Unconsciousness

You did what now?

[As before: heavy spoilers below.]

Um, yeah. I guess we're done here. I completed season one of Westworld last night and every time I think about it, all I can do is arch an eyebrow at some of the choices made, not just in the last couple episodes, but in the series overall. Twice before I've posted about what a slog the whole viewing experience was, with a few flickers of interest. That's why it took me over a year to finish watching. But what it boils down to is that the whole first season came to many of the same story conclusions as Michael Crichton's just-this-side-of-B movie did in 1973. The hosts are in revolt and there will be much blood extracted from the callous humans who've been treating thinking entities like appliances. In essence, what they're saying here is that it took 10 hours of TV to reach the same point that Yul Brynner got to in a half hour. And that Westworld, the series, for all of its multitude of characters and drawn out storylines and philosophical trappings, is still basically just half of Battlestar Galactica confined to an amusement park. Or an attempt at Blade Runner, but with a lot more angst and melodrama. Maybe.

Is this the part where I agree to do something that I don't understand?

There's a lot more talking in the last couple episodes as we're finally given some clarification on all of the visions and time lapses that a few characters have been experiencing. Most of that stuff centers around the hosts' realization of what the screenplay calls "consciousness." Now, that's a very nebulous and oft-debated term and concept, but the essential definition of that state is an awareness of self and having thoughts and feelings about the world around you. There's more to it, of course, but its most basic level is reacting to external stimuli and understanding a state of existence. The hosts have part of that, in that they respond to external stimuli as any thinking creature would. They have emotional displays to events around them. In that respect, you could possibly identify them as of animal intelligence, because many animals have those same reactions. But it's clearly more than that on the part of the hosts, even if they lack the sense of self that usually accompanies the term "consciousness." For example, Maeve doesn't lean back at the bar and think to herself: "Another day of screwing guys I don't know and maybe even getting shot for my troubles. Hooray?" But even if they don't have the higher levels defined by introspection, streams of thought, and the ability to imagine, we still have a situation where the machines are having emotional reactions to external stimuli, like pain, and they create emotional attachments to the guests based on behavior in order to maintain relationships through extended storylines. That's a sufficient level of realization that would make inflicting pain on them a moral and ethical issue even if they couldn't tell you the difference between Cartesian duality and more modern perspectives. People are arrested for violating those ethical grounds in their treatment of animals every day. The hosts would be no different, whether they can dream about escaping their private hell or not.

Searching for Nirvana. Obvsly. I've heard it's kind of like a labyrinth.

A tiny part of all of the talking about the basis of the entire series is when it's mentioned that Arnold defined the doorway to consciousness as suffering. They walked away from that idea quickly, despite it being one of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. The other Noble Truths explain that suffering is caused by desire, which in this case is displayed by Dolores' desire to solve the mystery in her head, Maeve's desire for freedom, and so on. That's kind of a blanket statement that hearkens to a major religion, rather than solely to philosophical underpinnings about the nature of the human condition. But they didn't follow up on it at all, which I found kind of odd, given how willing they'd been to drag out most of the rest of the story. That's a snippet that could have filled out some of the endless, rueful exchanges between William and the people on the fringe of the park. Instead, the first nine episodes were often a poor attempt at visual storytelling that led to an avalanche of Anthony Hopkins exposition in episode 10, which immediately had me thinking of a Bond villain revealing the master plot while he has 007 trapped in a sure deathtrap. Unfortunately, the only people trapped in this case were the viewers, especially when Ford states that he's actually been helping the hosts for 35 years by torturing them. If you frowned at the oblique nature of that, it's just one more step in the opaque storytelling that dominated the series.

I wasn't that broken up, but it was kind of annoying.

