S01.E03: The Stray

[Hanahope]

14 minutes ago, Ottis said:

So if we agree that WW us still very expensive, maybe not quite Kardashian expensive but close, what does that say about the "guests" as a whole? Is it like the difference between shopping at Nordstrom and Walmart? You get *some* crossover, but generally a different crowd? WW guests are all wealthy, or people who saved a long time for a once-in-a-lifetime vacation? I'm wondering what role this may play in creating the fantasies.

Because even present day, spending $2000 a day is a lot of jack, much less $40,000 plus a week's stay.

Especially when you realize that that WW is a week minimum, or $280,000 per person.  Its one thing to get one item from Nordstrom, say a good leather purse that you pay $250 as a splurge, but you know it will last.  Its another to save up for that one-time dream vacation at Disney World that probably costs your family $5,000, or maybe a week at a South of France resort for $15,000.  And still a whole nother level to say spend a week in an Abu Dahbi resort that's $20,000 a day.  Perhaps someone could save up for the week in WW (especially since we don't know what's happened to inflation), but it sounds like a upper middle to rich class kindof place (at least South of France level, if not higher).  For comparisons sake, Disney World gets about 50,000 visitors per day, WW gets 2,000.

[blackwing]

I'm still unclear as to exactly what is happening, and who is a host and who is a guest, but I am enjoying the scenery and the exposition.  I'm liking the Teddy and Dolores characters.  I like their interactions and it's too bad that Ford told Teddy that they will never have a happy ending.

So the pack of people that took axes to Teddy are presumably human, since he couldn't harm them.  So there would be some human guests who sign up to be part of this Wyatt character's entourage, just so they can murder hosts?  

Regarding the stray host, I'm not understanding why they couldn't have deactivated it from the control room.  Or why Stubbs and Elsie had to spend so much time tracking it.  Couldn't they just look it up on the system and find out exactly where it was?  The way it was trapped in the rockslide and was flailing its arms out, very much reminded me of the walkers on the Walking Dead.  Also, I thought hosts weren't allowed to harm humans.  Or is that guests?  How is it that it was able to hurt Stubbs?  Unless Stubbs is also a host.  Or if it is just guests (and not necessarily employees) that hosts cannot harm.

[DarkRaichu]

14 minutes ago, blackwing said:

So the pack of people that took axes to Teddy are presumably human, since he couldn't harm them.  So there would be some human guests who sign up to be part of this Wyatt character's entourage, just so they can murder hosts?  

I think it was way too much of an assumption that the pack/mob were human just because Teddy could not shoot them down.  The guns were programmed to not hurt guests, they could be as easily programmed to not hurt androids dressed like the mobs.

14 minutes ago, blackwing said:

Regarding the stray host, I'm not understanding why they couldn't have deactivated it from the control room.  Or why Stubbs and Elsie had to spend so much time tracking it.  Couldn't they just look it up on the system and find out exactly where it was?  The way it was trapped in the rockslide and was flailing its arms out, very much reminded me of the walkers on the Walking Dead.  Also, I thought hosts weren't allowed to harm humans.  Or is that guests?  How is it that it was able to hurt Stubbs?  Unless Stubbs is also a host.  Or if it is just guests (and not necessarily employees) that hosts cannot harm.

I am fanwanking the cave where the stray host fell into blocked or damaged the gps (or whatever tracking system) on the host.

Edited October 17, 2016 by DarkRaichu

[Gobi]

I think the reason that they didn't just deactivate the stray host from the control room is that they did not know where it was. It might have been standing  in the  middle of a river, for example, and disappeared under water.

This is another reason why I'm leaning to the theory that WW is not on earth. The hosts do not have GPS trackers because there is no GPS system in place for their planet.

Edited October 17, 2016 by Gobi
Spelling

[DarkRaichu]

5 minutes ago, Gobi said:

This is another reason why I'm leaning to the theory that WW is not on earth. The hosts do not have GPS trackers because there is no GPS system in place for their planet.

