Episode 40 of The Witness spends its whole length on one panel. It is the next one along in the row of flashing panels where Episode 39 stopped: a six by six grid whose colors keep cycling, with colored dots, a star shape the commentary calls "the sun," and a small block shape to draw around. Basket tries route after route for about seventeen minutes, and the panel is still unsolved when the video ends.
Colors that won't hold still
After the edited-in title, the view moves from the panel solved last time to the new one. Its left half stays purple while the right half and the dots change color every second or so. The commentary starts sorting them anyway: "So are those two colors similar? No. So these are not the same color." The flashing hides the errors too: "I can't tell even what's erroring because they're all flashing."
Planning around the sun
The first lines group dots that seem to match. "So I think those are happy. Let's see if they error out." Then the other rules come in. "We still have to draw this shape," and "the sun can't be with more than one of the same." The line also has to end in the right place: "we need to come into this spot here when you've already finished everything else."
Too many with the sun
Around the ten-minute mark the same problem keeps coming back: "There's too many, too many with the sun." Changing which dots go with it fixes the count but blocks the way into the last section. "This is really crazy." After a long quiet stretch: "I'm a little stumped."
A new idea follows. "It seems like it blinks slower when there's more red to it," so the commentary watches how fast parts of the panel flash while the line is moved around: "So it's blinking at that rate. Same rate. So it's happy."
Nearly right
At about sixteen minutes a long line winds through the bottom of the grid and zigzags up the right side to the top corner. The commentary says "I'll take a hint if you want to give a hint," then sizes it up: "This is nearly right except there's one too many dots with the sun." A moment later: "I'm not positive on the colors, actually."
Where it ends
One more long line is drawn near the end. Then the view steps back to the white room, where the panel sits in a row of five on the wall: three with lines on them, this one still empty, and a black screen at the end. "It's hard to tell what's erroring when it's all still flashing all the time. So I'll have to try again when I have a more rested mind." The video cuts to the end card with the panel unsolved.