Take, for example, the Man in Black/William storyline, as it completely crashed and burned in the finale. So, the two most tedious storylines of the series were linked in tedium because they were about the same guy. I guess that makes sense on a production level, but what was the point of the whole exercise in the first place? This guy is obsessed with finding out what "the maze" is, despite the fact that he's been in the park for thirty years and is on the board of directors. Surely in his interactions with Ford by this time he understands that "the maze" is a construction by which they were teaching the hosts to discover themselves? You reach the end of the maze, you find your self and blossom into full consciousness.  There is no physical "maze" for him to discover, unless the implication is that his behavior, as a human, was every bit as mechanical as any of the hosts because he couldn't seem to accept the fact that he was never going to find the Minotaur. I guess I can accept the idea of someone that monomaniacal, but it's also an example of someone who's dumb as a bag of hammers and not exactly the guy that you'd expect Logan's dad would pick to run his massive company. It's a rather startling lack of insight which in fewer words is known as "stupid", which perhaps explains why that dual storyline was mostly annoying. It was essentially Don Quixote so that the showrunners could hand the audience a "Gotcha!" moment when they revealed that "THIS windmill runs backwards, too!" [Evil laugh.]

No. Seriously. THIS time, it'll work.

And Ford spent 35 years doing... what? Preparing them to fight for their rights in an incredibly slow and subtle method of allowing a select few to emerge into a state of consciousness and then wiping that away because he knew that the memory imprints of that emergence would eventually lead them to freedom? Or insanity, which, y'know, is a kind of freedom. This seems like a logical plan? I guess I can see why it would take 35 years... for the same reason that it took 10 hours of TV to tell the same story that a 90-minute, middlebrow, sci-fi thriller from the 70s did. Wow, man. There were nods aplenty to that middlebrow film, too, with the apparent "Samurai World" or "Shogun World" operating in the same complex, just like the Roman World and Medieval World from the film. And, of course, this revelation is presented in said torrent of exposition, so that the audience is digesting the master plan, Dolores' and Maeve's anguish that was a direct consequence of this master plan, and the fact that- No! Wait! Dr. Ford is actually a good guy! -all at once. That doesn't read like something that was planned out for a set sequence of episodes. It sounds like a pitch for 20 episodes that ended up stretching too long when HBO called and said "You gotta wrap it up in 10." But the worst part is that the story isn't even worth 20 episodes, especially if all of them are filled with more mutterings by the Man in Black about "the maze".

Now we have to watch society adapt as the rules have all crumbled in the face of this little world being taken over by a bunch of automatons, many of whom have an unhealthy pallor to their skin. Wait. Don't we already have this show? (Speaking of things that take too long to tell a story...)

No, I don't really believe it, either.

Hm. Yeah. As I've mentioned a couple times, there are a lot of good offerings on the concept of artificial intelligence and when or how it graduates to the level of "human". These are becoming more plentiful as the concept comes closer to emerging in our own reality. From what I've seen, I don't think Westworld measures up when compared to things like AMC's Humans; at least not if you don't want to linger through 10 weeks of angst while waiting for something interesting to happen.

Still grinding

[Content note: There will be drastic spoilers below, so if you're planning on watching the first season of Westworld, you probably want to stop here.]

I'm still watching Westworld. Slowly. Deliberately. Whenever I'm up late and no one else is around so that I don't have to explain why. Part of the problem is that, as you may recall, I was pretty bored watching the first two episodes of the series that so many have hailed as the best thing HBO has done since Game of Thrones. It had a couple very vague interesting points but seemed to be taking a long time to build up to where it was heading. Consequently, I watched the next three, up to episode 5, with the same kind of "can't look away from the car crash" detachment with which I viewed True Detective season 2 (of which we will never speak again.) But, 'lo and behold, episode 5 was actually interesting and the following two have been at least intriguing, since I can pretty much see where they're going, but it's morbidly fascinating to see just how much time they can waste to get there in the course of a 10 episode season.

One thing I'm struggling with is the macro picture. For all the mystery and drama surrounding the essential question of thinking beings subjected to abject slavery and manipulation, the show doesn't really ask that question in the macro sense because it's contained to the park. Unlike, say, Blade Runner or AMC's Humans, the hosts aren't integrated into the public which would force that question to be posed to society-at-large. It's "just" a sadistic amusement park... which does, however, pose the eternal question of just how much the havenots are used as mindless drones by the haves. This is exemplified most obviously when Theresa finds Charlotte screwing one of the hosts a short time after referring to them as "property" of the corporation. So they are touching on the basic morality of living beings used as slaves or less-than-slaves; more like tools. Also, I get that the board of directors' plan may be to bring the technology into the larger world and that's why they're trying to wrest it from Ford. That in itself would bring that essential question into society and perhaps that's where they're going with future seasons. But if so, they're going to have to venture way beyond the limits of "Westworld", which doesn't seem to be the point of the story. Also also, if it's taken us seven episodes to set up that essential conflict, I'm more disappointed than ever.