The corporate poured trillions of dollars to build the state of the art park but too cheap to spend a few millions to send a satellite up for GPS ?? ;)

[arc]

The hosts definitely have wireless communication. Elsie shut down the stray with her tablet from like 15 feet away. So park security wouldn't necessarily need a GPS type system, just long range wireless. Send a few robot vultures to fly across the sky and scan for his signal.

[henripootel]

1 hour ago, Netfoot said:

I just don't think things are that controlled.  If you decide you want to ride off into the sunset, and just spend a day enjoying the scenery in solitude, I don't think they will try to stop you.

I'd find it hard to believe that they don't have something way better than GPS by then, and universal wifi, even in the desert.  

[iMonrey]

Quote

So there would be some human guests who sign up to be part of this Wyatt character's entourage, just so they can murder hosts?  

William was asked whether he wanted to wear a white hat or a black hat when he first arrived. So yes, they get to either play heroes or villains at this theme park. (Apparently no shades of gray are available.)

I'm not clear on the whole "Wyatt" thing though, because it seemed to be a new backstory Ford programmed into Teddy, and yet a previous episode established someone else coming up with new narratives. So wherever this "Wyatt's gang" came from is a mystery to me, as are their bizarre facial masks, which are a far cry from the traditional bandannas you picture old western bandits wearing.

[arc]

2 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

I'm not clear on the whole "Wyatt" thing though, because it seemed to be a new backstory Ford programmed into Teddy, and yet a previous episode established someone else coming up with new narratives. So wherever this "Wyatt's gang" came from is a mystery to me, as are their bizarre facial masks, which are a far cry from the traditional bandannas you picture old western bandits wearing.

Last episode, Sizemore unveiled the new narrative his team had been working on. Think of it like an expansion pack / patch to an MMO. New quests and stuff. I'm guessing it was fairly far along, but when he unveiled it, Ford shot him down. This episode established that Ford is crafting a new narrative himself, so presumably Wyatt fits into that.

[tpel]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

Regarding the stray host, I'm not understanding why they couldn't have deactivated it from the control room.  Or why Stubbs and Elsie had to spend so much time tracking it.  Couldn't they just look it up on the system and find out exactly where it was?  The way it was trapped in the rockslide and was flailing its arms out, very much reminded me of the walkers on the Walking Dead.  Also, I thought hosts weren't allowed to harm humans.  Or is that guests?  How is it that it was able to hurt Stubbs?  Unless Stubbs is also a host.  Or if it is just guests (and not necessarily employees) that hosts cannot harm.

Hee -- wouldn't that be great for employee morale? The hosts can't hurt paying customers, but people who work there are fair game! 

I can't think of any reason why hosts would be programmed to not be able to harm guests, yet that wouldn't cover employees, too. I mean, I would think the salient feature the hosts are responding to is the fact that one is human. Making them distinguish different groups of humans, with regard to killing, seems like asking for trouble.

So, does that mean Stubbs is also a host? Three clues point in that direction: (1) he referred to his own "backstory"; (2) Elsie commented on whether he has security clearance for his knife -- since he's head of security, that doesn't make much sense if he is human, but could refer to the security protocols that control which hosts can use weapons; (3) the stray was able to hurt him. I don't find this evidence too compelling. Points (1) and (2) were part of the banter between Stubbs and Elsie, so I don't know how literal it was meant to be. And, as Stubbs noted, only a line of code keeps the hosts from killing them all. If the hosts are glitching, perhaps that line is glitching too. So (3) could be part of the malfunction/awakening.

I kind of hope Elsie and Stubbs are humans, not hosts. Most of the other characters are either having existential crises or are involved in deep mysterious machinations. These two are as close as we get to relatively normal people doing their jobs.

[Gobi]

I found Ford's attitude towards the hosts odd in this  episode. Previously, he seemed favorably disposed toward them. Here, he was downright hostile. Is he angry because they have not become self-aware, or because they seem to be becoming so?

Ford's new narrative is interesting. Wyatt believes that the land doesn't belong to the original settlers (hosts?), nor to the newcomers (guests?). Is Ford creating some new type of host that will inherit the earth?

Edited October 18, 2016 by Gobi
Spelling

[AuntiePam]

2 hours ago, Gobi said:

This is another reason why I'm leaning to the theory that WW is not on earth. The hosts do not have GPS trackers because there is no GPS system in place for their planet.

