On Sunday night HBO premiered it's new science fiction series Westworld. James Marsden, Anthony Hopkins and Evan Rachel Wood star in a this modern day drama where rich customers can pay for a real life experience in the wild west, filled with robots who are designed to create over a hundred different storylines.
Without giving out spoilers, the first episode contained everything that you would want out of a western movie or tv series; saloon robberies, murder, and some cowboys and indians. The world's creators are in the process of making slight adjustments to the robots or "hosts" to make them more lifelike for the customers. But, just like in every science fiction story, the updates to the hosts aren't going as planned.
The show's pacing is done extremely well, there's time for the viewer to take in the amazing scenery of the world that HBO, and Westworld's programmers, have made. There's pauses in dialogue that allow the characters to take in the world that they have entered, and the viewer gets that opportunity at the same time. But at the same time the pauses in dialogue work, they're not awkward, and they contribute to the story.
It should come as no surprise that Westworld's scenery and staging looks amazing, this is an HBO show so just like with Game of Thrones, the budget for this show was huge. Which allowed them to also get actors like Marsden, Hopkins, Ed Wood, and Luke Hemsworth. No not that Hemsworth, no not the other one either. He is their brother though.
At this point I'm going to give some slight spoilers, from the first episode only, so if you haven't seen the show and plan to, now is the time to look at some of the other great content on the Odyssey.
Halfway through the first show you find out that hosts of theme park can't harm the guests, or "newcomers" as they're called, but guests can kill hosts. But with the new updates to the hosts that aren't going as planned, changes to that might be coming. It could be something as simple as hosts getting a hold of a guest's gun.
Personally, I loved all of the different dynamics that the show has going on. Within the first episode you see three different days of the theme park, and the main characters that you follow have multiple different storylines within those three days. They're slight detours of their main story, but it just shows that the show can go in any direction. There's no way to know what a day in Westworld will hold, and that's what's going to keep me coming back for every episode.
