Television

Kipo and the age of Wonderbeasts on Netflix is adorable and fun. I have a soft spot for shows where music is powerful and it has a big part in this show.

 
swamp jazz box set said:
I think this is good. Let it be what it is. In hindsight, Westworld would have been great as just one season, as well. Sometimes, it's good to let there be questions and allusions of future events that we can imagine and debate without seeing.
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I think WestWorld can still be a satisfying story, I'm really intrigued with the s3 trailer and I liked the upside down logic of s2.
 
ChristoBee said:
I think WestWorld can still be a satisfying story, I'm really intrigued with the s3 trailer and I liked the upside down logic of s2.
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If I recall, when the show started the creators stated had a *5 season arc already worked out for the series and as long as everyone is heading to a known endpoint I think WW should finish off solid.

EDIT: looked it up and it appears they have a 5 season arc planned.
 
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I really liked WW season 1 and think the puzzle box reveal at the end was worth the obtuseness. Season 2 was a huge let down for me. At the time that season 2 was airing, I was frequently crossing paths with one of the main actors and they expressed a similar confusion and frustration over the direction that season 2 went in the final half of episodes. I'm not sure if that was just their own unpopular opinion or if it was a general sentiment amongst the cast and crew that things lost their way a little bit. Now that I'm typing it, did HBO or any show runners talk about the season after it aired and address its reception?

All that said, I'll try season 3 and see if moving to the outside world and bringing in new characters is an opportunity for a fresh slate and a re-focusing of things. It could be a cool way to soft-reboot the show while keeping all the main folks' stories going.
 
swamp jazz box set said:
I really liked WW season 1 and think the puzzle box reveal at the end was worth the obtuseness. Season 2 was a huge let down for me. At the time that season 2 was airing, I was frequently crossing paths with one of the main actors and they expressed a similar confusion and frustration over the direction that season 2 went in the final half of episodes. I'm not sure if that was just their own unpopular opinion or if it was a general sentiment amongst the cast and crew that things lost their way a little bit. Now that I'm typing it, did HBO or any show runners talk about the season after it aired and address its reception?

All that said, I'll try season 3 and see if moving to the outside world and bringing in new characters is an opportunity for a fresh slate and a re-focusing of things. It could be a cool way to soft-reboot the show while keeping all the main folks' stories going.
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Lisa Joy or whatever the co-creator (not Nolan) said that they purposefully made S2 the way they did because Reddit figured out the surprise of S1 during the first episode. When you purposefully write something like that just to fuck with one segment of your audience, you've already failed. Instead of writing a good story, they wrote a convoluted story and that's what we got.
 
I thought the backend of the season two of WW came together alright and some of the one off episodes were amazing (the Samurai World ep and the Ghost Nation ep in particular) and once everything was all said and done they basically gave themselves a clean slate for season 3 which will hopefully clean up the overarching plot a bit.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
I thought the backend of the season two of WW came together alright and some of the one off episodes were amazing (the Samurai World ep and the Ghost Nation ep in particular) and once everything was all said and done they basically gave themselves a clean slate for season 3 which will hopefully clean up the overarching plot a bit.
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Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed season 2 but I could also see the huge problems they made/had in it. I also enjoyed both those episodes but saw them more as window dressing than actually feeding into the overall story but maybe my memory/recollection of them is off.
 
Clint Howard said:
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed season 2 but I could also see the huge problems they made/had in it. I also enjoyed both those episodes but saw them more as window dressing than actually feeding into the overall story but maybe my memory/recollection of them is off.
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You are right on all accounts. Those episodes were definitely breaks from progressing the overall plot but I am completely fine with that when they make for great tv unto themselves. I remember laughing giddily when the Wu-Tang cover started playing and you just knew shit was about to go down in the Samurai ep and the Ghost Nation ep was an amazing love story. I think it only highlights your point more that those are the most memorable eps IMO though, rather than the main storyline which was overlong and a bit convoluted.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
You are right on all accounts. Those episodes were definitely breaks from progressing the overall plot but I am completely fine with that when they make for great tv unto themselves. I remember laughing giddily when the Wu-Tang cover started playing and you just knew shit was about to go down in the Samurai ep and the Ghost Nation ep was an amazing love story. I think it only highlights your point more that those are the most memorable eps IMO though, rather than the main storyline which was overlong and a bit convoluted.
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All of the covers (or at least most of them) have been so fucking good. Not sure if that should be credited to the Ramin Djawadi or their music supervisor. The Motion Picture Soundtrack cover from season 1 may be one of my favorite television moments of all time.
 
The Ghost Nation episode was excellent. It also conflicted with some of the ideas they established about hosts, IMO, and it was a kind of storytelling they didn't use before or after. That's more of a knock on the overall show, since I would love a version of WW that played more vague and less technical with the level of agency hosts have and left more space for us to project our own humanity on to the hosts. Getting very technical and explain-y with stories about sentience, identity, and agency–much like with time travel stories–actually makes it harder for me to connect to the emotional and human core of the story. Give me enough details to buy the magic and then give me space to insert my own experiences and feelings. I thought the performances in the Ghost Nation episode achieved the effect that they wanted for the other hosts in the main story but have, IMO, failed to achieve because it's become more about the puzzle box and a technical illustration of every decision a host makes.
 
swamp jazz box set said:
I really liked WW season 1 and think the puzzle box reveal at the end was worth the obtuseness. Season 2 was a huge let down for me. At the time that season 2 was airing, I was frequently crossing paths with one of the main actors and they expressed a similar confusion and frustration over the direction that season 2 went in the final half of episodes. I'm not sure if that was just their own unpopular opinion or if it was a general sentiment amongst the cast and crew that things lost their way a little bit. Now that I'm typing it, did HBO or any show runners talk about the season after it aired and address its reception?

All that said, I'll try season 3 and see if moving to the outside world and bringing in new characters is an opportunity for a fresh slate and a re-focusing of things. It could be a cool way to soft-reboot the show while keeping all the main folks' stories going.
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Indymisanthrope said:
I thought S2 was exhausting.
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We almost stopped watching season 2 of WW. It was really non sequitur, IMHO. They jumped around and sort of showed us cool stuff but it was too much. I agree @Bennnnn I like the idea behind it. I love shows that delve into other forms of consciousness. But the execution was just confusing in a lot of places.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
With all the new streaming options currently available I was barely keeping my Netflix subscription as it was. This might put me over the top.
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I agree and as they lose out on their older catalog of other network's stuff, they really need to step it up their programming. Even a lot of the stuff I've seen raved about on Reddit was fucking awful (in my humble opinion of course) but this was some serious almost-prestige level television.
 
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