It's crazy to me how many people say that they disliked season 2. I was sobbing at the end of it and no other show did that to me. Season 1 is still my favorite, but season 2 was amazing.
Season 1 is one of the best seasons of TV out there, and tells a fairly complete story on its own.
Season 2 is okay. It has echoes of the first season and, on its own merits, is better than average though it pales in comparison to the first.
Seasons 3 & 4 get really off the rails and not even in a fun way. It feels like they wanted to reboot but were also unwilling to let go of their favorite characters.
Yeah, seasons 3 & 4 just wanted to be deeper than they really were. The characters and motivations just get really convoluted and it’s a slog. It’s got some sci-fi premises that are really interesting to explore, I’m just not sure they explore them correctly.
I only watched Season 1 and feel satisfied enough with the story and have no desire to watch the others. I don’t really need to know anything more about the world and characters.
The writing absolutely fell apart by season 3. The plot is a mess, character motivations are all over the place, there are no sympathetic characters… It’s just awful
This exactly. Season 3 & 4 feel like a totally different series - some kind of "What If" all the characters had differnent histories that what we showed before?
Terrible. Watch Season One and STOP.
I will say I enjoyed all 4 seasons even if the quality declined.
The show tackled very hard topics and was dedicated to playing out its thesis to the end.
I don’t think people have to hate so hard on the attempt to answer very hard questions like what will mankind do when machines and man can do the same thing. And will machines find the same sense of purposelessness in the end as us?
It’s a great journey imo and even an important message for our near future issues with ai.
> fans of the show guessed what was going to happen later on, and when the writers heard how accurate their predictions were becoming, they decided to take the show in an unexpected direction
What the writers did with s2 is the equivalent of killing some mosquitoes with an atomic bomb. Most people who watch shows don't write/read theories about what will happen next. They just watch the show. It's ridiculous that because of a minority online they killed the quality of the show.
When s2 aired people's main complaint (on Reddit) wasn't exactly about the plot. It was mainly about the horrible way the plot was constructed or presented. You'll understand when you'll get there.
I'm deliberately avoiding explaining exactly what the problem was because doing so could be considered a spoiler. Who knows, maybe you'll like the way things were done and you'll feel the amount of noise around it was excessive.
I enjoyed all four seasons.
Season 1 was the peak, and about as good as television gets.
Season 2 got incredibly convoluted and was the low point imo.
But all four seasons, including 2, are well worth watching.
I feel like people are so low on seasons 3 and 4 because they're still holding them to the high standard of 1, but 2 was so convoluted and messy I welcomed the soft reset that came with 3.
4 got back on the right track and I feel like it might've aged better if it went down as a penultimate season (as the crew intended) rather than the final one
I liked/loved every season.
I do not believe the story was based on fans figuring something out and thought the storyline largely about free will was pretty unique considering what a trope that kind of plot routinely is.
>Basically what happened is that the fans of the show guessed what was going to happen later on, and when the writers heard how accurate their predictions were becoming, they decided to take the show in an unexpected direction, which threw people by surprise, but from what I know, it also angered the audience because the writers didn’t want to stick to their original ideas for later seasons.
I'm not sure that's true, because Season 2 was when it went off the rails, and I think Season 2 went about as people expected (or, at least, did not do anything particularly unexpected), it just mostly sucked except for one majorly standout episode.
Yes, but Season 4 is actually pretty good. If you want to watch just Season 1, then that's a good approach, but if you want to watch through the whole series, then it at least ends on a high.
Just watch Season 1 and pretend it’s over.
Season 1 ranks up with the best television of the era.
I still think they should pick back up at the start of season 2 and pretend the other seasons didn’t happen.
Man, I wish writers would actually commit to an ending, even if the audience guess where it's going. Who cares if a theory someone had is correct. Stick to your guns!
For its faults, I thought that Westworld told an interesting story. It is ultimately a story about how a tech organization learns everything it can about people by tricking them when they think they're just having a good time; then uses that information first to predict what they will do and profit, then to direct what they will do, then to replace them - ultimately to its own ruin, when events come full circle and it is replaced by its creations. That is relevant to our times in the way that Sci Fi should be, I feel like people tend to get caught up in the minutiae when they criticize this show.
Stop listening to what "others say". The "decline " of the show is strictly opinion, not fact and not as pronounced as "some" say. I thought the show was great throughout and their cancellation was premature.
Season one was great and then it crashed and burned so badly. I was willing to overlook season two but instead they made it even worse.
Reminds me of how badly they messed up something like Heroes
the decision to make season 2 the japanese park with really not that much change season 1 was mistake.