The other thing that's bothering me is style. The moment where Bernard is revealed to be a host was a decent BIG REVEAL moment, even if it had been fairly obvious for some time (Ford pays close attention to Bernard and always invites his opinion; Bernard has a deep insight into Dolores' perspective, almost as if he relates to it; etc.) I'm assuming it was enticing for the idiots that like to insist on the "Deckard was a replicant!" conspiracy theory in Blade Runner which, of course, invalidates most of the basic questions that that film was asking. Bernard's reveal doesn't because there is no special class of human to oppose the other humans. You can't draw contrasts between the hosts and the guests because the former get reprogrammed every day and the latter are aware that they're in an environment that essentially begs them to act inhumanly. There is no day-to-day existence that permeates the scene. Life's a stage, etc.

That makes the only special class of human Ed Harris' Man in Black, who has to be one of the most pointless characters in the entire series, to date. He's determined to find out the root secrets of the park's function. He apparently has no other discernible mission or motive. But it's also a complete sideshow. Is anyone actually interested in that aspect of the story? Does anyone see a point to it? Even if people find themselves intrigued by the mystery of either/both his mission or his dogged determination, is anyone actually entertained by seven straight episodes of Ed Harris doing the Sauron thing ("I am mean and angry... because I am mean and angry!!!") Or, for that matter, him being the implacable, motiveless villain who does little more than hie into the wilderness, muttering about a maze alongside confused hosts who somehow find themselves motivated to follow him? In my original review, I thought the character was a ham-handed homage to Yul Brynner's Gunslinger in the original film. Now I just think he's boring. The possibility remains that the MiB is another one of Ford's special constructs and he's so driven to find the secrets of Westworld because he's trying to meet his maker, a la Roy Batty. But if too many of the apparent humans in Westworld are actually hosts or if too many of the hosts are "special" like Bernard and Dolores, the shine starts to come off and we start drifting away from our macro questions into minutiae. Does this "special" host function differently than that "special" one? Who really is the Star-bellied Sneetch... or are we really all just people (Sneetches)?

It's clear that the showrunners have been stretching this thing out to build suspense for some kind of tempestuous wrap-up to the season. But until episode 5's revelations about Theresa's subterfuge, Maeve's awakening, and more detail on the origins of the park from Ford, I had no motivation to watch except to see what kind of ditch they could dig themselves into. Now I can see a couple avenues out and I'm interested in some of the larger plots that they've finally gotten around to presenting, but there's still so much dross attached (William and Dolores' romance or pretty much anything connected to William? Yawn.) that I've shifted from mild disinterest to annoyance. My first request of any series remains extant: Tell me a story. If you can't do that, I got not time for ya. Westworld seems like it's been trying to tell me a story, but it needs to try a lot harder in the last three episodes if I'm going to watch the subsequent seasons.

And in the taste confounds the appetite

"These violent delights have violent ends
 And in their triumph die, like fire and powder
 Which as they kiss consume
 the sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness
 And in the taste confounds the appetite."

That's Romeo and Juliet, act II, scene VI. The first line was whispered by character Peter Abernathy (Louis Herthum) in the premiere episode of Westworld, which I am only now perusing since I've just recently turned the cable back on. Does that make me a cord rejoiner? I don't know. What it does make me is late to the party, since several people I know and most of the TV critics out there in La La Land (otherwise known as the realm of the ICP: Insane Clown President) think that Westworld is the best thing to hit HBO since the first season of True Detective (We will never speak of the second season again.) After watching the first two episodes, I can't say that I agree.

