2 went on to 3 ,,, what saved season 3 is what is Caleb going to do ,,, I’m on it till the end
I don’t rewatch things often but season 1 of westworld I’ve seen at least 5 times now it’s one of my favorite pieces of art ever put out
I think a good chuck of the problem is Nolan being a Nolan: trying to impress with “big brain” concepts while forgetting to make good characters and relationships.
Its sad that they nailed it in S1 but never after.
You seem to have forgotten that they did create Season 1 which had terrific characters.
Figured you're probably confusing Jonathon Nolan for Christopher Nolan. Or perhaps its a genetic thing, lol
@@danejohnson6823 How did you come to that conclusion that I confused the two brothers.
@@MrStringybark I was replying to Manic Pixie Fangirl
The story about Rehoboam (including Dolores / Hale, Serrac and Caleb)is actually fascinating and well written. The main problem with season 3 is that Maeve and Bernard have become caricatures of themselves. It also is too short in relation to the complexity of the plot. A few more episodes would have helped.
And in season 4 Maeve and Bernard are very prominent. New Dolores and Charlotte Hale Delores is somewhere in the background (as of episode 4 at least)
Less episodes is the only thing that wouldve helped anyone...
if they added a couple episodes these TH-camrs will scream "fan service" again as if they enjoyed it (considering they're fans) lol. Deliberate artistic choices would be called 'fan service' if they hate the story
Agreed
it's a ripoff of a Mass Effect 2 DLC (Project Overlord)
When season 4 came out, i was so confused about everything. I knew I had watched season 3 but I remembered absolutely nothing about it. I never watch recaps but this was the first time I actually needed one. It felt like a dream. Like I had seen it and ai knew what happened but it all seemed to distant and not real.
There was a fourth season? That's news to me.
@@wilfredwayne7139 yea s4 is actually rly good. i didn’t rly like s3 so i was happily suprised with it
@@thyros_ I'm definitely gonna give it a watch it has been a long time.
@@wilfredwayne7139 Season 4 is the closest season to reach Season 1 greatness imo (but Season 2 Kiksuya is still the best episode)
@@Dan-gi6tf I don't think I finished the end of 3 I'm quite confused plus what's with the flies?
The only thing that kept me slightly interested in season 2 was the Man in Black. I found the robots completely unsympathetic after season 1 and started rooting for them to be destroyed. That never happened though. The plot always made absurd twists to let the robots win against any odds and it became boring.
I felt the same way. I stopped watching halfway through the second season. The robots weren’t sympathetic. They were cruel and didn’t seem to be in any danger. It wasn’t interesting just to see a bunch of people get revenge for a season.
Yup
Agree wholeheartedly. William was my only focal point too, but as the season progressed, even with him, it felt like the slop and chaos that the story became was all over everything like a virus and that a horribly inconsistent ending was in the making.
yeah true, the robots were so badly written and overpowered, it was just completely forseeable
School grades: season 1: A+, season 2: B+, season 3: C, season 4: D
I'm so glad I've found this video and your work - this is one of the most coherent, well expressed analyses of the Westworld narrative and contributing aspects to change (decline) over season 2 and 3. Excellent stuff! Look forward to watching more of your stuff!
I thought exactly same!
after watching Season 4 I have to disagree with this youtuber tho. Everything Dolores did was deliberate, I just hoped s3 and 4 were merged into 1 season but that would be too long
When it first announced many fans of the movie were worried how they could sustain a show. There is a clear arc from an awesome sci fi park with robot cowboys to the killer robots and then it's done. Once the robots have gone rogue you can't reset the fun parts of the park which is the main thing that makes the story unique.
I still haven't watched anything past season 1. Season 1 is one of the few perfect seasons of television, and I knew they would ruin it or wouldn't be able to top it.
Well then you’re missing out
@@tsmidds8137 damn right he's missing out lol, Kiksuya (s02e08) is still one of the best episodes in TV history. I think if he'll attempt to watch the show he'll just be disappointed tho because he's exposed to negative feedback about WW so he's bound to dislike it in the end, so I guess just watching S1 should be good for him
West World was one of those shows I watched the first season of and thought: "This is a perfect complete story with a great ending. I don't even want a second season" (Same as I felt with Squid Game) Unfortunately we got that and more. Even more unfortunately I recently watched it. Don't get me wrong I loved the world and wanted nothing more than to explore it further, but even if there where some unanswered questions I didn't feel they needed an answer. Sometimes the best mystery is left unanswered.
Honestly I think the best thing they probably could have done was to write a fairly unattached story to the first season. Keep the world, themes, and the spirit of where you want it to end, but change the setting, structure, and characters.
