Westworld Season 1 Review

Westworld (2016-)

Season 1 - 10 episodes (2016)
Watch Westworld on Amazon
Created by: Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy Nolan, Michael Crichton (1973 movie written by)
Starring:  Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Jimmi Simpson, Rodrigo Santoro
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
A futuristic theme park recreates the wild west for visitors, but bliss doesn't last forever.

Verdict
Westworld  is a ten episode thrill ride. The plot unfolds masterfully while each episode also reveals more about how a park like this functions. Each episode feels like a big reveal as we learn about the characters, their plights, and how it all connects.
The core mystery engages you. With a one week break in between episodes as they aired, I wondered what could the maze be? What is Ford really doing?
This show is adept at leading you down a path and pulling the rug out from under you. by the end we do reach the center of the maze. No matter what you guess this conclusion will surprise you. HBO has finally conquered the sci-fi genre.
Watch it.

Review
Westworld is a western theme park stocked with androids, this show calls them hosts, that fully recreate the experience for visitors. The creator wants to make the most lifelike experience possible, continuing to perfect the core program even after thirty years. A recent software update has introduced a glitch. Read my previous episode reviews.

The setup isn't revolutionary. Robotic hosts are poised to become sentient, but the journey of how that happens comprises the first season. A new programming update has produced a glitch in the hosts. Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Maeve (Thandie Newton) are the main hosts, struggling to reach sentience, unsure of what's "real", and plagued by memories they shouldn't have. The pilot sets up the season's arcs deftly. It's a great episode, but all of the episodes are great.

The Man in Black (Ed Harris) wants to find the deepest level of the game, the maze.

We've got the mysterious Man in Black (Ed Harris) who leaves a path of destruction in his wake, anxious to find the mysterious maze, while Ford (Anthony Hopkins) spends most of the season crafting a big story line for the park. I initially wondered if he saw himself as a father figure to the hosts, but that's not quite accurate.
Arnold, his partner that helped develop the park and died thirty years ago in a related accident,  is a big influence on the characters. His programming contains a latent memory for some of the hosts.

The question of what's real is the theme of the show. The image of a player piano is prevalent, causing you to wonder if the park has control over the hosts or only thinks they do. As real as Westworld is, without irrevocable stakes, it's always an illusion. The Man in Black wants to move past the illusion.


Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) is a park director that is becoming too close to the hosts. He has to ensure that Dolores and the others aren't approaching sentience. He's devoted to Ford and episode seven provides a big reveal about their relationship. That episode would be a season finale for any other show.

Is it a metaphor that Maeve as at he center of the maze when Man in Black first saw it? Probably not.

This season has a number of swirling stories that seem disparate, but just over half way all seem to be headed to the same point. The maze is the center of the mystery and the center of the plot. The story brings everything together with a mystery that teases all the way until the end.

There is no way this doesn't get a second season, though I expect it will be a much different story. In season one humans still had control over the hosts, I expect season two to be a very different dynamic.