I'm interested in your other reasons.  I've been looking for signs since this was first mentioned and nothing jumps out at me.  Unless everyone is on another planet -- it's hundreds of years in the future and Earth is uninhabitable -- and WW isn't just a colony (like on the moon), wouldn't going there be even more expensive? 

[Netfoot]

Who says they don't have GPS (or some other form of) trackers?  Certainly, the operators can monitor goings-on to a very fine degree.  They "zoomed" in on the runaway host's recorded travels and saw where he was going.  (I think his tracker wasn't effective in helping locate him because he'd fallen into a pit.) They were able to see exactly what TMIB was up to.  They had that fancy holographic map in an earlier episode, which they zoomed in, right down to the street outside the saloon.

If they have the technology to build the park and it's inhabitants, I have to assume they have comparable mastery of other technologies as well.

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

Let's Rank Westworld's Power Couples

Who's on top right now -- the bickering co-workers or the robot lovers?

[tennisgurl]

There was quite a lot of talking in this episode, but the acting is so good, it really didn't bother me. I could watch these actors go on about philosophical issues for at least a few solid weeks before I will start complaining about getting this show on the road. 

I really like the Teddy and Dolorous romance, and its really sad that they will never really connect. Will Dolorous use her new found conscientious to find Teddy, and try to get him to wake up? Or at least try to find him, even if she does not seem to fully understand what is going on yet.  They both have a pretty awful existence. Dolorous exists to be an eternal victim, and Teddy exists to get killed and feel bad about his half assed backstory no one cared to give him. Messed up. 

I hope most of the people who we think are people just stay people, and are not secret hosts. It could get tiring to get all Battlestar Galactica all the time. Maybe they could make it work, but I am not sure. 

As for Westworld itself, I can see why people would be into it. I feel like the more "normal" people would be more like the female guest we saw, who want to live out a fantasy of being in a western. Whether or not it makes any financial sense...this is why they need to give us a Star Wars land. 

[Gobi]

57 minutes ago, AuntiePam said:

I'm interested in your other reasons.  I've been looking for signs since this was first mentioned and nothing jumps out at me.  Unless everyone is on another planet -- it's hundreds of years in the future and Earth is uninhabitable -- and WW isn't just a colony (like on the moon), wouldn't going there be even more expensive? 

Most of my reasons are small hints. For example, Bernard made a comment about Arnold doing something "on this planet", an odd phrase to use for someone on earth. Then there's the difficulty communicating with family members outside the park. Skype should be rather easy to use on earth. The very size of WW seems far beyond what would be available on earth. The talk about employees rotating home.

As to the expense of getting there, that could be built into the price. Alternatively, as we don't know how how far in the future this is, perhaps faster than light travel has been achieved and is not that expensive.  That might be one of the things Ford alluded to when he said mankind had conquered everything except death (and that could be the secret agenda of WW).

This is a show that reveals its secrets slowly, and there is no guarantee that I'm right.

ETA: The business with the carving of the constellation Orion. Elsie kept looking up at the sky after finding out about it, although the audience never saw the sky. I suspect that Orion is not visible from where they are.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Gobi
Content

[Maximum Taco]

3 hours ago, blackwing said:

I'm still unclear as to exactly what is happening, and who is a host and who is a guest, but I am enjoying the scenery and the exposition.  I'm liking the Teddy and Dolores characters.  I like their interactions and it's too bad that Ford told Teddy that they will never have a happy ending.

So the pack of people that took axes to Teddy are presumably human, since he couldn't harm them.  So there would be some human guests who sign up to be part of this Wyatt character's entourage, just so they can murder hosts?  

Regarding the stray host, I'm not understanding why they couldn't have deactivated it from the control room.  Or why Stubbs and Elsie had to spend so much time tracking it.  Couldn't they just look it up on the system and find out exactly where it was?  The way it was trapped in the rockslide and was flailing its arms out, very much reminded me of the walkers on the Walking Dead.  Also, I thought hosts weren't allowed to harm humans.  Or is that guests?  How is it that it was able to hurt Stubbs?  Unless Stubbs is also a host.  Or if it is just guests (and not necessarily employees) that hosts cannot harm.

