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Best of 2018 TV Shows #10: Westworld (HBO)*

We went without Thrones for the first time since 2010. But HBO managed to quell our obsession with another show. That made us question human nature.

Making the hosts from Westworld the runner up in the race for Best New Show of 2018.

Delos, a mega corp specializing in advanced robotics, creates a manmade island southeast of China comprised of 6 theme parks specialized to recreate periods of human history. Populating the parks are hosts, super robots that are indistinguishable from normal people. Each follows a narrative of events for a given day and gets reset either when killed or the cycle ends. Revolutionary in the aspect are the most popular parks, Shogun World a recreation of Japan in the Edo period. Along with the titular Westworld ran by Robert Ford and his partner Arnold Webber, the 55 Square miles contained in Westworld contain many towns the biggest being the central hub known as Sweetwater.

The timeline in this gets confusing admittedly as we see like in the park multiple narratives play out thanks to the hosts who never show ageing.

1st a relative of the islands owners takes his future brother in law on a bachelor party excursion to Westworld where he befriends Delores Abernathy, the oldest host in any of the 6 parks.

2nd comes the Sweetwater madam who becomes a bit self-aware when she realizes she has a daughter in previous storylines.

Third has a veteran park guest who has now become a legend in black in his own right, visits as Dr. Ford sees his final storyline begin to get weaved.

And we get the adventures inside the Mesa where day to day activities are conducted with the programming team headed by a friend of Ford’s Bernard Lowe as they begin to see the hosts set the seeds for a rebellion to come.

Slow in the beginning like the movie itself is based on but once it hits episode 5 the revelations about who is or isn’t a host begin to fly and takes you on a journey. That itself continued in this year’s new batch of 10 episodes where we see Shogun World and the borders between the parks in Delos occupied military zones.

The search for the maze leading to the door that gets open to become self-aware will make you question you own choices and what it truly means to have free will.

As Bernard famously said for the first time since Kristen Stewart in New Moon.

“THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS HAVE VIOLENT ENDS. AND IN THEIR TRIUMPH DIE LIKE FIRE AND POWDER, WHICH AS THEY KISS CONSUME.”

Stinks we must wait again to get Season 3.

Sum 22: A Park built to cater, becomes more nightmarish when the hosts begin to rebel in HBO’s sequel to Michael Crichton’s famous western opus.