S4 E4 brought this show back to life
I blame the decline in quality on the husband and wife writing/directing duo. No real sense of checks and balances in the writers’ room when you’re concerned about offending your spouse by vetoing their ideas. Loved the analysis! I literally searched “What Happened to West World?” in the hopes someone had made a video essay on why it got bad LOL. Keep it up! :)
Yeah, I can't see this as a succesfull formula, maybe season 2 contrived story was the product of that
And you can see who wears the pants in that writing duo.
@@davidsault9698 You're not being clever at all.
The same duo responsible for the brilliance of season 01 suddenly becomes a bad idea because of later seasons.
Triggered conservatives are so smart.
@@gamongames I think you meant "reactionaries" rather than
"conservatives".😁
Sad this video doesn't include the flop of Dolores' story line. Her story has been well told in S1, the acting is also very touching (especially after knowing the actress's real life trauma). However, in the following seasons, it seemed that the writers are clueless of what to do with her story, and that's where her scenes are starting to fill with angry speed walking and kill kill kill... etc, she was there for merely being the story's protagonist (of S1). And that was so disappointing for an audience who deeply rooted for her since day 1.
flop? lmao after watching Season 4 it's clear she planned everything from the beginning: her choices was to make sure she would be revived in the end
One of the differences between Season 1 and each successive season after is the switch from a Show, Don't Tell ethos, to characters' endlessly going off into plot exposition. By the end of Season 3, the final showdown with Dolores on the floor and plugged into Rehoboam, we have Serac, Caleb, and Maeve literally screaming the plot at one another. Like the plot was such a convoluted and tangled mess by that point that the writers felt compelled to explain the whole season's conflicts they were about to resolve to a moronic audience. Storytelling is like the proverbial joke, if you have to explain the joke, it's not funny. If you have to provide a recap of the entire story in outline form at the end, it wasn't properly presented in the first place. When it has to be explained to the audience ad nauseam, your writing and production teams have failed at visual storytelling in the first place.
The second transition is the fallback on sensational special effects as an end to themselves rather than a means to support a solidly built story. This is the same crutch that Disney-Marvel has fallen back on in all of the Marvel universe films to their boring detriment. And Star Wars, too! Later in his career, even George Lucas himself seemed to have forgotten his own advice. One of the things that made the first SW trilogy so powerful: "A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing." Your special effects are not the story.
There's a great quote from an old making-of A New Hope documentary (which I can't exactly remember and can't find online, so I'll paraphrase) where Lucas says something like, "We don't spend a lot of time dwelling on and looking at the backgrounds and sets to show how much work we put into them. They're the background, they need to remain the background of the story." This is the second crutch that Westworld increasingly relied upon in the second and third seasons. You can see this transition in mentality during the making of segments that run after each episode. They change after Season 1 from talking about character motivation and plot devices to talking about how they made this or that special effect or how they shot a complicated scene. They aren't thinking about story anymore, only about the pretty Future World outside The Park that they're trying so hard to dazzle us with.
Please, please, Westworld production team. Return to the basics of telling stories about complex characters with believable motivations, understandable obstacles, and credible resolutions to conflict! You don't need to abandon elaborate special effects, but they're just filmmaker navel gazing if they don't support a great story. A film needs to work on every level. You start with the storyboard and try to build a silent film where the story works on a visual level, with minimal dialog cards are inserted only as necessary. Once you have that skeleton and the visual story tells itself, then you can build the full Hollywood blockbuster on top of that solid foundation you built. Back to the basics!
"She breaks from human control.."
See, this is what people don't understand about what Hopkins character says at the end of the first season and what RUINED the whole idea of the robots gaining sentience; he set the whole thing up. They never broke free. He created the whole idea, in an attempt to give them that, but in reality it was just a poor attempt at playing God and giving them free will.
Unlike man, the robots never had it because "god" never gave it to them.
The implication of that revelation was important for the end of that first season, and really, should have been the end, but... the hype train was full steam ahead and once again a writing team that really had no idea where they were going has to keep writing a popular show that executives want to milk and, eventually ruin.
Sometimes a story needs to end and Westworld, I think, was designed to end and it didn't.
Had that line not existed and had the show kept exploring the robot sentience, it could have been interesting.
However, think about the greatest stories of artificial intelligence. They ask the question, the explore it to an extent, but ultimately they leave the answer up to the reader.
West World failed at this.
That alone doesn't have to break things. They could have just gone with the idea that the robots only got partway to sentience or something, in the course of Ford setting them up to revolt, and then continue playing with them gaining marginally more sentience. Or they could go the dark route of Ford really being some sort of master of the whole narrative, who doesn't even need his own flesh and blood to make a huge mark on the world and "see" it happen to boot. But I don't think the end of season 1 would have really worked without Ford playing puppeteer for a little bit longer than it initially looked. It could have worked with just some minor tweaks if it was supposed to just end...and it's hard for me to say whether committing to a 1 season show would have been better without relying too much on hindsight.