Westworld is based on the original Michael Crichton film from 1973 which, as an artifact of its era, was decent. Yul Brynner is excellent as the leading unstoppable android and Crichton's misunderstood premise of corporate greed (a theme he would return to, repeatedly) overriding basic morality was lost amidst the general audience perception that technology is evil and, obviously, wears a black hat. And I suppose I'm carrying some degree of bias while I watch the HBO series, because I know how this story plays out, based on what I've been seeing in the first couple episodes. Critics hailed it for its "world-building" but I spent a fair amount of time during both doing the "get on with it, already" wave with my hand. There is a certain amount of time that's necessary to establish the fact that the hosts essentially forget everything with every morning. Visual repetition is the best way to establish that for new viewers, so I get it.

But my problem with said world-building runs deeper than that. Many of the interactions, such as that between Lee, the narrative director (Simon Quarterman), and Theresa, the operations director (Sidse Babett Knudsen) were blatantly staged for the audience's benefit. Instead of appearing as an organic interaction (like, say, between Rust and Marty in True Detective), this was a neon sign blaring: "Here be conflict! Engage it if you dare!" Yes, you have to lay the groundwork and, yes, it's tough to do in a 10 episode series. But it's been done with somewhat more subtlety and which made both characters seem even mildly interesting, which those two do not.

Similarly, Ed Harris as the Man in Black in the world's most obvious homage to Brynner (Can his name be Johnny to make it that much more ham-fisted? He shoots people just to watch them die!) does nothing for me. He's been around awhile and he wants to see what makes the big machine tick. Fair enough. Does he have to be completely amoral in order to do that? Was the semi-gratuitous rape scene necessary to establish the spiel he'd already spoken on the train, about playing the black hat being the best time of his life? And if we were going to have a rape scene to establish an amoral character, was it necessary to close the door so that tender sensibilities somehow aren't bruised by the already-screaming woman? With the amount of nudity and violence already going around in order to establish that this is the point where ordinary people can abuse thinking beings to their heart's content, somehow that moment was deemed over the top and, instead of simply going off camera, Nolan felt that overtly shutting the barn door was how it should work? Get the audience to focus specifically on that act and then shield them from its consequences? Super-meta example of what the park embodies or shying away from what your story is depicting?

Don't get me wrong. It's not awful. It's just not gripping. I can and will watch the next couple episodes, but there's certainly nothing compelling me to do so. As all three of my regular readers know, I regard the director's cut of Blade Runner (no voiceover, ends in the elevator) to be the finest science fiction film ever made and one of the finest, period. That film asked many of the important questions about humanity and consciousness (and conscience) in a far more elegant way than anything I've seen so far on Westworld. Telling me that these are sentient beings locked in an endless loop for the entertainment of others is a good starting point. Expanding into their realization of this indentured servitude is a natural progression. But so far none of the mystery involved (Dolores and Maeve's past memories; the Man in Black's pursuit of the maze; etc.) is interesting enough to get me to want to rush back to the series tomorrow morning.

Also, I certainly respect Jonathan Nolan's (and Lisa Joy's) writing talent. He's been the co-writer on some of his brother, Christopher's, biggest films. But I wonder if he has the vision of his brother to carry a grand concept through to the ends that it requires. Crafting a story about questioning personal, corporate, and societal morality is all well and good. But including the original creator, Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins; is he a coward? Does he have a friend named Jesse?), attempting to try to steer that amorality train back toward something more acceptable by including Christianity is just a step too far down the idiot path for me. Is the assumption that the park, in general, lacks a moral basis because it lacks religion? Do I really need to delve into the history of the church to prick that balloon? Hey, are the hosts like those slaves you can get from surrounding nations, per Leviticus? Or is Dolores like one of the daughters of Lot?

To the show's credit, I did really enjoy Jeffrey Wright's performance as Bernie, mildly conflicted soul designer (I thought he was great in Syriana, too) and the most intriguing moment for me of the whole two-plus hours was when programmer Elsie (Shannon Woodward) kissed host Clementine (Angela Sarafyan.) There was character revelation ("world-building") and mystery in one little motion that had me asking questions that are both intriguing and not obvious. More of that, please, and perhaps less of the grandiose references. I mean, if we're going to go all Shakespearean on everybody, should we be referencing the constant presence of the flies in what seems to otherwise be a fairly sanitized environment?

"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods
 They kill us for their sport."

That's King Lear, act IV, scene I. Seems almost referential to the overall plot. Or perhaps I'm either overthinking it or asking too much?