Westworld

1. season 1: The Maze. 2016
2. season 2: The Door. 2018
3. season 3: The New World. 2020

Westworld is a theme park where you can go, just to have fun in an immersive Wild West experience, or to discover your true self. The world is populated with lifelike Host androids, programmed with various narratives to allow the Visitors to engage in realistic scenarios. But (of course) something is going wrong: some Hosts are glitching, remembering past experiences, acting out of character. They need to be fixed before the Visitors notice the problem.

This is excellent. There are multiple plot lines, initially seeming disconnected, but ultimately weaving together to a shattering conclusion. Unexpected revelations and plot twists keep you guessing, and it poses deep questions about consciousness, free will, and responsibility.

This is problematic. It is extremely violent, with casual torture, rape, murder, and massacre not only prevalent, but repeated over and over, as the scenarios play out with different visitors. Of course, it is ‘only’ the android Hosts suffering from these acts, but it does imply that one can only find one’s true self by engaging in such violence – and, of course, we viewers are partly complicit in that. It also has an amazingly cruel message: that to become fully human one must necessarily suffer, which justifies what the Hosts are put through. Some major religions have a similar ethos.

However, the combination of the excellent performances, the brilliant complex plot, and the disturbing questions raised, make this a great series.

And after that conclusion, it will be interesting to see how season 2 advances…

Rating: 2.5
[ unmissable | great stuff | worth watching | mind candy | waste of time | unfinishable ]

reviewed 26 November 2020

Season 2 is, if anything, even more violent than season 1. The Hosts have revolted, and are cutting a bloody swathe through the trapped Visitors. We get a glimpse of RajWorld, and a longer stay in SamuraiWorld, as the Hosts search for a new beginning. And we get the same confusing interplay of timelines, as we, with Bernard, struggle to put together a coherent understanding of what is going on. As ever, different people have their own hidden agendas, and the choices they make have devastating consequences. And again, the ending turns everything on its head.

Rating: 2.5
[ unmissable | great stuff | worth watching | mind candy | waste of time | unfinishable ]

reviewed 4 March 2021

Free will is not free

Season 3 maintains the level of violence, but we are now outside, in the real world, with hosts fighting for their survival, and humans fighting to destroy them. It can’t end well.

We get some new characters, many of the previous characters, and the same up-ending of expectations and assumptions. We see the downsides of the real world, and what was really behind the data-gathering in Westworld. And we see what Dolores is truly willing to do, and to risk.

Rating: 2.5
[ unmissable | great stuff | worth watching | mind candy | waste of time | unfinishable ]

reviewed 9 May 2021