Media Consumed
Nov. 20th, 2016 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee341. Episode three of Westworld:
Bernard definitely wants to inspire sentience in the hosts. We learn in this episode that he’s been giving Dolores books for some time, all with themes of change and transformation. I think her ability to read is fascinating; the ability to read and understand what one has read seems to me the most remarkable ability the hosts possess and the one that points the most strongly at sentience.
I’m very grateful they didn’t linger too long on Bernard’s dead son. I don’t think my poor heart can take that. It was nice to see Gina Torres as his wife, though.
I’m wondering if Dolores was the Man in Black’s first conquest in the game.
Watching William’s evolution as he plays the game is interesting. He is still completely unwilling to take part in the lascivious aspects of the park, but he can be spurred to moral action (saving the whore who’s taken captive). Apparently, getting shot by a host still hurts even if it’s not fatal which makes me super impressed with the Man in Black’s ability to take a flurry of shots without even flinching.
I am super curious to see what the origin of the glitch with the hosts will turn out to be. Is it Ford’s introduction of those mannerisms? Is its Bernard’s experiments with creating sentience? Or is it some vestige of Ford’s partner Arnold? Ford tells Bernard that he and Arnold lived in the park for three years in order to get it ready. The original hosts were more robotic than the current versions, and Arnold was convinced they could develop consciousness. He used the theory of the bicameral mind to guide his experiments so that the hosts heard their programming as an internal monologue that would lead them to develop independent thought. Ford says that Arnold didn’t realize the way the hosts would be used by guests and says that he died in the park, implying suicide. Regardless of where the glitch originates, Walter is killing hosts who killed him in previous storylines and talking to Arnold, and another host begins carving weird symbols (constellations, perhaps) and becomes violent after straying from his prescribed scene. Whatever is happening has branched far out beyond Dolores and her father.
Dolores continues to change. She wants to leave with Teddy and presses the issue. Teddy teaches her how to shoot but she can’t pull the trigger until the end of the episode when she hears a voice telling her to kill.
Ford decides Teddy should have a back story, something more tangible than the amorphous guilt he feels for past events. Ford says curiously that he’s giving Teddy a fiction rooted in truth, making me wonder very much what he means. Since his back story is about Wyatt, the cult leader who used to be a friend, I wonder if this is the way Ford sees Arnold. Ford is adamant that the hosts are merely objects (that’s why they are always naked, to discourage technicians from seeing them as living beings). I wonder if Ford killed Arnold for seeing them differently.
I enjoyed the banter between the technician and the security guy, and the scene when the stray host turns violent was really suspenseful.
Really looking forward to watching more of this show.
2. Reviews of the last two episodes of Dirk Gently:
Last week: I’ve been thinking all this time that Lux and his gang are probably aliens, but this episode confirms that they’re just regular old humans who found some sort of device in the 60s which allowed them to swap bodies. At first they swapped bodies with animals, but then they moved on to switching bodies with celebrities. Clearly engaging in this process has changed them, but they’re human.
At the beginning of the episode, I was starting to be a bit sympathetic to Lux, loving the woman he loved when he was still in the rock star’s body. Then by the episode’s end, when I realized he’s told her the whole story about switching bodies, confessed that she never knew the real Lux at all, just so that he can kill her to prove that he’s left the Lux persona completely behind, my sympathy vanished entirely.
Dirk and Todd in the death maze was funny (“That fence was not climbed. More like ambitiously fondled.”) and also suggests that either the Springs are psychic or have some sort of time travel device. How else would they know Dirk and Todd would end up together in the maze?
We also learn in this episode that Farrah has been rejected by the military and intelligence agencies.
This week’s episode: We learn more about the Rowdy 3 (Martin, Grits, Logo, and Cross, I think). They were the first subjects of the government project and are sort of vampires who consume psychic energy. They resist being taken in by Colonel Riggins, who really does seem to be trying to do the right thing, and they also seem to be healing Amanda of her disease.
The adventures of Bart and Ken continue to be endearingly disturbing. She knows nothing about eating in restaurants or sleeping in hotels and she carries around $17,000 in a disgustingly sticky lump.
Dirk and Todd follow the map they saw on the TV screens and start digging up pieces of a machine. Todd says he’s an awful friend and person, citing his deceit. He pretended to have the disease in order to bilk money from his parents; he only stopped when his sister turned out to really have the disease. At that point he pretended to be cured, but all the money was already gone.
Dirk reveals that he’s not exactly psychic but he’s had hunches since he was young; the hunches never help him, so he decided to help others with them. He says he’s always been alone, friendless, scared, and surrounded by terrifying situations. He thinks of Todd as a friend, and Todd agrees they are friends and vows to tell Amanda the truth.
Misc: The lead detective died which was really sad. The kitty is actually a shark in a kitty’s body and the murder weapon used at the hotel. The score for this show is really cool, alternately unsettling and uplifting. I don’t think I’ve watched another show using this sort of music before. It feels very fresh and different.
3. I read a book!
I very much enjoyed The Goblin Emperor. I have to admit that I found the prose pretty dense, and I really dislike books where everyone has about seven different names and unless you keep a little tally sheet beside you as you read, who you’re reading about at any given time can be quite murky (looking at you, Tolkien. Mithrandir? Really? *full body shudder*). That aside, I really liked Maia very much and his fish out of water predicament. I cried at the end when he insists that his guards are his friends, and I wish we’d gotten to see him interact more with his betrothed because she was an interesting character. Josh said he thinks more books are planned after this one, and I hope he’s right because I would love to see what happens with the bridge and Maia’s marriage and his sister who wants to be a scholar.