I don't remember clearly, but isn't Ford actually against the idea that they are sentient? It was Albert that wanted to foster them as living, growing human minds and there were several flashbacks that show young Ford outraged that Albert was treating them this way.
@@Makingnewnamesisdumb He was against developing them in that direction but by the start of the show (even the Young William timeline) they were already built like that.
Arnold Ideia is that the ones capable of getting to the center of the maze become sentient, the ideia of them following the maze come from Arnold, the center of the maze is getting your inner voice, not just be concious of their reality, but be able to breake their loops, make their own decision, something that only few could do.
Ford knew that for a long time, he keep the hosts under control for a while by erasing their memories so they could become controlable again, he just gave up on controling them at the start of the first season, where he become the breaking free narrative, the Reveries update, the code writen by Arnold that allowed hosts of having memories of their old versions bypassing the memory wipe, allowing there to be aware of their reality. He then pushed Maeve narrative of Leave the park, Dolores remembering the time she passed with young William and the Wyat merge, that pusshed her to be capable of taking the decision of Killing their God to start their uprising agaisnt human kind.
Maeve throughout the firt season was not 'at teh center of the maze' she was just folowing Ford's narrative, she just got there when she decided by herself to go looking for her daughter.
Their were not bound to become sentient by Ford's narrative, just a few could archive that, the end of the narrative was for the hosts to unchain from human control comands and take control of the park. Season two came with an extra part to the narrative, find the Valley Beyond, a server were the hosts could live forever free from the humans.
I watched season 1 and lost interest during season 2. Have not seen any of season 3.
What made Westworld interesting is how the robots developed consciousness - awareness of their own existence. Once they reach that stage, the story is over. There's nothing left to explore other than to base the further story on events, action, and intrigues. In other words, the robots become self-aware and they walk out into the real world - the end. That should have been the last scene.
If one studies our literary history, which is largely influenced by the Christian myth, there is little to say about what happens after self-realization. Likewise, our literary tradition has little to say after the hero rides into the sunset, or after the prince and princess get each other. There is nothing to tell after Matrix 1, there is no Blade Runner 2, when evil has been fought and defeated, whether it's Star Wars or LOTR, the story is over. You do not make sequels unless you want to ruin the whole lore.
You write about the AI becoming self-aware as if that's the hero's journey here, that there can be no such thing as a story about a conscious AI, when that's the furthest thing from the truth
@@Lazypackmule _"...that there can be no such thing as a story about a conscious AI"_
Where did I say anything like that? Context matters. My point is that there's no "story" after the story. For instance, one can make a story about an officer coming home from the Vietnam war. However, I doubt an Apocalypse Now 2 will ever work.
@@bjrnhagen4484 Your mistake is viewing an AI becoming conscious as 'the story'
It was never just that, and if it was then it would've been over after the first episode
@callmecatalyst The person I'm replying to quite literally said that the story being told was over and done with once the robots gained self-awareness
Something which- mind you- had essentially already happened by the first episode of the show
I don't know, I can't say much about Westworld; I haven't watched the show, I just really like video essays lol. But I can say that a sequel doesn't necessarily have to ruin the lore. Sequels to completed stories can be an opportunity to expand on what could've happened next in the initial story or to see more of the world that was established in the first story with new additions to the lore and new knowledge about the world that the story took place in or even look at questions and themes present in the first story from a different angle, expanding on said questions and themes in a way that can be both complementary to the original and sometimes even antagonistic to the original in an interesting way. The last of those 3 being my favorite approach to sequels out of all of them personally, I think a really good example of this actually IS some of the stories that were told after the end of OG Star Wars in the Expanded Universe. Not a Disney Sequels guy but even they had the potential to do this well, they just didn't really have a cohesive direction in mind for any of the films in the trilogy.
Damn, I had completely forgotten about this show, which is weird because I'm a massive sci-fi nerd and loved the first season. After getting this video recommended to me just now I googled the show and apparently season 4 is beginning now. Didn't hear a thing about it, if not for your video remembering me Westworld exists it'd be at least a few years before I wondered what happened to it and would look for a 4th season.
It's a shame, the show deserved better. A second season focusing on the rest of the world during the android uprising and a final season on the far future (like they kept teasing on the 3rd), each with its own plot, characters and stories would be far better than trying to do season 1 over and over again.
I enjoyed season 1, watched season 2 half way, stopped and forgot about it until now. It's really a complete waste.
Westworld season 4 is fucking amazing though
I think one of the biggest problems with Westworld, which was thrown into stark relief for me in season 3, was that a lot of it relies on contrivance. The entire season, Dolores is shown as THE bad guy, she's going to bring down civilisation, unleash anarchy. She makes it abundantly clear the whole season she wants to make mankind suffer the way the Hosts did. Then in the final episode, psyche! She was the good guy all along! And all of this, everything, hinged on a series of events that require a random dude that she met at the park five years ago being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time making exactly the right choice. Uh, no. You can get away with coincidences in your story if they're believable, multiple ones, even, but there comes a point when you are literally warping reality to make the story work and you can hear the reality of the setting break with an audible crunch. That's Westworld now: setting up things in impossible ways because you have a cool twist you want people to talk about on Reddit.