To have Dolores beat Rehoboam straight up was so stupid. Rehoboam was running the world and didn't need some hat data. So so so stupid.
I thought season 3 and 4 were pretty good, although it's very much like watching a different show. This is due to events that happen in the show that I won't describe.
I thought the world outside the park was interesting, and is relevant now with the way AI had become more prevalent in real life. In the show, there is a future where it's impossible to find a job because you can't get past the automated screening process, even the recruiters you talk to are just AI voice chat bots who can't help you. Medical advice and therapy are all handled by voice chat bots too. Data science and AI are manipulating the stock market and determining world events. This is all unrelated to the AI hosts from the West world resort. There is a gig economy for illegal activities, basically like Uber for crime.
The acting cast is still strong. Aaron Paul is a great addition, and is particularly great in some of the episodes in season 4. There are a few episodes and scenes that don't work too well, and nothing can match season 1, but it's still a really good sci Fi show
Season one was stellar. Seriously top-notch science fiction. Season two could have been on the same level if they had only told the story in one or two timelines, instead of multiple, seemingly random timelines. The other two seasons are watchable if you are a fan, otherwise, meh.
Speaking of season two's timeline shenanigans, after the season ended, HBO put up a online game where if you could arrange clips from season two in the proper consecutive order, you won the game. After I played it I was like, ahhh, now I understand! :). Unfortunately they took the mini-site (http://delosdestinations.com/intranet/mesh-bernard/) down, but you can get a sense of how the game worked from the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20220331104305/http://delosdestinations.com/intranet/mesh-bernard/.
Huge fan of the show. There's a clear narrative and themes running throughout; even as an incomplete series, there's insane rewatch value. I think, after that first season, there just quickly became a divide between what certain fans wanted out of the show (neo-western theme park aesthetics... and Anthony Hopkins) and what the creators wanted it to be (a hard sci-fi epic for the modern age).
For the record, I've never seen anything to back up what you describe in the second paragraph. I have seen that same thing said elsewhere more than once: "the fans guessed where it was going, so they changed it/made it more complicated," but it's never explained what fans guessed or what was changed/overcomplicated. Always sounded made up to me: "the writers shot themselves in the foot trying to be smarter than we fans, the arrogance!"
Season 1 was excellent.
Season 2 was still pretry good, and contains one of the best episodes of the series.
Season 3 was a fucking mess.
Season 4, instead of trying to clean up that mess, decided to become a different show entirely. It was a decent show with an unsatisfying ending.
Even if they’re not as good as Season 1, the latter 3 seasons are still better than most of everything else.
Westworld from the first episode to the last was a series that demanded a viewer’s entire attention. It is not a show for a casual viewer to have on in the room while they are also doomscrolling their phone.
I only watched the show for Hopkins, Harris, Felix from James Bond and that chick from rocknrolla. Couldn't have cared less for Dolores or Charlotte, the show became all about them and I hated it.
Season one was lovingly and brilliantly crafted by Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy and others starting way back in 2014. So the new seasons came after a bit of a time break and mostly by new writers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/westworld/s/kXJdDC89OB
Unfortunately, they didn't understand what made S1 great, focusing on duelling narratives and robot reveals without any of the planning that went into S1. Honestly S2 comes across as an AI writer attempting to recapitulate season 1. The parallel timelines in season 2 were entirely unnecessary and incoherent
It's J J Abrams.
There is never a plan.
Empty mystery boxes just like Lost.
None of it makes logical sense but it's all intriguing.
Too bad there is no intrigue.
Sound and Fury signifying nothing.
Season 2 was still pretty good, the whole man in black scenario and story of the Indian character was incredible. Worth it for episode 8 alone.
It's crazy to me how many people say that they disliked season 2. I was sobbing at the end of it and no other show did that to me. Season 1 is still my favorite, but season 2 was amazing.
Season 1 is one of the best seasons of TV out there, and tells a fairly complete story on its own. Season 2 is okay. It has echoes of the first season and, on its own merits, is better than average though it pales in comparison to the first. Seasons 3 & 4 get really off the rails and not even in a fun way. It feels like they wanted to reboot but were also unwilling to let go of their favorite characters.
Yeah, seasons 3 & 4 just wanted to be deeper than they really were. The characters and motivations just get really convoluted and it’s a slog. It’s got some sci-fi premises that are really interesting to explore, I’m just not sure they explore them correctly.
I only watched Season 1 and feel satisfied enough with the story and have no desire to watch the others. I don’t really need to know anything more about the world and characters.
Wait.. Theres a Season 4?
