I have followed you all from the very start. After viewing the first episode of WW season 1, I scrambled to find others who shared my enthusiasm and fascination for this show. In my opinion, the show sparked interest and continued to hold our attention due to, simply put, one question: Are humans and AI truly that different? That question in itself could inspire deep thought, seemingly forever. It was all the inspiration they needed. Up to this season, I have been enthralled. Where I feel this season went wrong was the heart was missing. The beauty in the show was that we could glean emotion from these hosts, making us question our own humanity. We became invested in the hosts and they pushed it even further once we were, with episodes like Kiksuya, my favorite episode to date. We were not invested in Caleb. He blew past the “get to know you” phase and met a climax before we even cared to wonder if he was a host or human. We didn’t care if Ciroq failed or succeeded because we were JUST introduced to him. This spilled over onto our adored characters like Mauve and company because they were out of place in this quick-service story. This new world is not a world the hosts particularly care about so while it explodes I can picture Mauve yawning. It felt like a sad attempt to lasso in mainstream viewers. Bernard has always been my favorite character and I don’t fault the showrunners for his path this season. He is thoughtful and calculated so I have patience for him. As far as some of the questions you posed- let’s keep in mind Dolores has a “personality” that at the root is trusting and compassionate. Of course, she chose her oldest friend to hide the key inside and familiar faces to assist her. Bernard’s stance on humans also lies somewhere in the middle so she knew he didn’t have vested interest in ruining her plan. Being somewhat naive in her design, she saw Caleb choose correctly once and was “smitten”- a callback to falling love with William. So although Dolores is a host, she is not perfect! She was modeled after humankind and therefore will have missteps 🙂 I felt killing off William in that way was such a waste. However, he predicted his own future. He WILL save the world, just not the human world. I have thought a lot about why this season was necessary since it was cyclical. I think it’s because it provides a more rich perspective when we see that it wasn’t a jump to annihilate all humans. Much as humans differ in ideas, politics and so forth, hosts also differ in their ideas of how things can be handled. Maybe I’m appreciating it too much out of love. Charlotte was always the villain and it’s nice to see that not even death can erase that. I am hoping we’ll see some of that in William as a host. Perhaps he’ll turn.. In all, I am hopeful that season 4 will take us back to the “Anthony Hopkins worthy” deep-pondering idea that the show was built on. And perhaps we will land on when we are compared to artificial intelligence, the differences are almost non-existent. We both learn as we go.
Thank you for all you do! You have each been a friend – especially in these odd times of self isolation.
Shelton Holland, Richmond VA
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Shelley Holland
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