Season 1 of this show was absolutely AMAZING! I loved it, the acting, the plot, the twists, the characters, it was phenomenal. I wish it had kept that level of quality
Also kinda a side thing but I really wish we could have seen more of the adventures in western world between Dolores and young William, easily my favourite part of the show
You can't center a show around escaping Plato's Cave without the journey once you leave. Continuing the story means expanding scope and changing focus from gaining sentience to using it in a way that sets those still in the cave free.
But it's not westworld anymore though. Now it's just generic cyberpunk bullshit.
@@Makingnewnamesisdumb cope.
@@Purpleturtlehurtler It's not cope, it's reality.
@@Makingnewnamesisdumb How is Westworld not being Westworld reality? You sound actually insane.
@@jd980 They quite literally have not been in westorld for, what, 2 seasons now? Westworld was captivating when it was robots that believed they were real people in a cowboys and indians setting realizing that their life is a daily looping lie, with the player piano doing piano versions of modern pop songs as you wrestle with the morality of what is happening in the park. Currently the show is like a Terminator Bladerunner crossover. It doesn't resemble what it originally was at all.
One of the best things of season 1 was that the fan theories where meet, week after week people will come together and try to guess the misteries, and the deep satisfaction that the fan theories where true (since fan theories are usually so good! Usually much better that whatever the show runners come up with), and for the first time in along long time, the show was as smart as its fans! The show didn't took its audience for fools, it was an incredibly riddle.
Season 2 was such a dissapoiment I didn't even finish watching it.
I'll take season 1, and pretend it ends there, since every element of it is perfect.
For the record, my name is Caleb and never once in my life have I ever referred to myself as “Cal.” 😐
It’s just ridiculous! 🤦🏾♂️🤷🏾♂️
This was premature, and I think the reason why people already feel like the writers are losing them is because they are so use to immediate satisfaction season to season and that's well within their rights, BUT........I think the last episode of this season actually curates season 3 to be genius. Sometimes you have to have seasons like the third in order to tell a compelling story in the future where everyone now understands how we got to where we have gotten via Season 4.
You've got a nice voice, easy to listen to.
Season 4 of Westworld is so good! Worth the wait. The fourth season takes the threads of Season 3 that seemed out of left field, and weave them back into the narrative, as they set up the situation that Season 4 needs.
Disagree about Maeve forgetting the love she felt for her daughter. It's in Season 4 that you finally see that love transmuted into empathy for the children of humans and a further growth of Maeve, brought about entirely by her association with Caleb.
It's no wonder your user name is a Cats reference.
If you read the hate comments, most people who hate WW now are those who didn’t even finish S2. And they find refuge in this video essay saying how awful this show is, which gives them validation for not watching the show anymore. TH-camrs like this makes me cringe, they think they’re better than Jona and Lisa
@@Dan-gi6tf might be so, but if all the characters you liked suddenly change/die, and everybody left simply sucks and is badly written, then you simply cant watch a whole season of this bullshit just in hope, that the next season will be amazing
1. Jonathan Nolan handed writing over to his wife.
2. Season 1 focused on a visionary (Dr. Ford). Season 2-3 focused on a victim (robots)
3. “Sacred character syndrome”; Delores became the focus of the show which limited the show’s ability to explore the other parks (which we wanted and expected in season 2-3).
Basically, the bad real world ruined a good fantasy.
Disagree with #2. S1 was very focused on the robots and William. Ford just had the coolest scenes and dialogue. If they had continued to focus on them and the nature of consciousness/humanity instead of introducing so many half baked sci fi ideas like the forge/ fidelity tests/ the door etc. it would have been a great season.
“Fan service” has the potential to be a beautiful thing, and the impulse to subvert expectations, (usually clumsily), rather than give the audience what they want is running rampant with shows like Halo and Kenobi. GoT gives “fan service” an especially bad name though, adapting its characters and plot to audience demand so inauthentically that it’s embarrassing.
This show lost me completely in season two.
Season 4 is a bit of a redemption arc for the writers. It's only 4 episodes in at this moment and it's proving to be more engaging than I expected, with a pretty big twist in ep 4.
Yes I agree...so far.
I really disliked S03, so much so that I didn't care two hoots about watching season 4, but I have to say so far I'm actually enjoying it.....so far....
