Gunslinging, cattle ranching, artificial intelligence, and $40,000 a day. What do all these things have in common? They’re all things that you’ll find in HBO’s new sci-fi thriller series, “Westworld.”
Based on the novel of the same name, by prolific author Michael Crichton, the story takes you into the future of the world in which technology has advanced so far that robots with artificial intelligence are no longer a thought of science fiction.
The robots work in “Westworld,” a theme park that allows the patrons to live out the days of the Wild West. The hosts, as they call them, are deeply woven throughout the world’s narrative and there is a scripted adventure waiting inside every host that the patrons can experience.
The park was built to indulge in people’s fantasies, the hosts cannot hurt the patrons but they can be killed or used in any way the patrons please. At the end of every day all of the hosts are pulled from the park and their memory is wiped so they awake and do the same thing every day. The problem lies within a small update to the hosts system which includes a glitch that allows them to remember what has been done to them.
Now with memories of lives they don’t remember living, and starting to question whether their reality is actually real, what will happen to the hosts of Westworld? This new show created by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, brother of Christopher Nolan, acclaimed director of “The Dark Knight” trilogy and films like “The Prestige” and “Memento,” is a ten-episode season that airs every Sunday night at 9 p.m.
The cast is filled with tons of big names, like Anthony Hopkins, who plays the creator of the park, Evan Rachel Wood, best known for “Across the Universe,” with James Marsden and Thandie Newton as hosts in the park. Jeffrey Wright plays the Director of Behavior for the park, and Ed Harris plays a mysterious man in black with strange intentions yet to be revealed.
The show has currently aired six of the 10 episodes for its first season, and has kept me captivated each episode.
The first episode introduces you to the park fairly well, and paves the way to the main conflict of the series. Every episode so far has continued bringing forth a trend of leaving me at the end of the episode scrambling to talk to someone about what just happened.
Who is the Man in Black and what exactly does he want? What is happening to Dolores and why does Bernard keep bringing her in for questioning? What exactly is the new narrative that Dr. Ford has created and why is he disrupting so much of the park to prepare it? What exactly is Teddy’s mysterious past and what’s going to happen between him and Dolores?
This is a series that asks a lot of questions and spins an excellent tale. The writers and directors manage to perfectly blend the genres of a western period piece and science fiction. I cannot recommend this series highly enough, and I cannot wait to see where they take me next.