Westworld Season 1 Review

Westworld is a science fiction western TV show which premiered its first season in 2016. It is an expectedly disappointing, frustrating series.

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“We can’t define consciousness because consciousness does not exist.

Humans fancy that there’s something special about the way we perceive the world,

and yet we live in loops as tight and as closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices,

content, for the most part, to be told what to do next“

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Now I am a big fan of ‘Westworld’ the original movie. I actually love it so much that it’s one of my favorite sci-fi movies. That is why I did not want to watch this show as I knew they would not honor it well and now that I did watch it, I can confirm that my initial hunch was good.

There is nothing here that even remotely resembles the greatness of the original film. Yes, the cinematography is superb and the series looks gorgeous as it’s so well shot and also solidly scored. The acting is terrific across the board too with the highlight being Thandie Newton, but Jeffrey Wright and Anthony Hopkins are great as well.

But the characters they play are mostly very unlikable and I honestly found almost all of the show’s characters insufferable and hugely unappealing. There was nobody that I could root for here and that bothered me as then it lost the point for me.

Westworld is emotional, I will give it that. Some of the episodes are quite touching and it explores the darkness of humanity and also the complexities of robotics sometimes well. But it never delved deeper into other themes and is overall not as stimulating mentally as I wanted it to have been.

But the biggest problem is that the western elements are just so bland and boring. The same goes for the thriller ones as they are so rare and far from memorable. The western storylines are dull, unappealing and mostly overlong. They significantly reduced the quality of the show.

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And naturally the reason why I quite disliked its last couple of episodes lies in its high violence which is expected from today’s shows and the reason why I am generally not a fan of modern television series. They just went too far and the focus on sex and violence is bothersome as they thus pulled the necessary focus from the story and its themes.

So in the end, I am not a fan of this show and although it is frequently quite good and the first couple of episodes were very promising, the rest continually declined in quality to the point of becoming too dreary, boring, dark and overly contemporary.

Worst Episodes: Trace Decay and The Bicameral Mind.

Best Episodes: The Original and Dissonance Theory.