They aren't allowed to kill. They clarified that in this episode.

William: I thought you said we couldn't get shot.

Logan: Eh, we can't get killed.

Obviously they can hurt humans (guests and employees) because we've seen them punch and kick and shoot humans (which does hurt, it just isn't fatal.)

But they have a core tenet preventing them from killing. I'm guessing that might be what happened to him when he smashed his own face in. He was trying to kill Elsie with that rock but his programming wouldn't allow him to take a potentially fatal action against her, so he instead took it against himself.

[meep.meep]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

William was asked whether he wanted to wear a white hat or a black hat when he first arrived. So yes, they get to either play heroes or villains at this theme park. (Apparently no shades of gray are available.)

I'm not clear on the whole "Wyatt" thing though, because it seemed to be a new backstory Ford programmed into Teddy, and yet a previous episode established someone else coming up with new narratives. So wherever this "Wyatt's gang" came from is a mystery to me, as are their bizarre facial masks, which are a far cry from the traditional bandannas you picture old western bandits wearing.

Wyatt's gang uniforms actually reminded me of Ned Kelly's armor.

I know that William had to choose between white and black hats, but they've shown other guests wearing brown hats.  The guy who shot Teddy in the saloon and said it was the best vacation ever, was wearing a brown hat.  So, it can't be that binary.

It looked like Maeve was standing on the porch of Dolores' house in the dusk in one shot.

[numbnut]

4 hours ago, DarkRaichu said:

I am fanwanking the cave where the stray host fell into blocked or damaged the gps (or whatever tracking system) on the host.

Good call.

Quote

I found Ford's attitude towards the hosts odd in this  episode. Previously, he seemed "I fly disposed toward them. Here, he was downright hostile. Is he angry because they have not become self-aware, or because they seem to be becoming so?

I wonder if the inconsistency can be blamed on rewrites. I still don't have a handle on Ford as a character. At this point, the MiB makes more sense to me than Ford.

[Maximum Taco]

10 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

Wyatt's gang uniforms actually reminded me of Ned Kelly's armor.

I know that William had to choose between white and black hats, but they've shown other guests wearing brown hats.  The guy who shot Teddy in the saloon and said it was the best vacation ever, was wearing a brown hat.  So, it can't be that binary.

It looked like Maeve was standing on the porch of Dolores' house in the dusk in one shot.

It might be because William is a newbie.

It might be easier for newbies to make a binary choice and not flirt with shades of grey... er brown.

[jbrecken]

Maybe the hosts aren't exactly mechanical robots.  Flies were crawling all over the wounded host tied to the tree - so there must be something organic in them that attracts the flies.  For that matter, there was enough organic stuff inside Maeve for MRSA to grow on last week.

[magdalene]

I thought they aren't robots at all, but androids. You can tell by looking at a robot that it is a robot.  Nobody would ever mistake a robot for a human being.  But you can easily mistake an android - like these are -  for a human being. 

Edited October 18, 2016 by magdalene

[arc]

Androids are a sub-type of robots.

[Bannon]

Frankly, my biggest problem with the entire premise of the show is that these scientists and engineers have developed robots with incredible abilities, and the best the dopes who run the company can do, in terms of monetizing the technology, is run a theme park for sadists, dweebs who can't get laid, despite having substantial wealth, and other twits who didn't have satisfactory play time as children.

I like some of the ideas explored by the show, and the acting, and dialogue,is lightyears ahead of what a show like "The Walking Dead" features, but the basic show premise may be something that ruins it for me.

[Netfoot]

59 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Frankly, my biggest problem with the entire premise of the show is that these scientists and engineers have developed robots with incredible abilities, and the best the dopes who run the company can do, in terms of monetizing the technology, is run a theme park for sadists, dweebs who can't get laid, despite having substantial wealth, and other twits who didn't have satisfactory play time as children.