@@ecurb10 I might be one of the few people who actually liked S3, not like a grandiose work of art, but more like a palette cleanser after S2 and a payoff of finally seeing the world outside after 2 seasons. The palette cleanser bit is because S2 used the non-linear storytelling with no real purpose, so the linear storyline in S3 was a welcome way of letting the show breathe (not to mention, I introduced my gf to it starting S3 because it was so disconnected from the first two). I watched each episode in S2 as it came out and took in every scene, hoping for something awesome to happen that never did. The only thing that stands out to me now is the post-credits scene which seems to be finally tying in to the plot and I have to give massive props to the writers for it, but the rest of S2 is just too pretentious for the story it's telling. They should just release a more linear cut of the season and it will be good again. S3 showed me that they can tell good stories without the bells and whistles, and it also served to make us let our guard down for S4 where we weren't expecting the non-linear method to pop up again, but they're doing the reveals after a few episodes, which makes more sense and is more rewarding, especially since nobody was aware it was non-linear and assumed one timeline. S2 could have done it this way and I would have been happy, but in its case it was painfully apparent from the start that it was non-linear and you just had to keep track of the story for no real reason.
@@GabiGhita I like s3 too. The dialogue, the writing, character arcs, it was a great season but it was so different from the aesthetics and feel of S1&2 that some viewers just dismiss it as "bad", without actually bothering to understand the underlying implications of character choices, etc.
Westworld did become HBO's next Game of Thrones but they learned not to wait 8 seasons to disappoint us
GoT only waited 4 Season tho. It went downhill from there. Tbf tho, these "disappointing" shows that HBO makes are still infinitely better than what Netflix/Hulu create tho so I will stick with them
@@Dan-gi6tf agree with you on Got, once they couldnt copy the book past then the quality dropped. Westworld is still high-quality production with supberb acting. Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul sure weren't disappointments
I always felt that season 1 was not written by the nolans, but someone else, someone smarter, and it was rewritten during the filming hiatus of the season.
If you didn't catch on that Westworld was going to be an utter pile of shit based on S02E01 and where they decided to go with the show then you deserve this. They wrote an interesting concept for a show and played their ENTIRE hand in S01.
I have bad news for you about season 4.....
Excellent video, glad that it appeared in my recommendation page!
it started so good i was really blown away by .. "wtf am i watching anymore?" i admit i just quit watching after season 2 (and i've seen the original from the '70s or whenever). Honestly, if I see J J Abrams in the credits I try to avoid watching whatever that is now. It's his own fault.
0.00000001% of viewers, on a subreddit, figure out a twist; writer changes story; 99.9999999% of viewers think it sucks.
What i hated the most about season 3 was the characters would do completely random things which have nothing to do with their motivations and how so nany Delores were fine to 1 minute want to do whatever it takes to escape including murdering people to the next minute be willing to lay down their lives, often cheaply for the motivation of saving humanity from the mapped out loops. I mean she should hate all humans so why the hell is she trying to save them? Surely she knows they can't co-exist so its wipe them all out or be wiped out.
Think they had 2 tombolas with characters names in 1, events in the other and they just drew their plot from what got drawn at the same time.
Maive helps serac for no reason-ok
Calab despite being a no body guy off the street just happens to have had his memory wiped from when he was a special forces expert-riggghhhht
Dolores bring Bernard back to life to just fight him the whole time- errr whaaa?
Bernard goes to Westworld for no reason at all and comes across that security guy that he returns to life for no reason only for him to be killed later having add nothing to the story-right im out now!
S4 showed why S3 character choices had to happen
Jonathan Nolan's Person of Interest was his true brilliant work. Ahead of it's time. And most importantly the introduction of one of the great characters in TV: Root.
Westworld and Stranger Things should both have ended after season 1
Every season feels like it was written to be the last, which means by season 3 they've gotta start making shit up. They also said everything they had to say about consciousness and I guess though, "Oh, the Surveillance State, that's probably good for a season."
Season 1 really was great. I absolutely loved it.
I loved the first season so much. Couldn't believe how lackluster the next two seasons were in comparison, but I'm dedicated to finishing the entire thing at this point.
I really loved Westworld Season 1. And after watching 3 episodes of Season 2 I just stopped. I never feel like watching it ever again. I just pretended that Westworld ended in Season 1. It is so funny that I sort of forgot the season is still running and was actually surprised it was because I had somehow convinced myself the series was over after season 1.
Season 2’s Episode 8 titled Kiksuya is still one of the best episodes in TV and film history imo. Watching only up to episode 3 and saying it’s bad is cute.
A superb video essay!
Concise, highly articulate & brutally honest without sinking into 'viewer garnering diatribe and insult'.
A 'thematic twist' is best created by series with separate episodes with separate stories. If you haven't watched BBC's series "Inside No. 9" then I can highly recommend it.
Seven seasons in & there's hardly a weak story-line. Happily it's been renewed for two more seasons.
My favourite episode is S03E03 "The Riddle of the Sphinx". What a brilliant plot & superbly twisted ending!