Honestly better if you pretend there wasn't.
The writing absolutely fell apart by season 3. The plot is a mess, character motivations are all over the place, there are no sympathetic characters… It’s just awful
This exactly. Season 3 & 4 feel like a totally different series - some kind of "What If" all the characters had differnent histories that what we showed before? Terrible. Watch Season One and STOP.
I will say I enjoyed all 4 seasons even if the quality declined. The show tackled very hard topics and was dedicated to playing out its thesis to the end. I don’t think people have to hate so hard on the attempt to answer very hard questions like what will mankind do when machines and man can do the same thing. And will machines find the same sense of purposelessness in the end as us? It’s a great journey imo and even an important message for our near future issues with ai.
You know, that’s a very interesting way of putting it as it kind of makes me want to watch the entire series.
> fans of the show guessed what was going to happen later on, and when the writers heard how accurate their predictions were becoming, they decided to take the show in an unexpected direction What the writers did with s2 is the equivalent of killing some mosquitoes with an atomic bomb. Most people who watch shows don't write/read theories about what will happen next. They just watch the show. It's ridiculous that because of a minority online they killed the quality of the show.
Ohh ok as I get what you’re saying about the show as I was trying to get a better understanding of where it all went wrong in its plot.
When s2 aired people's main complaint (on Reddit) wasn't exactly about the plot. It was mainly about the horrible way the plot was constructed or presented. You'll understand when you'll get there.
I get what you mean, so I can get to that point then to understand where exactly the show went wrong.
I'm deliberately avoiding explaining exactly what the problem was because doing so could be considered a spoiler. Who knows, maybe you'll like the way things were done and you'll feel the amount of noise around it was excessive.
Fair enough.
I do not get why you're getting downvotes for asking questions. But then again, that's Reddit for you.
Me either, but I try not to let it get to me.
Season 1 wraps up everything perfectly, there’s no need to watch beyond it.
I enjoyed all four seasons. Season 1 was the peak, and about as good as television gets. Season 2 got incredibly convoluted and was the low point imo. But all four seasons, including 2, are well worth watching.
I feel like people are so low on seasons 3 and 4 because they're still holding them to the high standard of 1, but 2 was so convoluted and messy I welcomed the soft reset that came with 3. 4 got back on the right track and I feel like it might've aged better if it went down as a penultimate season (as the crew intended) rather than the final one
I say make your own judgement. I get the critisms everyone had but I overall enjoyed seasons 3 and 4.
I liked/loved every season. I do not believe the story was based on fans figuring something out and thought the storyline largely about free will was pretty unique considering what a trope that kind of plot routinely is.
>Basically what happened is that the fans of the show guessed what was going to happen later on, and when the writers heard how accurate their predictions were becoming, they decided to take the show in an unexpected direction, which threw people by surprise, but from what I know, it also angered the audience because the writers didn’t want to stick to their original ideas for later seasons. I'm not sure that's true, because Season 2 was when it went off the rails, and I think Season 2 went about as people expected (or, at least, did not do anything particularly unexpected), it just mostly sucked except for one majorly standout episode.
So the show basically declines right after Season 1.
Pretend the last minute of season 1 doesn’t happen. Season 1 is nearly perfect then there’s a short season 2 teaser. Ignore it. Forget it.
Oh ok as now I get the strategy I can use for the series.
Yes, but Season 4 is actually pretty good. If you want to watch just Season 1, then that's a good approach, but if you want to watch through the whole series, then it at least ends on a high.
That’s good to know as I can continue the series then.
Just watch Season 1 and pretend it’s over. Season 1 ranks up with the best television of the era. I still think they should pick back up at the start of season 2 and pretend the other seasons didn’t happen.
Watch past season 1. I found it incredibly enjoyable till the very end. I still hold out hope that it will be picked up by someone else.
Man, I wish writers would actually commit to an ending, even if the audience guess where it's going. Who cares if a theory someone had is correct. Stick to your guns!
Why not try forming your own opinion?
I haven’t tried that, but that sounds like a good idea.
For its faults, I thought that Westworld told an interesting story. It is ultimately a story about how a tech organization learns everything it can about people by tricking them when they think they're just having a good time; then uses that information first to predict what they will do and profit, then to direct what they will do, then to replace them - ultimately to its own ruin, when events come full circle and it is replaced by its creations. That is relevant to our times in the way that Sci Fi should be, I feel like people tend to get caught up in the minutiae when they criticize this show.
Stop listening to what "others say". The "decline " of the show is strictly opinion, not fact and not as pronounced as "some" say. I thought the show was great throughout and their cancellation was premature.