I have no reason to believe that robots of varying levels of sophistication aren't in use, out in the real world, to fill various positions that might otherwise be filled by humans.  You can buy or lease an au pair bot, and depending on how much it cost and how sophisticated it is, you might even be able to ball it from time to time.  But you wouldn't get that horizon-to-horizon, fully immersive, 1860's look and feel.  For that, you need Westworld!  Where all the bots are the latest and greatest, with the newest hardware and the most recent software upgrades, and the hot-sex routines permanently in L2 cache!

[Tim Thomason]

Yeah, instead of these multiple "Wow, are you a robot?" scenes, we should see more scenes like "Oh great, another robot I can have sex with, just like my bedwarmer at home and the fella at the supermarket. Is that all this park is? I could've spent that $40,000 on a new jacket!"

I mean, even if Westworld was the pinnacle of android technology, they've been in business for 30+ years. At least the early models (the ones young CGI Hopkins was making with his suicidal friend) should have been leaked or at the very least sold to the general public. President Hoover 2090 should be promising a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, and a host in every home. And more robots means more-than-likely dealing with the issues of intelligence and consciousness and memories. I'm willing to give a pass to the show, assuming Westworld and the Delos Corporation have perfected Androids to a great degree compared to those outside the park, but I find it hard-to-believe there aren't Professors in Future Sweden or something with their own AI-programmed androids experimenting with self-awareness.

[Bannon]

8 minutes ago, Tim Thomason said:

Yeah, instead of these multiple "Wow, are you a robot?" scenes, we should see more scenes like "Oh great, another robot I can have sex with, just like my bedwarmer at home and the fella at the supermarket. Is that all this park is? I could've spent that $40,000 on a new jacket!"

I mean, even if Westworld was the pinnacle of android technology, they've been in business for 30+ years. At least the early models (the ones young CGI Hopkins was making with his suicidal friend) should have been leaked or at the very least sold to the general public. President Hoover 2090 should be promising a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, and a host in every home. And more robots means more-than-likely dealing with the issues of intelligence and consciousness and memories. I'm willing to give a pass to the show, assuming Westworld and the Delos Corporation have perfected Androids to a great degree compared to those outside the park, but I find it hard-to-believe there aren't Professors in Future Sweden or something with their own AI-programmed androids experimenting with self-awareness.

Yeah, it just seems to me that any cutting edge android tech developed in the park would be more profitable if sold outside the park. It doesn't make much sense.

[Netfoot]

9 minutes ago, Tim Thomason said:

I find it hard-to-believe there aren't Professors in Future Sweden or something with their own AI-programmed androids experimenting with self-awareness.

How do we know that there aren't?  I just believe that if so, the average work-bot probably isn't as sophisticated and "Is she?  Or isn't she?" as the ones in Westworld, because a barkeep or taxi driver wouldn't need to be, and the cost would be prohibitive.  

[Armchair Critic]

11 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Aside from the obvious economical challenges of keeping something like this going, I also have a hard time believing there are enough people out there who still want to play "cowboys and Indians"

I would have thought that too, but I have been dating a guy who watches the Encore Western channel all the time, he would really get into it. But I do think the Rome World with all the excess would be more popular but probably more expensive for HBO and perhaps too much like GoT?

[Gobi]

5 hours ago, Bannon said:

Yeah, it just seems to me that any cutting edge android tech developed in the park would be more profitable if sold outside the park. It doesn't make much sense.

It may be, as in some Isaac Asimov stories, that humanoid robots are banned (outside of WW, which might not be on earth).

[Tim Thomason]

I have no problem with the idea that the Old West might get back into fashion again. But it kind of boggles the mind for it to be a fad for 30+ years. Probably Westworld is stuck with the layout and are artificially pushing the Wild West idea for monetary gain. People growing tired of playing Cowboy are most likely the cause of some financial hardship for the company.

[Scrappygrrl]

15 hours ago, Gobi said:

Most of my reasons are small hints. For example, Bernard made a comment about Arnold doing something "on this planet", an odd phrase to use for someone on earth. Then there's the difficulty communicating with family members outside the park. Skype should be rather easy to use on earth. The very size of WW seems far beyond what would be available on earth. The talk about employees rotating home.