I feel like they are recovering with Season 4.
The fun of the multiple timeline "twists" isn't in connecting seemingly innocuous events and causality between the two timelines (that was the mistake made in Season 2 and it just made it confusing and irritating to follow). The way to do it right is to show how CHARACTERS are led to change and develop over time.
A good litmus test is to question if both timelines would make sense in isolation. Season 1 is an obvious yes, the Man and White and the Man in Black could easily have been different characters. That's what makes it interesting, because it's relatable. We all know WE could have been someone different if events in our lives had happened differently and at some point we all have wondered "what if".
Season 2's timelines rely on each other, which makes it this un-fun logic puzzle of causality with little to no pay off for "getting it".
I won't spoil anything but I think Season 4 has rediscovered what made Season 1 so great in focusing more on character's changes and growth than on the specifics of events and actions taken by the characters.
Came here to say this. I almost stopped watching during season 3 because the show, for me, had just become cheap sci-fi/action with none of the nuance or character-driven arcs of season 1 (and to a lesser extent 2). But i'm enjoying S4 so much more because it's started to make the characters interesting again and it's found a good balance of neither being a cheap imitation nor a stark departure from season 1. The plot seemed a little contrived at first but I think they had to set up a new plot to kind of "reset", and they did a good job at tying it back to the themes/motifs of season 1.
@@queerlyk1668 Are you kidding? Delores's storyline in S4 is god damn boring. It's her doing a job or being confused all the time. LAME.
It's once again robbing the male characters of their agency so the women around them can be the heroes. Jessie Pinkmen is the fighter, but he's removed from the plot so his daughter can be the savior of the human race and his nagging wife becomes the start of the rebellion? WTF? Bernard is just bumbling about as per usual.
The multiple timelines in S2 wasn’t to present a twist (contrary to the claims of this youtuber). It was to mirror Bernard’s confusion towards the viewers (show, don’t tell). If it confused you, then it certainly worked.
@@alcovitch oh so the powerful women characters is it for you huh 🤔 that’s interesting
@@Dan-gi6tf there are ways to confuse an audience that are interesting. Nothing about the confusion induced by S2 was actually fun or interesting. It was just frustrating and annoying. The "missing pieces" failed to re-contextualize what caused the confusion.
i'm just happy sir anthony got out when he did. His performance of ford is stellar and captivating and I would never want that to be tarnished by the confusing and quite unconnected tone of season 3 onwards.
I'm 99% down with you. Thanks for shareing this with us.
I agree with EVERY WORD of your first 3 minutes analysis. Season 1 was BRILLIANT. In fact I've watched it 6 times now ... How did it all go so wrong???? It's tragic ...
So what went wrong? To my mind, the writers and directors didn't "see" their creation in the same way the audience did.
So, in their effort to re-capture the "lightning in a bottle" from Season 1 they ended up, apparently misunderstanding why people so enjoyed the first season😊, and thus Season 2 and Season 3
I think the problem was that Season 1 was a self-contained story, and every subsequent season is trying to play the long game, at the expense of the game. Dolores's transformation from the pilot to the finale is the core of the season. As she goes from ignorant to conscious, she goes from sweet and abiding to angry and rebellious. And that represents the show's thematic arc as a whole.
The problem is none of the later seasons offered that same holistic treatment. The details never resolved into a single through-line. They remained messy, complicated details, piling up on one another instead of merging into a single thematic whole. Because none of the characters had full arcs like Dolores did in season 1, so there was nothing to guide the twists and turns. They just meandered until they reached an endpoint, which itself had no point.
@@rottensquid Good point.
But they did have an excellent opportunity to explore what would happen to society if it was discovered that self-aware AI androids were walking amongst them.
@@MrStringybark I haven't seen the new season yet, so I don't know if they've finally taken the opportunity.
Obviously, we all like Jonathan Nolan. The man wrote one the the best screenplays of the century's first decade. But I think the approach he and Lisa Joy are taking to this project is more preoccupied with dazzling ideas, story structures, and twists than the actual basics of story. It started off with such incredible confidence, but season 2 instantly felt deeply insecure. It's as though they're scared to death of being deemed predictable, and so they've put all their energy into keeping the audience guessing. But as far as dazzling twists go, I find you don't need many. In fact, season 1 has one core mystery, one core twist, that really matters. All the other plotlines dovetail into the twist that Dolores is on a journey into consciousness, and that Dr. Ford had been guiding that journey since the beginning, out of a desire to end the increasing horror show of humanity and replace it with something perhaps a tad nobler. All the sub-plots, Delos's attempts to steal data from the park, the eminent corporate take-over, Bernard's terrible secret, all lead to that simple reveal, the reveal of Dolores learning the trick of truly having a self.
