How Often do Season and Series Finales Fall Victim To Fan Theory?
Are shows like ‘Westworld’ ending on flat notes because of aggressively curious audiences, or by showrunners who may want viewers to ruin the surprise for themselves?
I’ve never seen an episode of The Walking Dead, and yet thanks to endless memes, podcasts, sub-reddits and tweets I know something big happened recently involving a baseball bat and a much-loved character’s face. Just like every popular TV show, the constant stream of discourse post-broadcast is unavoidable, with obligatory spoiler tags proving to do little to discourage the inquisitive mind.
Something doesn’t quite sit right about that, does it? Why should I, as someone who has no interest in that particular show, be privy to the finer details of the story?
Online fan theories about every hit TV show are a cottage industry in themselves now. As well as countless ‘unofficial’ versions on forums across the internet, production companies are getting in on the act with their — admittedly tame — versions, such as The Talking Dead or Thronecast.
As well as discussing and analysing what we have already seen broadcast, the unofficial outlets also delve into every outcome and scenario that could possibly play out. Usually unintentionally, yet inevitably, the result is that someone has already stumbled across the finale of your favourite TV show.
Series such as Game of Thrones have at least built up a reputation over the course of several seasons, but now shows like Westworld are getting in on the act, with dedicated forums launching online even before the first episode was broadcast. When we first previewed the show, we avoided any potential spoilers and merely anticipated what was to come. I had formulated a few ideas, some of which came true, some of which were completely mistaken, but I kept them to myself for fear of getting it spot on. This is perhaps more to do with the mentality I have towards film spoilers and reviews, where you have already seen the entire story and want the audience to go into it and explore in the same way you did.
There appears to be an entirely different approach to TV discussion, whereby the race to be credited as the first to ‘get’ the big twist is vitriolic in its execution. A popular board on Reddit has already been cited as the source of the most prevalent Westworld theories, and as the series approached its climax, it seemed like online theorists had managed to pick apart the plot from the first two episodes.
As well as a pat on the back, what else is to be gained from using a hive mind mentality to dissect a TV show? I could sit here and criticise the authors of these theories, as well as the countless reviewers and ‘hot-take’ merchants out there, of which I am one myself, but I really wonder about the people who read these breakdowns, knowing that somewhere in the stream of material they are consuming is the answer to a riddle that hasn’t even been posed yet.
Sci-fi drama Lost, also by the team behind Westworld, was a notable victim to online conspiracy theorists. The producers of the show attempted to debunk every proposed finale at every turn, only to find themselves boxed into a corner from which they couldn’t escape. In avoiding the most logical turn of events that they had set up in the previous five seasons, they ended up opting for an unsatisfying last hurrah that may have surprised a few viewers, but failed to make sense in every other way.
This time around, I feel like the producers of Westworld have learned their lesson. Instead of trying to catch the audience off guard, they have invited every possible outcome to be discussed, at length, knowing full well that the twists and reveals they are planning will be old news to the majority of viewers. The teasers littered throughout the show are so ripe for analysis that the viewing experience is no longer about wondering what will happen next. Instead, Westworld is about picking up the smallest fragment of information and heading into cyberspace to harness the collective minds of fellow participants to come to the same conclusion.
In this way, the viewer is much like the robotic hosts of the Westworld fantasy park itself, apparently thinking for themselves and seeing the bigger picture, whereas in reality an omnipotent presence has actually been pulling the strings all along. We were meant to get the twists, reveals and even the plot-holes. What the producers actually wanted was to get audiences discussing these strands and drum up more publicity for the show.
The only real winners are the lucky few who haven’t involved themselves in finding out the ‘truth’ before the final episode. They might not be able to yell “FIRST!” on an online forum, but they will have enjoyed a fantastic sci-fi thriller without the pressure of hoping their publicly stated premonitions would come true. Oh, to be in their shoes right now.
More of Cassam Looch’s stories can be found at Culture Trip.