As to the expense of getting there, that could be built into the price. Alternatively, as we don't know how how far in the future this is, perhaps faster than light travel has been achieved and is not that expensive.  That might be one of the things Ford alluded to when he said mankind had conquered everything except death (and that could be the secret agenda of WW).

This is a show that reveals its secrets slowly, and there is no guarantee that I'm right.

ETA: The business with the carving of the constellation Orion. Elsie kept looking up at the sky after finding out about it, although the audience never saw the sky. I suspect that Orion is not visible from where they are.

I dig the idea that the true calling of those who created Westworld (or to Ford at least) is to escape death. To find a way to import human consciousness into an android/host and live forever.

14 hours ago, jbrecken said:

Maybe the hosts aren't exactly mechanical robots.  Flies were crawling all over the wounded host tied to the tree - so there must be something organic in them that attracts the flies.  For that matter, there was enough organic stuff inside Maeve for MRSA to grow on last week.

Regarding the flies on the corpse,  Teddy (if not all the hosts in that scene) were swatting away the flies. They didn't kill them, but I believe the issue prior to this was that they never responded to the flies? They could crawl on their face and eyeballs and they wouldn't so much as blink. Now the flies were bothering them. It's spreading?

Edited October 18, 2016 by Scrappygrrl
grammar

[numbnut]

I like the theory that Arnold may have uploaded his consciousness before his death, but why hasn't it affected the robots until now? Maybe Ford uploaded it after his death? *scratching my head* The vagueness of Arnold's death "in the park" makes me think that he was killed by a robot and the murder was covered up to save the business. Still so many questions. Did Ford send Teddy to kill Wyatt or did he send him to get "recruited"? Has he been sending robots to Wyatt all along? If Wyatt has an army, why hasn't the park taken care of it? Why can't the techs locate Wyatt in the park? 

[arc]

2 hours ago, Scrappygrrl said:

Regarding the flies on the corpse,  Teddy (if not all the hosts in that scene) were swatting away the flies. They didn't kill them, but I believe the issue prior to this was that they never responded to the flies? They could crawl on their face and eyeballs and they wouldn't so much as blink. Now the flies were bothering them. It's spreading?

Yeah, I think the writing was hitting the issue too hard in the pilot. (A compulsion not to kill living things doesn't mean hosts couldn't swat at flies, calculating their swings to miss.) But yes, in the pilot Teddy was alive, hanging out with his human guests at the brothel and not responding to a fly crawling on his face. So it's probably significant that Teddy reacted this time.

[iMonrey]

Quote

I know that William had to choose between white and black hats, but they've shown other guests wearing brown hats.  The guy who shot Teddy in the saloon and said it was the best vacation ever, was wearing a brown hat.  So, it can't be that binary.

That's a very good point, but since William was deliberately shown having to choose between a batch of black hats and a batch of white ones, and since I've now learned there seemed to be a bunch of re-writes during production, it's looking more and more like these early episodes suffered from a lack of cohesive vision.

Quote

I have no reason to believe that robots of varying levels of sophistication aren't in use, out in the real world, to fill various positions that might otherwise be filled by humans.

This episode gave us a reason to assume that, at least. We were shown the beginnings of Ford creating, manufacturing, and perfecting this technology himself. Trials were first held in this very park. So we have been told Ford and his crew created the androids specifically for this park. Now, whether that technology was also used elsewhere is something that hasn't been explored - but it seems unlikely, given the show's premise. As other have already pointed out, there's no real reason to spend this kind of money to visit this park if the android experience isn't unique to it. 

The assumption (that androids can only be found in Westworld) is also a natural one if you've seen the movie. Guests are in awe of the lifelike androids and their interactions with them are obviously new to them and a novelty. William's reaction to the greeter last week also suggested his "first time" with an android. If androids are everywhere, the park has no real draw. It would be a niche theme park that would go out of business very quickly.

