2020.03.16
Saw premier last night.
2020.03.23
Episode 2 is out but haven't watched it yet.
Before watching episode 1, we watched several YouTube amateur catch up videos that summarized seasons 1-2. They varied in quality and content, but after about 3 of them you had a really good picture of the story up til now. After watching episode 1, I feel like I might not have needed to bother, because it seems to use almost none of it. You could have said this is a prequel to Battlestar Galactica (2004), and the AI/robots are plotting their overthrow, and it would have mostly worked except the technology of the Real World is too low.
Speaking of low tech, the technology of AI and synthetic humans seems way more advanced than the real world. A new character has PTSD from some war that looks like something from our present. This world already has bots that are about as good as the terminator (mostly immune to bullets, super strength, highly moddable, etc.). There's no way something as big as Westworld (the park) comes up with bots at least as good as the terminator (and in some ways much better, as in they can pass for human much better) in a vacuum.
This world would have integrated artificial humans as servants (for war, labor, sex, etc.) into society and daily life long before anyone could build a theme park around them. It's as if these bots are stepping out of the future into our world. It's not how ideas work (they tend to be invented in multiple places at once), its not how competition works (as soon its proven possible, your competitors are already improving on it).
It's not that you can't have different levels of science and technological advancement, that happens. But you can't introduce something on a large scale and expect to also keep it a secret from the rest of the world. You might have an advantage for a little while, but this story assumes one corporation could keep a secret for decades.
Of course the writers were just trying to drop some future tech into our present world, so we could talk about what happens to us, and relate to it. But it would be like dropping the internet into the 1950s, it just doesn't make any sense. If AI robots are being developed over generations, we have time to integrate living with them into our culture. A theme park like Westworld wouldn't happen, it would be part of daily life.
Speaking of integrating new technologies into our culture, the notion that we can study the customer of Westworld to somehow create immortality is glossed over very poorly, almost as awfully as The Matrix glosses over the batteries explanation. Since when does creating a replica of you mean immortality? If you could just transfer a human into a robot body, that would be a far more interesting to explore, just like it would be far more interesting to explore humans as co-processors for the AI in The Matrix.
There is a noteworthy exception that makes the show's real world somewhat futuristic. The giant AI that seems to have a hand in running the world could be very interesting.
This is too much conjecture for one episode, let's see where it goes.
2020.05.12
Saw the finale some time ago. Leaves no lasting impression. It would be fine if they would just end it now, but I've already heard season four has been greenlit to keep milking this dry cow.
This show is reminding me more and more of Battlestar Galactica reboot. Looks good, good characters and actors, interesting situations, but it doesn't really have anywhere to go. It's entertaining while you watch, but afterwards you are left with nothing to keep.
