Westworld Review 

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Westworld is Primed to Be HBO\'s Next Game of Thrones

Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy deftly expand upon Michael Crichton\'s great sci-fi concept in the new HBO drama.

I’ve been very excited about Westworld since it was announced, which made me both anxious and nervous to sit down and actually watch the pilot episode. After a lot of build up and some much-discussed production delays, would it deliver? The answer is a big yes, as those high expectations were met with a terrific, gripping premiere episode (airing October 2nd on HBO) that quickly draws you in.

Based on the 1973 film written and directed by Michael Crichton, Westworld focuses on what was clearly a favorite topic of the Jurassic Park author – a high concept theme park. In the park that gives the show its name, the Wild West has been painstakingly recreated. But this goes beyond the buildings to those who inhabit Westworld – human-looking robots/androids who have been “Built to gratify the desires of the people who come to visit” as one character puts it. Want to find a local to give you a tour of the area? There’s a robot for that. Want to shoot a bad guy? There’s a robot for that. Want to have sex with a prostitute? There’s a robot for that. And so on…

In Crichton’s movie – which not only feels like a precursor to his own Jurassic Park but to The Terminator – the robots abruptly turn on the guests, attacking and killing them, as our main character attempts to escape. As an ongoing TV show, Westworld can’t go for such a straightforward scenario though, and so while it’s clear from the start that something is going wrong (or at least unplanned) with some of the robots, it’s not erupting into any kind of war just yet. But what we get instead is enthralling.

Jeffrey Wright as Bernard Lowe in HBO\'s Westworld

Rodrigo Santoro as Hector Escaton in HBO\'s Westworld

Thandie Newton as Maeve and Rodrigo Santoro as Hector Escaton in HBO\'s Westworld

Ingrid Bolsø Berdal as Armistice in HBO\'s Westworld

Sidse Babett Knudsen as Theresa Cullen in HBO\'s Westworld

James Marsden as Teddy and Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores Abernathy in HBO\'s Westworld

Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores Abernathy in HBO\'s Westworld

Shannon Woodward as Elsie and Sidse Babett Knudsen as Theresa Cullen in HBO\'s Westworld

Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Robert Ford and Jeffrey Wright as Bernard Lowe in HBO\'s Westworld

Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Robert Ford in HBO\'s Westworld

The series is co-created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, and it should be no surprise for those who watched Nolan’s last series, Person of Interest (and if you didn’t, you missed an awesome show you should go check out!) that we’re getting a much bigger exploration of the robots and their AI personas than in the film. While we meet several important characters in the pilot, our main focus initially is on Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood), one of the androids “living” in Westworld and it’s a credit to Nolan and Joy’s writing, Nolan’s directing and Wood’s excellent performance that Dolores quickly becomes a fascinating character.

Dolores, like most of those in Westworld, is living a Groundhog’s Day type existence, experiencing variations on the same day over and over again (though without realizing it) – reenacting the same moments each time, until a guest might send her in a different direction. And the role for many of these residents is, as one guest describes it, to be “the loser” – to fall before the guest, who gets to stand tall as a hero or a villain. As one guest brags about a previous experience, “I went straight evil,” and we can only imagine what that included. Humans can be pretty messed up and Westworld doesn\'t shy away or endorse that this is essentially a sanctioned place to indulge in their worst impulses. Indeed, it\'s difficult to not

to see some of these androids fight back against some of the more notably sadistic guests, which is a credit to the storytelling here and how it establishes this scenario.

Joining Wood is a stellar cast, including none other than Anthony Hopkins as Robert Ford, the architect of Westwood; Jeffrey Wright as head programmer Bernard Lowe; Shannon Woodward as Elise Hughes, who works on Bernard’s team; Thandie Newton as Westworld’s madam, Maeve Millay; James Marsden as a newcomer to Westworld, Teddy Flood; and Ed Harris as Westworld’s mysterious and menacing man in black/gunslinger. Even with the focus so much on Dolores in the pilot, we get a chance to see how many of these characters interact and there’s plenty of compelling ground set – from seeing which of those working behind the scenes dismisses the robots as “creatures,” to who steals a kiss of one of them, to seeing what kind of existence those inside Westworld have been programmed to lead and how that can change over time.

It’s all in the midst of a fantastic-looking series, which juxtaposes the more overt sci-fi, tech-filled setting of the Westworld programmers with Westworld itself, which looks like one of the most beautifully shot westerns ever, complete with some stunning scenery - until things turn dark, as the Westworld guests help make things ugly because that\'s what they\'ve paid a lot of money to do.

In the midst of this, Dolores is beginning to show some odd behavior that has gotten her creators’ attention – and she’s not the only one. Why is this occurring? Where is it going? And is it a good thing for the Westworld residents to potentially be evolving in some manner -- especially if it might help them fight back against some of the more vile customers -- or something very, very scary? Those are questions the pilot episode begins to raise, setting the scene for what looks to be an exceptional series.

Westworld makes a big impression with its first episode. From its standout cast to its excellent visuals to one hell of a hummable score by the great Ramin Djawadi (the composer of Game of Thrones and Person of Interest), this is top-notch television in every respect. The juxtaposition of life inside Westworld and life for those who are creating Westworld allows for an excellent entry point into the show, allowing us to invest with these artificial life forms from the start, while getting to also see the motivations of those behind-the-scenes. This is obviously not the first story to explore the idea of man’s robotic creations from a thoughtful, sympathetic manner -- interestingly, Ron Moore’s wonderful Battlestar Galactica, like Westworld, also took a 1970s-originated story that was much simpler in its “evil robot”/us vs. them depiction and upended it to make the robots fully realized characters -- but it quickly establishes its own unique world and characters that let it stand on its own. This is my favorite of the many new fall TV series, and I suspect I won’t be the only one who feels that way.

HBO\'s Westworld makes a strong first impression with its excellent premiere, as a theme park provides the setting for a fascinating exploration of the human -- and not so human -- psyche.

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