[Dobian]

I found watching this episode more interesting with the recent 60 Minutes story about the startling advances in artificial intelligence.  The themes of memory, consciousness and self-awareness are all fascinating.  Morality is a huge theme in this show.  Is  abusing these a.i. creations okay as long as they forget what happened to them the next day?  Ford admonishing the techie over the android he was working on was a good insight into his mindset, which is at the heart of the problems looming in this park.  I still have a lot of unanswered questions, and it still gets confusing a lot of the time trying to determine who are the androids and who are the humans in a scene.  And that is something that is very important to know without having to spend time scrutinizing the characters.  I still feel kind of disconnected when watching this show.  Despite the moral themes, it has a very cold feel to it.  I know Bernard and Dolores are the two characters who are there to make the viewer feel some empathy and emotion for what is going on (well Maeve and Teddy too), but I'm not quite there yet.

Edited October 18, 2016 by Dobian

[henripootel]

The assumption (that androids can only be found in Westworld) is also a natural one if you've seen the movie. Guests are in awe of the lifelike androids and their interactions with them are obviously new to them and a novelty. William's reaction to the greeter last week also suggested his "first time" with an android. If androids are everywhere, the park has no real draw. It would be a niche theme park that would go out of business very quickly.

I agree, but this only begs the question 'why the hell not?'  The market for domestic androids would be astronomical - it'd be like Apple having a TomorrowWorld theme park when people see and use 'Ipads'.  And it'd get swamped for the same reason, namely that even if Apple wanted to restrict their use to a theme park, everyone else in the world would manufacture and distribute.  

Some in-show support though that these androids are particularly rare - there only seems to be one of each model. I fully expected that they'd have a line of Doloreses and when one got too banged up, they'd just print out another and transfer the memories.  They really don't seem to do that.  This kind of enables the plot (god knows how many times Teddy has died, but it's still the same robot) but it makes me wonder why they produce them this way.   Maybe grooming a truly lifelike android takes a lot of personal grooming and tweaking, which is why people still come to WW.  The domestic androids all act like androids, but these really act like people.  Humans are particularly good at spotting things in other people, we've been selected to detect all kinds of information (if imperfectly). Maybe it takes a real master like Ford to make one that'll fool people, and the technology is such that you can't simply duplicate the software and get a good copy.

Contrasting this show with the movie is an interesting exercise, and I think it tells you more about how people saw the future in general.  Back then the story was 'technology GONE MAD' (which is a decent summation of pretty much anything Crichton ever did - _______ gone mad!), but these days we seem to be more about what we owe to beings that might be a bit more human than we might like.  If they think and feel, should we really be raping and killing them for fun?  This too is an old scifi argument but it seems to be gaining more ground lately as we're getting to the point where AI is likely to become part of our lives.  Interesting that we're worried about bigger things these days than Yul Brenner not having an off switch.  

[arc]

It's interesting that the flashback showed robotic androids, with clearly metallic endoskeletons and motors, while the modern hosts are at least semi-organic, and sort of 3D printed. (which isn't purely artistic license from the title sequence; the host construction is shown, at least in part, in the show when those in-construction hosts are dipped in the milky liquid.)

I was also surprised when Stubbs said they needed to retrieve the chip, or whatever he said, but then instead of opening an access port, he went to saw off the entire head of the stray.

[Gobi]

I think the confusion between who is human and who is not goes to one of the main themes of the show.

[Dobian]

20 hours ago, AuntiePam said:

I'm interested in your other reasons.  I've been looking for signs since this was first mentioned and nothing jumps out at me.  Unless everyone is on another planet -- it's hundreds of years in the future and Earth is uninhabitable -- and WW isn't just a colony (like on the moon), wouldn't going there be even more expensive? 

There are a lot of theories and speculation since last week's episode when the character William steps through the old-timey door at the end of a sterile hallway and into another room, which is suddenly a moving train.  Was this a trick of illusion using an elevator?  Virtual reality?  Is everyone shrunk down and placed onto that 3D map in the control room which isn't a map at all but the actual park itself?  So many mysteries to be explained.

[paigow]

23 hours ago, Gobi said:

This is another reason why I'm leaning to the theory that WW is not on earth.

Are space shuttle rides included in the $40k??? Unless the ship is actually driven by Captain Archer, young children could not handle zero gravity etc...

[arc]

45 minutes ago, Dobian said:

There are a lot of theories and speculation since last week's episode when the character William steps through the old-timey door at the end of a sterile hallway and into another room, which is suddenly a moving train.  Was this a trick of illusion using an elevator? 