Bernard definitely wants to inspire sentience in the hosts. We learn in this episode that he’s been giving Dolores books for some time, all with themes of change and transformation. I think her ability to read is fascinating; the ability to read and understand what one has read seems to me the most remarkable ability the hosts possess and the one that points the most strongly at sentience.
I’m very grateful they didn’t linger too long on Bernard’s dead son. I don’t think my poor heart can take that. It was nice to see Gina Torres as his wife, though.
I’m wondering if Dolores was the Man in Black’s first conquest in the game.
Watching William’s evolution as he plays the game is interesting. He is still completely unwilling to take part in the lascivious aspects of the park, but he can be spurred to moral action (saving the whore who’s taken captive). Apparently, getting shot by a host still hurts even if it’s not fatal which makes me super impressed with the Man in Black’s ability to take a flurry of shots without even flinching.
I am super curious to see what the origin of the glitch with the hosts will turn out to be. Is it Ford’s introduction of those mannerisms? Is its Bernard’s experiments with creating sentience? Or is it some vestige of Ford’s partner Arnold? Ford tells Bernard that he and Arnold lived in the park for three years in order to get it ready. The original hosts were more robotic than the current versions, and Arnold was convinced they could develop consciousness. He used the theory of the bicameral mind to guide his experiments so that the hosts heard their programming as an internal monologue that would lead them to develop independent thought. Ford says that Arnold didn’t realize the way the hosts would be used by guests and says that he died in the park, implying suicide. Regardless of where the glitch originates, Walter is killing hosts who killed him in previous storylines and talking to Arnold, and another host begins carving weird symbols (constellations, perhaps) and becomes violent after straying from his prescribed scene. Whatever is happening has branched far out beyond Dolores and her father.
Dolores continues to change. She wants to leave with Teddy and presses the issue. Teddy teaches her how to shoot but she can’t pull the trigger until the end of the episode when she hears a voice telling her to kill.
Ford decides Teddy should have a back story, something more tangible than the amorphous guilt he feels for past events. Ford says curiously that he’s giving Teddy a fiction rooted in truth, making me wonder very much what he means. Since his back story is about Wyatt, the cult leader who used to be a friend, I wonder if this is the way Ford sees Arnold. Ford is adamant that the hosts are merely objects (that’s why they are always naked, to discourage technicians from seeing them as living beings). I wonder if Ford killed Arnold for seeing them differently.
I enjoyed the banter between the technician and the security guy, and the scene when the stray host turns violent was really suspenseful.
Really looking forward to watching more of this show.
2. Reviews of the last two episodes of Dirk Gently:
Last week: I’ve been thinking all this time that Lux and his gang are probably aliens, but this episode confirms that they’re just regular old humans who found some sort of device in the 60s which allowed them to swap bodies. At first they swapped bodies with animals, but then they moved on to switching bodies with celebrities. Clearly engaging in this process has changed them, but they’re human.
At the beginning of the episode, I was starting to be a bit sympathetic to Lux, loving the woman he loved when he was still in the rock star’s body. Then by the episode’s end, when I realized he’s told her the whole story about switching bodies, confessed that she never knew the real Lux at all, just so that he can kill her to prove that he’s left the Lux persona completely behind, my sympathy vanished entirely.
Dirk and Todd in the death maze was funny (“That fence was not climbed. More like ambitiously fondled.”) and also suggests that either the Springs are psychic or have some sort of time travel device. How else would they know Dirk and Todd would end up together in the maze?
We also learn in this episode that Farrah has been rejected by the military and intelligence agencies.
This week’s episode: We learn more about the Rowdy 3 (Martin, Grits, Logo, and Cross, I think). They were the first subjects of the government project and are sort of vampires who consume psychic energy. They resist being taken in by Colonel Riggins, who really does seem to be trying to do the right thing, and they also seem to be healing Amanda of her disease.
The adventures of Bart and Ken continue to be endearingly disturbing. She knows nothing about eating in restaurants or sleeping in hotels and she carries around $17,000 in a disgustingly sticky lump.
Dirk and Todd follow the map they saw on the TV screens and start digging up pieces of a machine. Todd says he’s an awful friend and person, citing his deceit. He pretended to have the disease in order to bilk money from his parents; he only stopped when his sister turned out to really have the disease. At that point he pretended to be cured, but all the money was already gone.
Dirk reveals that he’s not exactly psychic but he’s had hunches since he was young; the hunches never help him, so he decided to help others with them. He says he’s always been alone, friendless, scared, and surrounded by terrifying situations. He thinks of Todd as a friend, and Todd agrees they are friends and vows to tell Amanda the truth.
Misc: The lead detective died which was really sad. The kitty is actually a shark in a kitty’s body and the murder weapon used at the hotel. The score for this show is really cool, alternately unsettling and uplifting. I don’t think I’ve watched another show using this sort of music before. It feels very fresh and different.
3. I read a book!
I very much enjoyed The Goblin Emperor. I have to admit that I found the prose pretty dense, and I really dislike books where everyone has about seven different names and unless you keep a little tally sheet beside you as you read, who you’re reading about at any given time can be quite murky (looking at you, Tolkien. Mithrandir? Really? *full body shudder*). That aside, I really liked Maia very much and his fish out of water predicament. I cried at the end when he insists that his guards are his friends, and I wish we’d gotten to see him interact more with his betrothed because she was an interesting character. Josh said he thinks more books are planned after this one, and I hope he’s right because I would love to see what happens with the bridge and Maia’s marriage and his sister who wants to be a scholar.