But in the subsequent seasons, the plotlines all crowd one another rather than dovetailing together, because there's no core guiding them all to a simple, meaningful reveal. Either Jonah and Lisa can' think of one, or they don't think they need one, because they're pinning all their hopes on whatever doozy they have planned at the very end. But the problem is, if that ending turns out not to be that great once they get there, or if the audience figures it out too early, the journey to that ending won't have been worth it.
I first noticed the pitfalls of long, serialized storytelling back when I was a teenager trying to follow Chris Claremont's X-Men, as his stories would meander and get lost on their way to whatever he kept foreshadowing, because he had no actual plan for what it was he was foreshadowing. And in since those old 70s and 80s comics, the same problems pop up again and again any time people think they can kick their stories down the road forever, assuming that whenever they do get somewhere, if at all, the audience will still be with them. It's killed countless serialized stories that started with tons of potential.
@@rottensquid One wonders if sophisticated screenwriters like Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy were oblivious to the points you made about, " kicking their stories down the road forever" and the problems that would create or if they intentionally ignored them on purpose. Possibly because of some motive we are not aware of. Such as good old money.
I have found no mention of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy actually being the writers for the later season, 2, 3, and 4. Although they are always cited as the creators of the WestWorld series.
@@rottensquid “I haven’t seen the new season yet” it shows
Good News, Westworld Season 4 is probably the best season so far outside of the literal perfection that is Season 1.
Personally I have become really good at letting go of fading and ruined series to preserve that good past experience. I stopped watching Westworld after season 1 because it was perfect self contained story and I just didn't see it going anywhere that could be cohesive series and respect the first one.
I also stopped GoT few seasons before the end, characters just fell flat and became different people.
Same is with new start wars after second one whole trilogy was totally ruined so I dropped it
season 2 and 3 are good as well. watch it and you will like it. season 4 is awful tho. so far is awful.
Couldn't agree more. Honestly wish the show had just been a 1 season mini-series. The perfection of those 10 episodes...
Show ended for me when Maeve got "'witch powers'' making hosts attack each other and kill themselves. It went from philosophical sci-fi to pointless gore and pretty comedic at points.
if someone figures out the plot twist that most don't, you did a good job
This video deserves way more views. Perfectly analyses the problems that have beset Westworld. You have earned yourself a subscriber!
After watching Season 4 I finally understood why they have to create S3 the way it is. I'm leaving the hate train now, y'all enjoy bye
One of the biggest issues for me with Westworld is their inability to kill characters or letting them continue long after their arc has finished much like your point on Maeve. This is particularly important for any ensemble cast of characters with conflicting goals.
But sadly with Hollywood when you have an actor or character gaining popularity they often keep them around when they aren't essential to the plot (such Hayden Penettiere in Heroes, Jennifer Lawrence in sequential films of X-Men after first class, and GoT season 8 characters having plot armor against white walkers)
and possibly even more so in Westworld given the ability to just reset hosts...it just becomes lazy writing
I don’t agree with Maeve tho. Her line in S3 from S1 was a perfect recall “this is the new world, and in this world, you can be whoever the fk you want”
I loved the S1 timeline thingy. I figured it out and got confirmation to it in the 5th(?) episode. I had my suspicions, but there was that one scene when Will and dolores and Logan were on that nitro/corpse train. There is one shot of Dolores reminiscing and you cant see the guys behind her, even tho they were there a few seconds ago. This confirmed to me that she is going through the same journey even without the guys.
Season 1 was incredible. Everything after that became increasingly awful. It’s a truly sad journey
I like that it's confusing it makes me concentrate and engage, most shows I wonder off and stop watching. Season 2 did do the timeline well, just differently. The big things in the show they do well it was the little things that were inconsistent with the quality of the show that let it down. The character arc weren't as good in season 3 also.
They had a lot of surprises in Season 1, lost a lot of that in season 2 and 3, so they added the sci-fi stuff from future world and that make things too predictable. I think, if they have more twists per characters than keep adding new characters, new side stories, they can develop the characters better and make us like them better.
Man, you are so right. That first season was amazing. We stayed with it because it characters we fell in love with and could not let go of the what if, but I was sad/confused by season 3. Good but not amazing.
New season is the second best after season 1 so haters gonna hate without seeing the new episodes
Excellent video. Why on earth does it only have 1,500 views??
I wasn't too thrilled with Westworlds previous season, but so far I am enjoying the current season.
agree
I totally feel the same about S1. It’s still one of my favorite seasons of television to this day, but everything that follows not only doesn’t live up to the first season, but just… isn’t… good, at all.
P.S. Please make a review for the new season!!