An elevator seems most likely, based on what we see happens behind the door after it's closed.

[Dobian]

35 minutes ago, arc said:

An elevator seems most likely, based on what we see happens behind the door after it's closed.

Didn't catch that.  Yes, it's very elevator-ish.

[Gobi]

1 hour ago, paigow said:

Are space shuttle rides included in the $40k??? Unless the ship is actually driven by Captain Archer, young children could not handle zero gravity etc...

See my later post that addresses that.

[Bill1978]

4 hours ago, arc said:

An elevator seems most likely, based on what we see happens behind the door after it's closed.

I noticed that on first viewing but silly me had the other side of the door being the elevator. Which when I re-watched that clip is totally ludicrous thinking. And the Train being the elevator makes much more sense. Especially with the arrival of Ben Barnes' character where you see the same effect happen. It also kinda answers my question I had of a robot accidentally opening the door and seeing the hallway. I guess the door is locked on the train side.

A part of me still thinks if people are shrunk to get into Westworld. It could be part of the appeal of going I guess.

[tiramisue]

8 hours ago, iMonrey said:

The assumption (that androids can only be found in Westworld) is also a natural one if you've seen the movie. Guests are in awe of the lifelike androids and their interactions with them are obviously new to them and a novelty. William's reaction to the greeter last week also suggested his "first time" with an android. If androids are everywhere, the park has no real draw. It would be a niche theme park that would go out of business very quickly.

I was just exploring the website and at least the hosts from WestWorld do not seem to be available outside the park at least that's what the chat-host said about souvenirs:

Quote

While you cannot purchase a host for use outside Westworld, the town of Sweetwater offers a number of shops where you can purchase a wide selection of gifts, souvenirs and items

So at least that level of sophistication and interaction seems to be unique (not to mention the total immersion).
I'd also assume that they re-use the same hosts instead of having a line of Doloreses and Teddys because the hosts improve their improvisation skills from interaction so another version could mean a step back.

[Sunnydayman]

On 10/17/2016 at 4:15 PM, AuntiePam said:

I'm interested in your other reasons.  I've been looking for signs since this was first mentioned and nothing jumps out at me.  Unless everyone is on another planet -- it's hundreds of years in the future and Earth is uninhabitable -- and WW isn't just a colony (like on the moon), wouldn't going there be even more expensive? 

Wasn't there a comment about the constellation Orion?  The position of the stars should tell us if it is another planet; however,  if this is continuity with the 1973 movie they are on Earth.

[arc]

3 hours ago, Bill1978 said:

It also kinda answers my question I had of a robot accidentally opening the door and seeing the hallway. I guess the door is locked on the train side.

Wouldn't even have to do that. If they can program hosts not to pick up an axe or pull a pistol trigger, they can certainly program them not to open that door or even look that direction or wonder about it.

Quote

A part of me still thinks if people are shrunk to get into Westworld. It could be part of the appeal of going I guess.

I wanted to believe that too, but it just makes no sense and why would they build hosts at full scale just to shrink them? I think the control room is just watching a fancy 3D display.

[VCRTracking]

Whoa, Dolores is remembering and she's EVOLVING. Awesome!

Poor Teddy can't catch a break.

I was impressed with the CGI young Anthony Hopkins.

Enjoyed Elsie and Stubbs snarky interaction. Lucky they implied Elsie plays for the other team so I don't have to ship them.

The "stray" coming back to life and looking like he was going to smash Elsie with a rock FREAKED me the eff out.

[Goatherd]

Okay, probably a ridiculous thought, but I can’t get it out of my head…

What if the androids were named alphabetically in the order of their creation:

Arnold —first android, or perhaps, as suggested here, the result of the human Arnold uploading his memories into one

Bernard — because, why not start by building yourself an assistant?

Charlie (Bernard’s "son" — maybe I’ve misremembered the name, but it definitely started with a “C”) — further details still to be revealed

Dolores — fourth android but first “host”, since the others are behind-the-scenes workers

Not sure what this would mean for Elsie…