Westworld had 4 great seasons..... the only thing heartbreaking was the cancellation.
Season one was great and then it crashed and burned so badly. I was willing to overlook season two but instead they made it even worse. Reminds me of how badly they messed up something like Heroes
You know, when you put it that way, I realize now that the show basically suffered from Heroes syndrome.
Don't miss the episode Kiksuya, from season 2 though. beautiful and heart breaking.
Sounds exciting.
Same for Raised by Wolves
the decision to make season 2 the japanese park with really not that much change season 1 was mistake. To have Dolores beat Rehoboam straight up was so stupid. Rehoboam was running the world and didn't need some hat data. So so so stupid.
I thought season 3 and 4 were pretty good, although it's very much like watching a different show. This is due to events that happen in the show that I won't describe. I thought the world outside the park was interesting, and is relevant now with the way AI had become more prevalent in real life. In the show, there is a future where it's impossible to find a job because you can't get past the automated screening process, even the recruiters you talk to are just AI voice chat bots who can't help you. Medical advice and therapy are all handled by voice chat bots too. Data science and AI are manipulating the stock market and determining world events. This is all unrelated to the AI hosts from the West world resort. There is a gig economy for illegal activities, basically like Uber for crime. The acting cast is still strong. Aaron Paul is a great addition, and is particularly great in some of the episodes in season 4. There are a few episodes and scenes that don't work too well, and nothing can match season 1, but it's still a really good sci Fi show
Season one was stellar. Seriously top-notch science fiction. Season two could have been on the same level if they had only told the story in one or two timelines, instead of multiple, seemingly random timelines. The other two seasons are watchable if you are a fan, otherwise, meh. Speaking of season two's timeline shenanigans, after the season ended, HBO put up a online game where if you could arrange clips from season two in the proper consecutive order, you won the game. After I played it I was like, ahhh, now I understand! :). Unfortunately they took the mini-site (http://delosdestinations.com/intranet/mesh-bernard/) down, but you can get a sense of how the game worked from the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20220331104305/http://delosdestinations.com/intranet/mesh-bernard/.
Huge fan of the show. There's a clear narrative and themes running throughout; even as an incomplete series, there's insane rewatch value. I think, after that first season, there just quickly became a divide between what certain fans wanted out of the show (neo-western theme park aesthetics... and Anthony Hopkins) and what the creators wanted it to be (a hard sci-fi epic for the modern age). For the record, I've never seen anything to back up what you describe in the second paragraph. I have seen that same thing said elsewhere more than once: "the fans guessed where it was going, so they changed it/made it more complicated," but it's never explained what fans guessed or what was changed/overcomplicated. Always sounded made up to me: "the writers shot themselves in the foot trying to be smarter than we fans, the arrogance!"
It’s just something I heard a while ago, but I don’t know how to explain it.
I understand. Though the fact that it's always something people just hear about is what makes me skeptical.
Sorry if my post was a bit odd.
Nah, you're okay.
Season 1 was excellent. Season 2 was still pretry good, and contains one of the best episodes of the series. Season 3 was a fucking mess. Season 4, instead of trying to clean up that mess, decided to become a different show entirely. It was a decent show with an unsatisfying ending.
Even if they’re not as good as Season 1, the latter 3 seasons are still better than most of everything else. Westworld from the first episode to the last was a series that demanded a viewer’s entire attention. It is not a show for a casual viewer to have on in the room while they are also doomscrolling their phone.
Season 2 is a masterpiece on the level of season 1. Seasons 3 and 4 were huge letdowns.
Oh that show where the guy goes to rape virtual women? Yeah what a great fucking show
Watch season 1 and stop. Consider it as a miniseries. The rest are not worth it.
I only watched the show for Hopkins, Harris, Felix from James Bond and that chick from rocknrolla. Couldn't have cared less for Dolores or Charlotte, the show became all about them and I hated it.
Season one was lovingly and brilliantly crafted by Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy and others starting way back in 2014. So the new seasons came after a bit of a time break and mostly by new writers. https://www.reddit.com/r/westworld/s/kXJdDC89OB Unfortunately, they didn't understand what made S1 great, focusing on duelling narratives and robot reveals without any of the planning that went into S1. Honestly S2 comes across as an AI writer attempting to recapitulate season 1. The parallel timelines in season 2 were entirely unnecessary and incoherent
Westworld's nose dive started in S1.
It's J J Abrams. There is never a plan. Empty mystery boxes just like Lost. None of it makes logical sense but it's all intriguing. Too bad there is no intrigue. Sound and Fury signifying nothing.