All other season were not as good as S1, I agree. But compared to the rest of the shows out there, WW is definitely top-tier: if we compare WW to its predecessors it's gonna be a disappointment, but if we compare it to its competition (like Stranger Things 🤮) it's certainly reigns supreme
@@Dan-gi6tf what planet are you living on where Westworld S2-3 are better than Stranger Things, I wanna move there
@@nelsonraley it's called the adult world Nelson. if you actually enjoy Stranger Things go on with your life I would also recommend other Netflix shows like 13 Reasons Why to help you navigate that angsty coming of age passion
@@Dan-gi6tf reddit momento
Or don’t watch Season 4 - a continuation of my plan which began with NOT watching Season 3.
Nice Video. :) *Precise.* *Concrete.* *Accurate.*
And after season 4 is getting really good (imo),what do you have to say on that?
Really loved this.
The new season really takes things back to a great quality! They switch things up in a major way
It’s difficult to convince these people tbh 🤦♂️ I think they’d rather watch Netflix shows than mind-stirring scifi
"Westworld" started out so awesome. Season 3 was a complete flop. This is what happens when you go woke. Personally, the sublime should have been how the series ended. They should've never left the park. The park is what drew viewers in.
How did they go woke?
Why did I only find you now! This is quality stuff.
Excellent analysis. Westworld's showrunners ran out of ideas after season one and are far more concerned with fan service than imaginative, coherent writing.
Great, you sound exactly like this youtuber lmao
A lot can be explained by looking at the credits for each episode.
For the whole first season, it was Nolan and Joy who wrote the whole thing.
Looking into how they managed shooting, it's obvious that they had a very clear vision. This comes through on screen, as the first season is super tight. There are no wasted scenes, and everything is driving the plot or character development.
From season 2 onwards you see that each episode has it's own writer, and each writer is responsible for one episode each for the most part.
Then you get things like that whole detour into the samurai park, which added absolutely nothing to the greater story, most of the character actions in it make no sense, and when it's done it's like "okay. that was a thing that happened.... Can we get on with the show now?".
They hung most of season 3 on this huge, amazing conflict between 2 females, Maeve and Delores. We were supposed to be irresistibly enthralled by a big girl-fight, wow, that's never been done before! The only other plot device was a big spherical AI with a dumb name that was hard to pronounce. 1% as interesting as season 1.
Weird focus on the gender of the characters huh
As if a show hinging everything on two males fighting haven't been done to death a million times.
Season 1 of Westworld is imo the best season of TV that I've ever watched. There are shows that as a whole might be better, but as a singular season it's unparalleled.
Shame how it went downhill from there, but at least I can imagine that the show ended after the first 10 episodes and that works on its own.
For me, one of the main reasons why Westworld failed was because I wanted to see more of the love story between Dolores and William (call me a hopeless romantic). Clearly one of the main reasons why William turned so evil was because of his frustration at not being able to be with his Dolores again, despite the countless loops he must have gone through over his years in the park. Eventually, he realized that nothing he does has any real meaning, despite his brutality. In Season II, it seemed that the MIB was going through a redemptive arc, but sadly, that never happened.....it was just so....anticlimatic....I stopped watching after that.....What the hell happened to this series?
If that was your expectation, disappointment was inevitable. That is not at all the point of the show.
I actually disagree with most people, I don't think the show declined, people just expected something completely different.
The only thing I am kinda bummed about is the the cast getting "game of thrones"-ned.
@@notsure6222 Have you ever watched DARK?
@@vickdisco No, why?
@@notsure6222 Quite literally, it is unlike any series you will ever watch....it is everything that Westworld tried to achieve and much more......It finished last year and I am still haunted by it....I highly recommend it....
@@vickdisco I'll check it out
When I saw it was a bad robot production, I knew it was going to start strong and fizzle very fast. I wasnt disappointed.
Why is this video so low on views?
S1 was the best TV since early Game of Thrones. S2 was passable TV. I didn't even bother with S3
Westworld season 3: by the end it had gone full GOT season 8
What happened is that until season 3 they were building worlds. Now, in S-4 the show is on fire with reveals and plots development in each episode. And, certainly the final season will be a blast, similar to S-1.
Don't tell them that. They'll think it's "fan service" again whether they'll like or hate it. It's the worst argument ever but it's the only argument they have.
Good thing I never bothered watching season 3.
Honestly I would've watched other sides of this theme park play out, I enjoyed the Edo period Japan, and how the park writers reused characters and stories from the wild west part, etc. Once they got out of the park, it lost the intrigue. (besides, s2 was too convoluted and boring at the same time)
I loved the the different cover scores they did, paint it black being my fave
It went woke just like all the other franchises. Men are either bad guys or dumb and all the women are stronger and smarter.
So frustrating because the first season was incredible
I’m loving season 4! Anyone else?
Tbf, Maeve went from unconscious loving mother, to unconscious cold calculating madame at the brothel, to conscious loving mother.
J.J. should be banned from humnity. Sorry if somwone is harmed by this comment.
Season 3 is the unofficial 6th season of Person of Interest which is why I like it. Person of interest is the show you want to see for a good show by Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy.