2016 science fiction, 10 episodes. At the Westworld holiday resort,
the android "hosts" exist to be shot, slept with, and generally taken
advantage of. But some of them are starting to remember.
This is a series that starts out very strong, weakens for many of
its middle episodes, then rallies towards the end and almost pulls
it off. Where the principal theme of Crichton's film was the civilised
man losing his civilisation (Deliverance with cowboys and
tech-fear), this series much more sensibly looks first at the hosts:
are they genuinely sapient? Does it really matter whether or not they
really are, if they "think" they are? What about Julian Jaynes? And,
as a strong secondary consideration, what is the effect on humans of
being told "these things, which look and act just like people, are
your playthings and you can do anything you like to them"? Really,
given how badly some of the guests are affected by having the rules
removed, one wonders how the resort has lasted as long as it has.
This is a massive and complex story, with more than twenty "main
roles" and lots of moving parts, and plots that intersect and collide
with each other. At least two deeply-opposed groups seem to be trying
to engineer the same thing; although creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa
Joy have ended up with at least co-writing credits on all but one of
the scripts, there's rather less consistency in what is very much a
single long story than one might have expected. Some stories go
nowhere at all, just dribbling to a stop (particularly noticeable with
the role of Luke Hemsworth as the head of security, who really only
exists to have other people tell him bits of plot).
The nature of the resort itself also seems to fluctuate: the hosts are
on endless loops of their own narratives, which can be modified by
interaction with guests, but some of those narratives would clearly
take much longer to play out than others; does someone on a long stay
notice that the bank is being robbed at the same time every Monday? Or
indeed is it? For the most part there's no real sense of how long
things are taking, and it's quite possible that there are many
multi-day gaps in the story as presented.
At times it feels like an attempt to make "science fiction with tits"
in much the same way that Game of Thrones is "fantasy with tits";
there's very little of the story that would have changed had
gratuitous nudity not been available. I suppose HBO has to justify its
subscription fees somehow. (Indeed, there's talk of adding a Game of
Thrones World in the second season of this show.)
Music, by Ramin Djawadi, is mostly effective… except that the main
theme, in various arrangements, is re-used to excess in both diegetic
(often on a player piano, because it's constrained by its programming,
geddit?) and non-diegetic modes. Acting is universally solid among the
main cast, with Jeffrey Wright particularly impressive, and Thandie
Newton finally given a role she can get her teeth into. And the
production is gorgeous, with classic backlot Western towns, sweeping
vistas, and cramped underground labs.
The story very nearly comes together, with some disappointing choices
in the last couple of episodes. I'm still interested to see where
things go next.
A second season is expected in 2018.
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