HBO’s “Westworld” brings together the old and the new to create something spectacular. This new series, based on the 1973 Michael Crichton film, has been cloaked in secrecy since its conception. It promised inventive material, dazzling special effects, deeply mythological roots and a cult appeal to the likes of “Game of Thrones.” That’s definitely a tall order to fill, yet miraculously these promises were not empty words. After watching the first two episodes, it is fair to say that “Westworld” reaches far and beyond what was thought to be capable on television, raising the bar even further than Hodor could ever reach.
The series offers philosophical musings on the dangers of technology, the unsettling mystery of the future, the desensitization of future generations and the blurring of morality. The series is essentially an investigation into the ugliness of humanity in the midst of scientific evolution. Drawing from previous futuristic narratives such as “Lost,” “The Matrix” and “The Prisoner,” “Westworld” is the next intriguing dystopian television series to provoke and beguile you.
“Westworld” introduces us to a future where the wealthy can pay a large sum to visit Westworld– a Western-themed amusement park populated by robots that are almost indistinguishable from humans. Here the visitors, or as the artificially intelligent locals dub them, “newcomers,” can live out their deepest desires with no rules and no moral consequences. Blueprinted as an intricate choose-your-adventure immersive game, you can have sex with whoever you want, kill whoever you want and be whoever you want. The robots, or “hosts,” are so sophisticated that they are capable of thinking independently and consequently live an imprisoned faux-life inside this playpen for the rich. The bots restart each day, every move they make and memory they have being erased only varying depending on how the newcomers interact with them. Behind the veil are the operators of the park who all serve under the omniscient Dr. Ford, a not-so-subtle wink to Aldous Huxley’s classic “Brave New World.” However, once a software update brings the hosts closer to a human state, a glitch threatens to collapse the carefully-constructed park and initiate a robot rebellion.
The series seems to be as well-crafted as the park itself with few foreseen glitches in sight. If anything, the show is so ambitious that its inventive first episodes may be difficult to follow up in the chapters to come. The acting capabilities of Anthony Hopkins and Evan Rachel Wood are meticulous and mesmerizing. The scope of production is used to its fullest potential, from sweeping shots of the western expanse to the fluorescent and sterile glimpses at the bleak future lying outside of the park’s bounds. The series offers more questions than answers, gifting viewers with an eager desire to discover what this terrifying dystopia holds in its cold, lifeless hands.
