I thought the show did a pretty good job of summing up some of the oddball themes of San Francisco and Silicon Valley. I think it got the tone right in a lot of ways.
The aesthetics of the compound were a lot of fun, as was the idea of this penultimate computer project being worked on by mad scientists of sorts.
Most of the logic was pretty flimsey and you sort of have to suspend disbelief for every detail. These kinds of mid-budget slow moving serious sci-fi shows are not my favorite genre but I definitely think it would appeal to anyone who is into this sort of show.
Ultimately I'm glad I watched it even though it's flawed.
I'd love to see Nick Offerman in a similar role in maybe a bigger budget movie that sands down all the rough edges.
Sonoya Mizuno was a believable lead character and played the part well for the tone they were getting at.
Stephen McKinley Henderson as Stewart was probably my favorite character and I wish they'd given him more to do or better explained his motivations.
I agree that the show is good and I am glad that I watched the season. I would like to ask what part of the logic presented seemed flimsy, though.
From Lily's (Sonoya Mizuno) perspective, I get that being a prodigy attempting to find herself, a "bad boyfriend", and unintentionally finding herself in an existential debate between deterministic and many-worlds philosophy, did have me head scratching a few times. Often it was the horror movie trope of the final girl doing the thing that most risks her life rather than preserve it.
Forest (Nick "Epic Beard" Offerman) battling with guilt seemed a bit too obvious, but nearly perfect as a device to move the plot forward. Not being a "technical" tech entrepreneur, grief pushed him to essentially will a unit test on whether he could be at fault for the loss of his daughter (not so much his wife, though). Katie (Alison Pill) is the evil(?) genius that is enlisted at first to help ultimately takes charge in seeing the experiment to fruition. Forest gets the credit, but Katie is the actual mastermind that reinforces the shared passion.
That gets me to Stewart (Stephen McKinley Henderson). Though secondary or tertiary characters, Stewart and Lyndon (Cailee Spaeny) are essentially the more emotional mirrors to Forest and Katie. Katie initially is very driven toward determinism and Lyndon struggled with it as it introduced static, ultimately finding that 'expanding the parameters' to include many-worlds brought about higher fidelity. Forest, driven by negative emotions, wants to literally go back and, through dogmatic adherence to determinism, relies on the circular logic that he will be successful because everything has been leading up to his success. Stewart is in awe of it all, and the possibilities that lay in being able to go back and forth to see simulations of reality, but as time goes on, realizes that if you know the past and can see the future, the present becomes inevitable/predetermined.
Free will was central to all the characters growth during the season, but particularly Stewart. The laid back veteran coder, upon seeing the bigger picture of what Forest and Katie created, is put in the position of seeing a prediction of the future go from 4k HD clarity to complete static and concludes that reality would end at that moment.
I 100% agree with Stewart having a bigger role, or at least better explain motivations. For me, especially, in the end, it just seemed random.
Overall, it was a decent show in my book. Definitely surprised me a few times. But I was hoping for more in some way. I don't know where or how, but it felt like it could have delivered more.
I thought the show did a pretty good job of summing up some of the oddball themes of San Francisco and Silicon Valley. I think it got the tone right in a lot of ways.
The aesthetics of the compound were a lot of fun, as was the idea of this penultimate computer project being worked on by mad scientists of sorts.
Most of the logic was pretty flimsey and you sort of have to suspend disbelief for every detail. These kinds of mid-budget slow moving serious sci-fi shows are not my favorite genre but I definitely think it would appeal to anyone who is into this sort of show.
Ultimately I'm glad I watched it even though it's flawed.
I'd love to see Nick Offerman in a similar role in maybe a bigger budget movie that sands down all the rough edges.
Sonoya Mizuno was a believable lead character and played the part well for the tone they were getting at.
Stephen McKinley Henderson as Stewart was probably my favorite character and I wish they'd given him more to do or better explained his motivations.
I agree that the show is good and I am glad that I watched the season. I would like to ask what part of the logic presented seemed flimsy, though.
From Lily's (Sonoya Mizuno) perspective, I get that being a prodigy attempting to find herself, a "bad boyfriend", and unintentionally finding herself in an existential debate between deterministic and many-worlds philosophy, did have me head scratching a few times. Often it was the horror movie trope of the final girl doing the thing that most risks her life rather than preserve it.
Forest (Nick "Epic Beard" Offerman) battling with guilt seemed a bit too obvious, but nearly perfect as a device to move the plot forward. Not being a "technical" tech entrepreneur, grief pushed him to essentially will a unit test on whether he could be at fault for the loss of his daughter (not so much his wife, though). Katie (Alison Pill) is the evil(?) genius that is enlisted at first to help ultimately takes charge in seeing the experiment to fruition. Forest gets the credit, but Katie is the actual mastermind that reinforces the shared passion.
That gets me to Stewart (Stephen McKinley Henderson). Though secondary or tertiary characters, Stewart and Lyndon (Cailee Spaeny) are essentially the more emotional mirrors to Forest and Katie. Katie initially is very driven toward determinism and Lyndon struggled with it as it introduced static, ultimately finding that 'expanding the parameters' to include many-worlds brought about higher fidelity. Forest, driven by negative emotions, wants to literally go back and, through dogmatic adherence to determinism, relies on the circular logic that he will be successful because everything has been leading up to his success. Stewart is in awe of it all, and the possibilities that lay in being able to go back and forth to see simulations of reality, but as time goes on, realizes that if you know the past and can see the future, the present becomes inevitable/predetermined.
Free will was central to all the characters growth during the season, but particularly Stewart. The laid back veteran coder, upon seeing the bigger picture of what Forest and Katie created, is put in the position of seeing a prediction of the future go from 4k HD clarity to complete static and concludes that reality would end at that moment.
Yeah Stewart's motivations confused me. Why would breaking the elevator stop the project?
I was confused why they died after falling until I remembered it was in a vacuum, so no air.
I 100% agree with Stewart having a bigger role, or at least better explain motivations. For me, especially, in the end, it just seemed random.
Overall, it was a decent show in my book. Definitely surprised me a few times. But I was hoping for more in some way. I don't know where or how, but it felt like it could have delivered more.
Yeah, that moment was super random and not set up at all. Stewart had some of the best scenes and is one of the only likeable characters really.
It's weird that they basically told us nothing about him but then he randomly dropped the elevator at the end.
...and yeah I definitely would have hoped for more. Ended up just taking it for what it was.